P41,000 pay hike for Rody, P32,000 for Leni

MANILA, Philippines – There will be a P41,000 salary increase for Rodrigo Duterte as president and P32,000 for Leni Robredo as vice president.

The two newly elected officials will benefit from Executive Order 201, which President Aquino issued on Feb. 19 upgrading government salaries.

Aquino, incumbent members of Congress and outgoing Cabinet officials will not benefit from the increase due to a constitutional prohibition.

Aquino’s monthly paycheck is P120,000 and Vice President Jejomar Binay’s ranges from P103,000 to P111,198.

Binay is presumably receiving the higher amount since he is now on his sixth year as vice president.

The president and vice president hold Salary Grades 33 and 32, respectively. They are prohibited by the Constitution from receiving other emoluments like allowances.

Since E0 201 will apply to incoming officials, Duterte will receive a basic monthly pay of P160,924 to P165,742 and Robredo from P135,376 to P148,478.

Their present salaries are about P79,000 for the president-elect as Davao City mayor and P90,000 to P97,163 for Robredo as a member of the House of Representatives.

Save for Salary Grade 33, which has only two steps, pay levels in the bureaucracy have eight steps corresponding to eight different salaries, depending on one’s length of service presumably in the position that he’s holding.

Members of the Duterte Cabinet will also benefit from E0 201.

Their monthly pay, along with that of senators and congressmen and justices of the Supreme Court, will go up from P90,000-P107,163 to P117,086-P128,278.

These officials hold Salary Grade 31. They are allowed to receive allowances and other emoluments like incentives. Their additional compensation is several times more than their basic pay.

For instance, according to the Commission on Audit report on gross compensation for 2014, Supreme Court justices received between P4 million and P5.7 million. Of the amounts, only about P1 million represented basic pay. The rest was in the form of allowances and incentives.

Members of the Aquino Cabinet were paid a total of P1.7 million to P4 million that year.

Last week, Duterte said he was having a hard time convincing some potential appointees to join the government supposedly because of low pay.

The bulk of government personnel covered by E0 201 are teachers, nurses and those with Salary Grades 12 and 13.

The lowest-paid teachers and nurses, who hold Salary Grade 11, now receive P19,077 to P20,585, up by P528 to P698 from P18,549 to P19,887.

Under the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, government nurses are supposed to receive Salary Grade 15 pay, which now ranges from P26,192 to P30,752, or at least P7,000 more than what they are getting.

The Department of Budget and Management continues to pay them Salary Grade 11 rates.

The lowest-paid government worker, who holds Salary Grade 1, gets P9,478 to P10,132 in monthly pay under E0 201.

His old salary ranged from P9,000 to P9,649.