ISSUE 1

To provide support in the realization of the Divine Word College of Calapan vision-mission, the Finance Division seeks to develop an effective financial management and control system that would improve operational efficiency.

The Philippine Association of Accredited Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU) last visited Divine Word College of Calapan on 1998. It was barely six years that passed since the PAASCU highly recommended that the institution should review its salary scale/scheme as part of the former’s evaluation to the latter. Six years.

One of the motivations wherein employees will perform at their best, in any kind of work management, is to receive a well-compensated salary as an output of their jobs. It is practical and real to say that money is a great motivator. After all, salary is not a privilege – it’s a right. That is the equation of exerting effort towards work and receiving salary above work.

But this scenario abruptly hounding us for years, for six years. The administration boldly admitted that it encountered or found discrepancies on the salary scheme of the teachers and employees. This already marked that there is a thing to be resolved and repaired. This is a financial matter to be looked sensitively. This runs our institution so concrete that it provides to its employees through proper, accurate and systematized salary system. This should be the scene.

We do not want all these things to be passed on again for another 6 years or 1 and ½ years for another deliberation of the administration. Lessons should be taken out of the problem.

Thus, we would like to stress, not just say, three modes of actions which the administration should have done six years ago:

One, an immediate general review of the teachers and employees salary scale/scheme. This will point out the similarities and differences, proper allocation of salary based on levels, experiences, etc., systematized compensation after immediate hiring, ranking of the employees and teachers, bracketing of salary as per position, weight of the position and corresponding commensurate salary.

Two, the inconsistencies had already been noticed. Why did the remedies not implemented immediately? Why didn’t the administration lay the necessary means to patch up the loopholes in the scheme? Why did this problem not taken seriously? Why? Is there a problem within a problem?

Three, the information about the matter should be coursed properly and timely. All the documents and related materials should be fastened as supporting the actions taken during the management of the problem. As we are in a professional community, no special courses to be studied for us to know that all moves and decisions should be done professionally.

The bottom is the administration should immediately freezed the financial quandary temporarily. Months had passed and years were counted – these are the results of neglect and broken assurance.

Better to be left than to be left out. The situation is on its height. The problem should be diagnosed as soon as possible. It is ripening.

We do have an answer. It is an answer that will cover us all – faculty, employees, administration. It is a step worthy to be acknowledged. After all, this is our community. This is our school. This is our ‘home’.

The answer is a dialogue and creation of Salary Protection Scheme Committee to be presided by the external consultant.. In this way, we can gather all our facts, reactions, bases, fairness, truthfulness and financial directions of the institution. In this manner, it is pro-action not a presentation.

This effort should be done at the most secured and stable time for this community. We said secured because to call this school a financially-secured institution is synonymous in saying what we were six years ago or so.

Enough of waiting for something that stability is shaking. Enough of the six long years. Dialogue is a step closer to the real picture of fiscal stature. Dialogue should be conducted as soon as possible. It is not just a request but a recommendatory instruction to polish all these difficulties where all of us are being affected. We don’t want to see the future showing us groping in the dark.

Better to be left than to be left out.