InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
The online news portal of TV5
Land Bank president Gilda Pico saw her 2013 salary triple to P10.29 million in just two years under the PNoy administration's new compensation scheme designed to reward top officers of profit-hauling GOCCs, or government-owned and -controlled corporations.
A career executive, Pico used to make do with P790,000 in 2010, the transition year between the GMA and PNoy administrations. That P790,000 salary is admittedly no way to reward the chief executive of a major financial institution.
By 2011 and a new regime in place, Pico's annual compensation ratcheted up to P3.6 million, even before the Governance Commission for GOCCs was constituted in late October 2011.
By 2013, the Land Bank chief executive's pay envelope had ballooned by thirteen times over her 2010 salary, reducing the previously embarrassing gap between public and private sector pay rates.
The downside of scaling up GOCC salaries to approximate private sector's? The so-called salary standardized levels of non-corporate government personnel have unfortunately been left way behind.
For instance, the 2013 pay envelope of Land Bank chairman, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, who also oversees the other government financial institutions, amounted to only a little over P1.8 million, not even one-fourth of Pico's.
This after Purisima's 2013 compensation had been raised by a grand sum of P50K annually from 2011's P1.75 million.
The discrepancy becomes even more pronounced when compared to GSIS general-manager Robert Vergara's pay envelope.
A hedge-fund manager based in Hong Kong before he was drafted into government service, Vergara's 2013 compensation of over P12 million made him again the highest paid civil servant last year.
Still, Vergara's pay check could conceivably shrink this year considering that the GSIS's profit shrank by 22 percent last year to P49 billion from 2012's P62.5 billion.
But knowing the Philippines, we would not advise anyone from holding his breath.
SEC takes the express pay train
Even before the PNoy administration reviewed government corporate compensation, the Securities and Exchange Commission had already escaped the salary standardization straight-jacket that pays peanuts to both patriots and government monkeys alike.
Still, that did not prevent Governance Commission Chairman Cesar Villanueva from approving further salary increases for the corporate regulator, even though the SEC is not a member of the so-called "Billionaires' Club" of government corporations that declare at least P1 billion a year in dividends to the national government.
Thus in 2013, SEC Chairman Teresita Herbosa saw her paycheck level up to P7.13 million, making her the 12th highest paid government executive for the year.
In the transition year 2010, Herbosa's predecessor Fe Barin in her last full year in office received P2.6 million compensation, an amount that already represents nearly one-and-a-half times the size of the finance secretary's pay check.
Ironically, the Villanueva scorecard downgraded the actual 2013 salary of Bangko Sentral Governor Amando Tetangco Jr., despite the central bank's continuing success in maintaining a low-inflation, low-interest rate regime amid record forex reserves.
The central bank chief took home P9.9 million last year, lower than the P10.58 million that he actually received in 2011.
PAL, CebuPac slash Aussie fares
Both Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines have knocked about $100-$175 off from their already competitive fares against foreign airlines ahead of the September 9 inaugural flight of the Gokongwei budget airline to Sydney.
Thursday, the Cebu Pacific website was quoting a P22,406-promo fare to the Australian city for the inaugural flight, with a September 16 return.
Earlier, when online booking for the route started around mid-June, that same flight was quoted at the Cebu Pacific website for P26,355, excluding the P2,200 baggage allowance and P1,000 meal charges.
Over at PAL, the legacy flag carrier was quoting also on Thursday a "budget economy, all-in" fare for the same route during the same week at $824 (about P36,000-plus), down from $998 its website was showing mid-June.
In contrast, the lowest fares quoted by website skyscanner.com for foreign flag carriers Malaysian Airlines and Cathay Pacific range from P36,000 to P40,000, with stops in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, respectively.
Actually, the cheapest airfare, lower even than Cebu Pacific's, was being offered by the Malaysian budget carrier Air Asia, at P22,368.
But with a Kuala Lumpur stop on each way, the normally eight-hour direct flight easily doubles in duration.
Heard through the grapevine
Bloomberg and Federal Land last week formally ended their trademark litigation after the property development arm of taipan George Ty agreed to change the name of its upcoming "One Bloomberg Place" condo in The Fort to a more generic, but still New York-evoking "Central Park West."
E-mail: cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com
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