Delayed performance bonus

Since 2013, DepEd employees have been receiving their bonus under AO 25, a Performance-based Bonus Incentive System (PBIS), delayed by one to two years. Such unforgivable delay for the lowly workers! Rightly, the teachers affiliated with ACT demonstrated on the streets a couple of months ago.

Under AO 25, each of them would have received the equivalent of 65 percent of their monthly pay as an incentive. Kinks in the system that resulted in the delayed payments had not been corrected.

The government’s productivity incentive program for its workers should be saved by all means; team-based reward is the best weapon to counter systemic corruption in government.

For any productivity incentive to be effective, it must be: 1) paid immediately. Striking while the iron is hot should be imperative. 2) evaluation of performance should be simplified to a few meaningful operating standards. The evaluators need only look at major lapses in an agency and not be bogged down requiring voluminous operating reports.

What is important is the overall fair and credible evaluation of the Team Performance rating; details should not hold back the productivity monitoring team, headed by the DBM secretary, to rate an agency. The ordinary worker should not be deprived of the bonus due to reporting lapses by the agency. – M. K. TAN, CPA [email protected]