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There is a simple explanation as to why the president of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Emanuel de Guzman, was compensated twice higher than UP president Alfredo Pascual last year.
De Guzman's secret sauce? Allowances and honorarium.
Thanks to over P2.1 million in additional incentives, De Guzman managed to beef up his P947,000 basic annual salary to P3.09 million in 2013, making him the highest-paid state university president, according to Commission on Audit rankings.
On the other hand, Pascual nudged his basic pay of P1.08 million to reach P1.4 million in 2013 after tucking in a few official entitlements himself.
And, thanks again to four different kinds of allowances, the Cebu Normal University president, Marcelo Lopez, overcame his SUC president II rank and pay grade of P877,000 to nearly triple his financial package to P2.6 million in 2013.
The same financial tract was also followed by Bukidnon State University president, Victor Barroso, who also grossed P2.6 million last year.
In all, according to COA records, over three dozen SUC presidents, including ironically UP Diliman chancellor Caesar Saloma, last year received higher compensation than the UP System president, despite Pascual overseeing seven constituent universities and one autonomous college spread across 15 campuses nationwide.
The better-paid-than-UP confraternity includes the heads of two agricultural colleges from the politically lucky provinces, Pampanga and Tarlac.
The president of Pampanga Agricultural College, Honorio Soriano, last year took home P1.9 million while his neighbor at the Tarlac College of Agriculture, Max Guillermo, doubled his annual base pay, also thanks to various allowances, to P1.6 million.
Given their agricultural background, the Kapampangan presidents may have thus given a fresh, literally richer meaning to an old advice given toprovincianos who could not hack it within the elite Manila schools and that is, "go home and plant camote."
Voila! Abad finds P1.3B funding
Maybe it is the ongoing backlash against the PNoy pork barrel or the advent of the 2016 elections but whatever the reason, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad has scrounged P1.3-billion from his budgetary bag to placate restive faculty members of state universities and colleges.
Representing the unpaid faculty merit increases up to 2010, the P1.3 billion allotment has already been incorporated into the 2015 budget, according to Pasig Representative Roman Romulo, quoting Abad.
The funding availability was also confirmed by two budget directors, Cristina Clasara and Edgardo Macaranas, during last week's hearing on the much-delayed implementation of National Budget Circular 461, the faculty classification and compensation system, affecting about a hundred state universities and colleges.
Romulo told the SUC presidents in the hearing that he no longer pressed Abad for an explanation for the years of funding delay; Clasara, when asked during the same House hearing, resorted to an effective bureaucratic equivocation, saying "it's beyond my pay grade" to seek explanation from her higher-ups.
The two budget directors nevertheless clarified that state schools which had shouldered the merit increases out of their own budgets should not expect any reimbursements from the Abad department.
Aside from establishing a common criteria for evaluation, the 1998-enacted budget circular was supposed to have standardized the compensation of state faculty members nationwide, starting with the lowliest instructor, at salary grade 12 (ranging from P20,000 to P21,400 a month), up to the university professor, at salary grade 30 (from P79,000 to P85,500 a month).
But, as the SUC presidents above have shown, there are a number of ways to escape from the salary standardization straitjacket and obtain financial perks better than, yes, their very own supervisor, the chairman of Commission on Higher Education, Patricia Licuanan.
Licuanan herself managed to add nearly P800,000 in honorarium, allowances and bonus to her 2013 basic salary of P1.085 million, not including P220,000 in discretionary and extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses accruing to her CHED position.
Money-go-round
• The Batanes-based Skyjet Airlines has abruptly cancelled its Taipei-Boracay charter flights after its inaugural and three subsequent flights last week developed "mechanical malfunction," leaving about 200 Taiwanese tourists temporarily stranded in the island paradise.
• The hostilities between BCDA Chairman Arnel Paciano Casanova and defaulting developer Robert John Sobrepeña of Camp John Hay have spilled over even to the neighboring export processing zone in Baguio, with Casanova determined to block a Sobrepeña company from pumping more ground water out of the water-short pines city to service the suburban export zone.
Heard through the grapevine
Detained ex-BPI director Benito Ramon Araneta may have to find more than adequate medical explanation to justify his petition to be confined to the Camp Crame hospital instead of the PNP detention facility considering that he was having a full-body massage when he was arrested by the police in his Ayala Alabang residence.
Still, the listed PhilWeb is still determined to keep Araneta as an independent director, with no less than fellow director, Rafael Ortigas of the landed Ortigas clan, pushing for the detainee's re-election during the August 28 annual stockholders' meeting.
Email Vic Agustin at cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com
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