FACT CHECK: Rep. France Castro’s statement on BSP Gov Remolona Jr.’s pay is INACCURATE

Rep. France Castro of ACT-Teachers (Alliance of Concerned Teachers) Partylist was quoted in news reports as denouncing the “net pay” of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Eli Remolona Jr., as published in the Commission on Audit’s (COA) 2023 Report on Salaries and Allowances (ROSA). This is inaccurate.

STATEMENT

The news reports dated May 5 quoted Castro, deputy minority leader in the House of Representatives, as saying:

“It is utterly unacceptable that BSP Governor Eli Remolona Jr. takes home a net pay of P35.48 million, while our teachers are forced to live on a meager salary that is way below the poverty line.”

Source: Inquirer.net, Castro: Salaries of BSP officials slap on struggling teachers’ faces, May 5, 2024

The Facebook page Alliance of Concerned Teachers carried the news reports on May 6.

FACT

The COA clarifies in its introduction to the 2023 ROSA that the summarized compensation data presented represents “gross of tax,” contrary to the statement attributed to Castro, describing Remolona’s P35.48 million as “net pay.”

Gross pay refers to the total earnings of employees before deductions such as taxes, benefits, or other withholdings. Net pay, on the other hand, is the amount remaining after all deductions have been taken into account.

Based on the COA report, Remolona was the highest paid government official in 2023.

The ROSA covers principal officers and governing board members of government corporations and their subsidiaries, as well as water districts; cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, and other officials holding equivalent positions in the bureaucracy; and top officers and board members of state universities and colleges and other stand-alone agencies.

The report, however, does not include elected government officials, such as the president, vice president, senators and congressmen.