Former House leader Andaya dies

Former Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya died Tuesday night due to a lingering illness. He was 63.

Andaya, a CPA-lawyer, was chairman of the House appropriations committee for 11 consecutive years, from 1987 to 1998. No one had held such post for so long.

As appropriations committee chairman, Andaya, together with his senior vice chairman, then Quezon City congressman, now Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr., authored the law standardizing salary rates in government.

The law doubled the basic pay in the bureaucracy and brought the monthly salary of public school teachers from about P3,000 to P8,605.

The former Camarines Sur solon and his colleagues in the appropriations committee also authored the legislation that granted state workers P500 a month as personnel economic relief allowance or PERA. The amount is in addition to the workers’ cost of living allowance (COLA).

Before running for congressman in the first district of Camarines Sur in 1987, Andaya served the Aquino administration as budget undersecretary.

His remains now lie in state at the Santuario de San Antonio in Forbes Park, Makati.

They will be brought on Friday to the House of Representatives at the Batasan complex in Quezon City where necrological services will be held. Andaya’s former colleagues are expected to pay tribute to him.

On Saturday, his body will be flown to Ragay, Camarines Sur, his hometown, where he will be buried Tuesday next week.

He is survived by son Rolando Jr., who is on his second term as congressman of their district, daughter Maribel, and their spouses and children. — Jess Diaz