Weathermen eye exemption from salary cap

Saturday, March 5, 2011

EMPLOYEES of state weather bureau Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, Astronomical and Services Administration (PAGASA) welcomed on Saturday a bill that will increase their salaries.

Early this week, AGHAM party-list Representative Angelo Palmones filed House Bill 2004 exempting close to the agency's 1,500 workers from the Salary Standardization Law.

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“We fully support the House of Representatives as it will address the issue of ‘brain drain’ in Pagasa. However we are for the immediate full grant of benefits under the Magna Carta for science and technology workers. Palmones’ bill is a long-term solution but we warmly welcome it,” Philippine Weathermen Employees Association (PWEA) president Ramon Agustin said in a text message to SunStar.

The weather bureau has long been plagued with the flight of competent staff to other countries, offering higher pay.

A PAGASA official with a doctorate degree only earns around P20,000 a month while foreign meteorological agencies offer between P100,000 and P200,000 monthly for forecasters alone, Palmones said.

While others still chose not to work abroad, Agustin related that the government must look after the situation of personnel who collect weather data from the field, process it, formulate analysis, and provide forecasts of the weather situation.

“If the 30 percent hazard pay (on top of our regular salaries) would be given then it will be a big boost, morally and financially, to Pagasa employees (whoonly receive 15 percent hazard pay at this point),” he said.

Under the bill, salary of PAGASA employees will be determined by the Department of Budget Management (DBM), the Civil Service Commission (CSC), and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

Of its current 1,452 employees, 608 have bachelor's degrees, 44 with Master's degrees, and 10 with PhD's, Palmones said.

Office and administrative personnel are also covered by the exemption since they belong to a team that makes better forecasts on extreme weather events such as typhoons, floods, and storm surges.

"But the salary shall not be lower than 150 percent nor higher than 200 percent of the current salaries of the PAGASA employees and on top of government salary adjustments that are due them, should there be any," Palmones explained.

The lawmaker also lamented that the lack of local schools that offer meteorology degrees also diminish the number of highly educated and trained weather forecasters.

"What we have today are masteral and PhD degrees training [programs]. Thus, the ranks of trained meteorologist/weather forecasters continue to dwindle because of higher paying jobs outside the Philippines," Palmones said, who is also open to the idea of making weather forecasting an undergraduate program.

Schools eyed to offer a BS degree in Meteorology within three years under his separate modernization bill are the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, Bicol University, Central Luzon State University, Mariano Marcos State University in Ilocos Norte, and University of the Visayas. (Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)