Aquino approves pay hike for GOCC workers   

President Benigno Aquino III has allowed state-owned corporations to increase the salaries of its employees.

The President on Tuesday signed  Executive Order 203 approving a Compensation and Position Classification System (CPCS) for government owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) that is reasonable and competitive with the private sector.

GOCCs will need approximately P4.6 billion for the salary adjustment which will be sourced from its earnings, which reached P96.84 billion from 2011 to 2014.

"The implementation of the CPCS shall be subject to each GOCC’s capacity to pay, ensuring the corporation’s financial viability,"  Governance Commission for GOCCs said in a statement on Wednesday.

The CPCS was developed by GCG to bring GOCCs closer to the median of the market based on a compensation study done by American professional services firm Towers Watson, which found out that GOCC employees and officials receive much lower pay compared to their private sector counterparts.

The study benchmarked GOCC positions with 6,000 comparable jobs across over 240 companies in the private sector.

Towers Watson also served as consultant in establishing the rates under Salary Standardization Law 4 for national government agencies.

Congress adjourned last February without passing the SSL 4, prompting Aquino to issue Executive Order 201 that allowed the release of the first of the four tranches under the proposed pay hike, with a budget of P57.9 billion.  — APG, GMA News