State salaries impounded to raise ‘pork’

By Riza Lozada 

The government continues to use huge allocations for state workers in the 2015 budget to raise savings for the future use of the Executive as “discretionary funds.” 

This practice of bloating the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefit Fund (MPBF) was again found to have been resorted to in the P117.4-billion appropriations for the payment of personnel benefits in the midst of 188,383 vacancies in government positions this year.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has released its guidelines on the grant of the so-called Performance Based Bonus (PBB) for national government employees, with department heads and heads of executive offices having their PBB rate fixed at P35,000 for fiscal year 2015. This is part of the MPBF, which, in turn, is a component of the Special Purpose Funds (SPF) that administration critics refer to as “presidential pork.”

The PBB is apart from the Productivity Enhancement Incentives (PEI), which has a budget of P30 billion. Both the PBB and MBIF have been allotted budgets under new appropriations of the 2015 budget of P2.6 trillion.

“However, it has been observed that many government agencies fail to fill up their vacant plantilla positions, in spite of available appropriations. Based on the staffing summary for 2015, unfilled positions have been growing since 2013. The national government (NG) reports a total of 154,019 unfilled positions or 11.1 percent of total permanent positions in 2013. Total unfilled positions were even higher at 185,644 (12.95 percent) in 2014, and at 188,383 (13.1 percent) in 2015,” according to a Congress report.

Members of the House of Representatives are puzzling over the huge number of unfilled government positions; the unemployment rate in July was 6.5 percent—the highest in Asia.

Yet, Isabela Rep. Rodito Albano noted that the government has no excuse not to allow its agencies to hire needed personnel.

“The money is there in the P2.8-trillion national budget for 2015; the agencies themselves requisitioned the extra hands, and Congress allotted salaries for them,” he said.

“The agencies cannot claim the applicants were unqualified. There were 553,706 new college graduates in 2014, plus slightly less than that every year prior. Had they been tapped for the 188,255 vacancies, a third of the latest grads would now be gainfully employed.”

A House report said that roughly 42 percent of the total programmed new appropriations in the 2015 budget are earmarked for personal services (PS). Some P730.9 billion would be used for salaries, pensions, and other personnel benefits.

Two major items in the 2015 budget, namely the Internal Revenue Allotment (P389.9 billion) and interest payments (P372.9 billion), are automatically appropriated, which make up 29.3 percent of the total obligation program. The combined total of automatic appropriations and the PS amounts to P1.5 trillion-plus.

This essentially means that about 61.3 percent of the total expenditure program are mandatory expenses, over, which Congress effectively has no flexibility to realign or adjust.

During the House debates on the 2015 budget, minority members accused Malacañang of “deliberately bloating” specific items in the budget, including the amount for unfilled positions in the government and the maternity pay and bonuses of teachers and other state workers, so that it could impound up to P145 billion, which is the converted into funds for the “illegal” Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) for three years, according to ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio said.

Tinio demanded that Congress delete “special provisions” allegedly inserted by the Palace in the 2015 spending plan to allow it to impound funds by midyear next year.

In particular, Tinio pressed for the deletion of P118.14 billion in the MPBF, which was a lump sum under the direct control of President Aquino.

Tinio said the MPBF is now 50 times more than its 2005 level of P2.36 billion and has increased by 67 percent since Mr. Aquino became President, P70.658 billion in 2011, was deliberately bloated to put more discretionary funds in the hands of the President.

By including the MPBF items that are unrelated to “miscellaneous personnel benefits,” the President has twisted the term beyond all recognition.

Since 2012, for instance, funds for salaries of unfilled and newly created positions were removed from the agencies and were, therefore, centralized with the DBM.

In 2012, he said, hiring funds made up 30 percent of total MPBF. By 2015, they will form 40 percent of the lump sum, he said.

“The entire DAP of Aquino was funded by the salaries and bonuses that should have been paid to government employees,” he added.

The House report has noted also that under the 2015 NEP, the MPBF and the PGF can be used for deficiency in appropriations for programs and projects of agencies in the Executive branch, subject to rules on savings and augmentation.

Even Budget Secretary Florencio Abad admitted that the DAP extensively used funds transferred from unfilled government positions to speed up the funding of other government projects.

Abad said the implementation of DAP had helped the government not only in promoting economic growth but also in fighting corruption.

Abad pointed out that before the Aquino administration implemented the DAP, several government agencies were intentionally underspending the budget allocated to them by Congress to have it declared as savings by the end of the year.

“There was this one big (government) agency, as much as 42 percent of their plantilla was not filled up…at the end of the year, they declared savings and then they gave themselves a bonus as much as P80,000 per employee,” Abad had said.