But, no provision in the Budget
He is a man who knows it all and, as an intelligent man, he knows the solutions to the most vexed problems since troubleshooting is his chosen vocation. Now we have another situation where he is permitting his heart to dictate national policy, or so it would seem.
The whole administration has been vehemently informing him that this provision cannot be met nor can any provision be made in the upcoming budget for the year 2017 because of severe constraints.
Background
In line with his earlier promise that he had made to the police forces who have been very poorly paid till now, he reiterated his promise to them that their salaries will see a hike from December 2016; and, the promise says that he will double their salaries.
This is the second time that Duterte has gone ahead and given his word that he would be paying double the current wages to all members of the Filipino Armed Forces (AFP), the Philippines National Police (PNP) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency; this time around, he was addressing the officials and men of the police officials of the PNP and declared that this pay hike would be effective from December.
He went on to explain that his resounding success as the Mayor of Davao was on account of the yeoman services extended by the police forces and the Armed Forces; they gave him their full support in controlling the law and order situation there; this he expressed while presiding at the 115th celebrations of the Police Service Anniversary, today at Camp Crame.
His straightforward reference to their increasing salaries came at the very beginning of the speech asserting that this was his way of expressing gratitude since they gambled with their lives to efficiently perform their duties.
He had made this commitment to the people in uniform when the campaign came to an end last May; his reason for increasing their salaries was to provide them lesser motives for indulging in corruption.
However, there was a statement from the Budget secretary that no such provision had been made to accommodate the hike in the salaries of the police, the Army and the PDEA.
He clarified that all such allocations had to be passed by the Congress for them to be included in the Budget; otherwise there is a violation of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
How it will be accommodated is still to be seen.
Umrao Singh umraoz.wordpress.com
Written for: Lars-Magnus Carlsson www.thephilippinepride.com?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss
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