ILOILO Vice Gov. Rolex Suplico continues to shoot his own foot. And we can’t help but gape in awe at his boldness to hold his ground against all odds including sanity. The same observation applies as well to his colleagues who quickly jump to his call virtually defying the national mandate of 10 percent salary hike for government employees.

In her SONA last June 30, President GMA ordered salaries of government workers raised by 10 percent. That announcement was followed by Executive Order 719 that fleshes out her speech. That means, the government and all its entities including local governments, must comply.

Employees of government agencies and other local government units already have their wages upped by 10 percent since July 2008. Even that, the increase could hardly cover the skyrocketing costs of living.

For the 2,000 or so employees of the Iloilo provincial government, however, the 10 percent raise remains elusive.

Gov. Niel D. Tupas, Sr. has submitted to the sangguniang panlalawigan a proposed supplementary budget that integrates the salary increase of employees.

The provincial legislature led by Suplico, trashed it. In his public pronouncements, he pinned the blame on the governor, incidentally, his own uncle.

Accordingly, his old man is to blame: the supplemental budget could not be enacted because that is “forbidden”, in turn, because the province of Iloilo is operating on a reenacted budget, that of 2007 to be more precise. Had the governor implemented the 2008 budget, the supplemental budget could have passed smoothly, so goes his argument.

Which is putting the cart ahead of the ox.

What the good vice governor fails to say is that the 2008 budget could not be enforced not because the governor refused to implement, The fault lies somewhere else, on the pack led by Suplico who enacted an invalid appropriation ordinance, to begin with.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in July declared the 2008 budget ordinance “invalid and totally inoperative” for failure to comply with the prescribed budgetary matrix of the DBM.

That is understandable. Tupas has submitted a budget that details every item of expenditure compiled in book-bound form about one-half foot thick. Suplico et al approved a budget consisting only of lump sums allotted per office. The legislature reduced the one-half foot thick proposal of the governor to a pamphlet of 18 pages.

Typhoon “Frank”, June 21-22, left a vast swath of destruction and human misery. Many capitol employees were its direct victims, their homes having been submerged by flood and their floors buried on knee- or waste-deep mud that destroyed furniture, appliances, food, clothes, etc. Those who are not direct victims still must contend with skyrocketing prices and with the obligation of giving out goods and cash for the less fortunate ones.

The employees badly need the increase, not only to make up for the inflation triggered by the series of fuel price increases but also to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of Frank.

As Suplico et al cynically continues their intransigence, many are ruing whether they are vote voting for again come 2010.

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