Duterte vetoes bill expanding OSG powers powers

MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte has vetoed a measure that aims to strengthen the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) by increasing its powers and functions and providing employees with additional benefits. 

“While I support the strengthening of the Office of the Solicitor General and value the work of the men and women in OSG, as head of the executive branch, I am duty-bound to consider the subject bill not just in terms of its possible favorable effects on the OSG and its personnel, but also its impact on the entire government bureaucracy,” Duterte said in his veto message sent to the Senate and House of Representatives.

He expressed concern over the distortion of the table of government benefits if the proposal will be allowed. 

“I am apprehensive that the provisions thereof granting benefits beyond the current compensation framework for other government offices may prove to be too onerous to the government,” the President wrote.

For him, the new benefits granted to the OSG in addition to what are currently being received by government offices would “erode the national government’s thrust to standardize and rationalize the current compensation framework in the bureaucracy.”

It will also create too much disparity and inequality among the public servants in the executive branch, and undermine the principle of “equal pay for work of equal value.” 

“I thus urge Congress to prioritize reviewing this measure once again so that our shared objective of strengthening the OSG would be realized without undermining other equally vital fiscal and policy considerations,” Duterte said in the letter dated March 7 but which Malacañang released only yesterday.?The Senate and the House ratified the measure last January to amend both Republic Act 9417, which strengthened the OSG by expanding and streamlining its bureaucracy, upgrading employee skills and augmenting benefits in 2006, and Executive Order 292, which instituted the Administrative Code of 1987.

The proposed law contains a provision on the retirement benefits of the solicitor general, assistant solicitor general, senior state solicitor, state solicitor II and state solicitor I who have rendered at least 15 years of service in the OSG or in any other branch of the government, or in both.?

According to the proposal, the officers – whether they retire for having attained the age of 65 or resign by reason of their incapacity to discharge the duties of their office – shall receive during the residue of their natural life a retirement pension based on the highest monthly salary.

This will also include the highest monthly aggregate of transportation, living and transportation allowances which they were receiving at the time of their retirement.?

When they have reached the age of 60 and have rendered at least 15 years of service in government, the last five of which must have been rendered in the OSG, they shall be entitled to retire and receive the same benefits.

Those with less than 15 years of service in the government shall be entitled to a pro-rata pension.

All pension benefits of retired solicitors general, assistant solicitors general and state solicitors shall be automatically increased whenever there is an increase in the salary and allowance in the same position from which they retired.?The other amendments introduced by the ratified measure to RA 9147 are the death and survivorship benefits.