PRESS RELEASE
October 19, 2011
Reference : Mac Ramirez, Convenor
Contact : comelecwagefight@gmail.com
Poll workers: Restore P215.5M slashed from COMELEC budget
A formation of Commission on Elections (COMELEC) rank and file employees united in pushing for a substantial increase in their salaries, called for the restoration of P215.5 million in funds slashed by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in the poll body’s proposed budget for 2012.
The COMELEC Wage Fight!Alliancesaid the slashed funds include P164 million in personnel savings which the DBM wants impounded and P51.5 Million funds for Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) which was transferred to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
“The COMELEC has exclusive right and responsibility in the exercise of its fiscal autonomy. It has the sole discretion as to how it will spend its funds be it in the discharge of its Constitutional mandate to ensure a clean and credible elections or allotted for the welfare of its rank and file employees,” stated Mac Ramirez, Convenor of the COMELEC Wage Fight!Alliance.
Ramirez was particularly concerned over the threat to ‘hijack’ COMELEC’s P164 Million in personnel savings, saying that it is the rank and file employees that should benefit from it.
“Threats to hijack the P164 Million in personnel savings is of particular concern for the COMELEC rank and file. We believe that instead of using it to beef up the President’s Pork Barrel, as some Senators aver, the funds should be used to prioritize the augmentation of the salaries and benefits of COMELEC employees.”
According to Ramirez, COMELEC rank and file employees have been clamoring for the adjustment in their salaries. He said the wages received by COMELEC personnel is not at par with those received by employees in other government agencies and Constitutional Bodies. The disparity, in fact, ranges from three to five salary grade levels.
Ramirez cited for example the army of COMELEC Election Officers (EOs) which holds the sacred responsibility of supervising the conduct of elections at the ground level. They are victimized by this glaring wage gap, he said, as they only hold a Salary Grade level 12-15 (for EOs in small electoral municipalities) and SG 21 (for EOs in capital towns and cities). Yet, according to Ramirez, considering their workload and actual responsibilities, EOs should be enjoying a higher compensation because an EO position is equivalent to that of a Division Chief or Heads of Offices, which has a minimum 24 salary grade.
A Clerk I position in the COMELEC only has a Salary Grade level 3, while in other government agencies the prevailing SG level for Clerks is SG 7-9, Ramirez said.
“It is for this reason that we are strongly urging the COMELEC En Banc to exercise its fiscal autonomy and decisively bridge the unjust salary gap affecting the entire COMELEC work force,” he said.
On October 27, 2011 the COMELEC Wage Fight!Alliancewill hold an employees forum to reiterate their call for the adjustment of their salaries. Ramirez said they will also use the occasion to drum-up their opposition to budget cuts. ###
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