Iligan City Lone District Rep. Frederick Siao. (PNA file photo)
ILIGAN CITY -- Iligan City Lone District Representative Frederick Siao on Monday said he is eyeing to propose measure imposing taxes on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) to fund the PHP10,000 pay hike for public school teachers per month.
Siao, the chairperson of the House civil service and professional regulation committee, noted that public school teachers have been "unrelenting" in their push for a pay hike but that Congress is at a loss where to find the roughly PHP126 billion funding to make it happen.
Siao said lawmakers like him are trying to figure out how to balance the wage issue with the interests of other civil servants and other government priorities.
"Right now, the first thing I see that can be taxed heavily to generate the PHP126 billion annually are those POGOs," he said.
The lawmaker explained that if POGOs are taxed or a law should be passed setting PHP126 billion as government's share from the whole POGO sector, allocating the amount for teachers' pay hike would be possible.
“Taxing the POGOs to fund the PHP10,000 teachers’ pay hike clamor would be like ‘hitting two birds with one stone’ or solving two problems at once. I have to confer with House Ways and Means Committee chairman Representative Joey Salceda to see if this approach is doable,” Siao said.
Siao is the author of House Bill 1992 (An Act Upgrading the Minimum Salary Grade Level of Teachers from Salary Grade 11 to 19) which was consolidated into Salary Standardization Law-5.
He explained that “by labeling the PHP10,000 as allowances or add-ons to the basic pay, we avoid the complication of increasing the retirement funding which is attached to the basic pay figure. This is the silver lining in this huge challenge.” (PNA)
