Press Release
April 26, 2007

Recto bats for bigger pay for CAFGUs
P900 a month hike this July not enough

The countrys 52,783 CAFGU members will start getting a P30-a-day increase in their subsistence allowance in July but Sen. Ralph Recto said the hike is not enough given the low pay but high risk work of these citizen soldiers.

Recto said a second round of pay increase should be given to Citizen Armed Forces Geographic Unit members as they are putting their lives on line by guarding their communities for a pay that is considered a pittance.

As embedded defenders of their villages, Recto said CAFGU men do not receive salaries, only a daily subsistence allowance that will be raised from the present P60 to P90 in July this year by virtue of a recently signed order of President Arroyo.

That directive, Executive Order 611, grants a 10 percent increase in the basic pay of civilian employees and a P1,200 a month adjustment in the allowances of uniformed personnel beginning on the second half of the year.

Although considered part of the uniformed services, CAFGU personnel, however, will only be getting an equivalent P900 a month hike, as they are not entitled to the P120 to 240 a month hike in hazard pay soldiers and policemen will get under EO 611.

Recto said CAFGU men should get the same increase in Hazard Pay, for they are exposed to the same hazards that their brothers-in-arms in the Armed Forces have to confront.

CAFGU men are basically fulltime frontline soldiers so they meet the criteria used in applying the Hazard Pay, Recto said.

Created by an act of Congress, the CAFGU is an all-volunteer force drawn from the local populace. As force maximizers they augment regular AFP units in maintaining peace threatened by lawlessness.

The wage increase under EO 611 will cost the government P10.3 billion this year, of which P8.2 billion will go to pay envelopes of an estimated 839,757 civilian employees.

P2.1 billion, on the other hand, will be used to fund the increase in the two allowances of 282,349 uniformed personnel, which include soldiers, policemen, jail guards, firemen, Coast Guard personnel and CAFGUs.

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