MALACAÑANG has issued guidelines for the collection of express lane fees to augment the salaries of the Bureau of Immigration's (BI) personnel.
Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, in Memorandum Order (MO) 24 inked on July 13 but released on Tuesday, July 17, stressed the need to raise the BI employees' pay, considering the "vital, exacting, and ceaseless nature of [their] functions."
"The Philippine Immigration Act has not been updated since its passage in 1940, and the basic monthly pay of BI employees has remained extremely low in spite of the nature of their work, thereby leading to a large number of resignations and causing prejudice to the efficient delivery of frontline services," Medialdea said
"There is a need for an interim measure to augment the salaries of BI employees, in recognition of the indispensability of their functions, the apparent disparity between the basic pay of BI employees and employees of agencies performing comparable functions, and to promote the continuous and unhampered delivery of basic government services," he added.
The issuance of MO 24 was in line with President Rodrigo Duterte's veto message in the 2018 national budget, which allowed the establishment of a trust fund to be taken from the express lane fees, subject to the guidelines promulgated by the Justice and Budget departments and the Commission on Audit.
Based on the guidelines enumerated in the memorandum, the express lane fund (ELF) will be deposited in a Special Trust Fund Account with a government bank.
About 64 percent of ELF will be used to augment the salaries of the BI's organic personnel who render service beyond regular office hours, while some 25 percent will be utilized to pay for the salaries of the BI's contractual personnel.
ELF's remaining 11 percent will be remitted to the National Treasury as income of the General Fund.
"The augmentation pay covering the months of January to May 2018 for the entitled organic personnel shall be immeditely released," the order read.
"ELF collections in excess of the total augmentation pay requirements in accordance with these rules and the contractual salary requirements for the year shall be remitted to the National Treasury, as income of the General Fund," it added.
MO 24 is effective "immediately" and will continue to take effect until December 31, 2018 or until the passage of a legislative measure increasing the base pay rate of BI personnel. (SunStar Philippines)