Higher salaries for Pagasa personnel sought

MANILA, Philippines - A party-list congressman has sought higher salaries for personnel of the weather agency Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, Astronomical, and services Administration (Pagasa).

Rep. Angelo Palmones of Agham filed Bill 2004, which proposes to exempt Pagasa from the Salary Standardization Law so that weathermen could be given higher salaries.

Higher compensation could stop the exodus of Filipino weather forecasters to other countries that are offering better pay, he said.

Under his bill, the salary rates of Pagasa employees would be determined by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

However, the new rates would not be lower than 150 percent nor higher than 200 percent of the current salaries of Pagasa employees and on top of government salary adjustments that are due them.

Palmones said Pagasa has 1,452 employees, 608 of whom have bachelor’s degrees, 44 have master’s degrees and 10 have doctorate degrees.

“This miniscule number of highly trained personnel is under constant threat of being depleted due to the lure of higher-paying jobs overseas,” he said.

“Today, the highest salary for a Pagasa official with a doctorate degree is at the level of P20,000 only,” he said.

He added that Pagasa weather forecasters who left for higher-paying jobs abroad are receiving P100,000 to P200,000 a month.

“The ability of Pagasa to make accurate weather forecasts is hampered either by outdated forecasting equipment or simply lack of it. But equally important in the forecasting of weather events are the personnel who collect weather data from the field, process the data, make analysis and forecasts and ultimately inform the public of the impending weather situation,” he stressed.

Earlier, Palmones proposed that the weather agency’s forecasting equipment be upgraded.

He was the one who exposed certain congressmen who allegedly meddled in the procurement of modern Doppler radar systems, which would have enabled the agency to accurately forecast catastrophic weather disturbances like “Ondoy” and “Pepeng.”