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The Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government
Employees (COURAGE) said the recent SWS survey that “the incidence of hunger
was lower among families of government employees, compared to those of private
employees”, is not reflective of the true state of the employees.

The militant national center of government employees claimed that out of
the 1.4 million state workers, 1.2 million are receiving monthly salaries below
P27,100, the government’s conservative estimate of the cost of living (Philippine
average, DOLE-NWPC). “The minimum pay for government workers, which is only
pegged at P6, 149 sans the mandatory deductions, is in fact lower compared to
the almost P9,000 being received by minimum wage earners in the private
sector,” said Santi Dasmariñas, COURAGE Secretary-General.

In a statement, Dasmariñas also said that majority of the employees are
living on a day to day subsistence, surviving on loans to the extent of pawning
their ATM cards even way before pay day.

The leader stressed that 159,533 employees are not enjoying security of
tenure since they are occupying either coterminous, casual, contractual or Job
Order status. He also clarified that the contractualization trend in the
private sector has also plagued the state workers. “The government, being the
largest employer, is a top labor rights violator. It exempts itself from the
labor law which supposedly regularizes an employee after six months in service.
There are a number of government employees who remain casual or contractual
workers even after decades of being employed. The employees of the Intramuros
Administration who were dismissed early this year have been with the said
agency for at least 20 years as casuals. Instead of converting them to regular
status, they were retrenched.

“It is definitely clear that majority of the government employees and
their families are experiencing hunger at all levels. What is also striking is
that the number of Filipinos suffering from severe poverty has been rapidly
increasing during the term of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Her privatization,
deregulation and liberalization policies have unjustly driven majority of the
Filipinos to being unemployed or underemployed and homeless- two indicators of
poverty,” stated Dasmariñas.

Presently, COURAGE is ardently campaigning for a P3,000 hike in the
minimum pay in the public sector and the junking of the EO 366, a policy that
will lay-off almost 400,000 employees. The group said that these will provide
an immediate relief for the poverty and hunger-stricken government workers. #