House measure to increase PERA to P6,000 pushed
Camarines Norte Rep. Marisol Panotes is pushing to increase the personnel economic relief allowance (PERA) of public school teachers and other government workers to P6,000.
She said there is a need to augment the PERA to grant financial relief to state workers.
Currently, public school teachers and other government employees are receiving P2,000 PERA a month.
“A substantial increase in the PERA will ease the burden borne by the cash-strapped public workers who are the most affected by the ever increasing prices of basic commodities, transportation fares, tuition fees, utilities, medicines and other necessities,” she said.
She noted that the PERA was implemented in 1991 with the intent of providing emergency allowance to government employees as a relief mechanism to cushion the impact of irrepressible economic crisis on low-income and middle-income wage earners.
“From P500 a month in 1991 to P2,000 a month at present, this subsidy has provided only a slight relief to the struggling working class due to the continuing decline of the purchasing power of the public sector wages that can hardly cope with the rising cost of living,” Panotes said.
Under House Bill 4640 or the proposed Amplified Personnel Economic Relief Allowance Act (AMPERA), the PERA being granted monthly to public school teachers and all other government workers shall be increased from P2,000 to P6,000.
The coverage of the augmented PERA shall include public school teachers and all other government workers, in the national or local levels, who are employed on a regular, contractual or casual basis.
The bill provides that the funding requirements for the immediate implementation of the proposed Act shall be obtained from current available sources of the national government as may be determined by the Executive branch and subsequent funds needed shall be provided in the Annual General Appropriations Act.
It tasks the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to issue the corresponding rules and regulations, orders and circulars to implement the proposed Act. ## (By Charissa M. Luci, mb.com.ph)
