My April DTR

As a government worker, one is obliged to fill in one's daily time records (DTR) in coming to and leaving the office in the morning and afternoon. My April DTR looks clean at a glance. I have had so many leaves of absences aside from the declared holidays for the month. I took so many vacations. One week at home and another week in Baguio City where my daughter is now having her summer classes.

When it was time for me to report to work for this last week, I feel a little bit lazy of getting up in the morning since I may have been used to getting up late for the past couple of weeks.

Government workers are entitled to simple perks. In a year, one can have 3 days privilege leaves, 5 days forced leaves and one can have sick leaves, unlimited, provided you have enough leave balances. One earns a total of 15 days vacation leave credits and 15 days sick leave credits a year. In my case, for the past 3 years, I started consuming my accrued leave credits by taking leaves every now and then. Not knowing that I am already exhausting my vacation leave credits, I am afraid I can't enjoy another perk this year, of monetizing my VL credits, converting it into money value.

Living in the province and being employed in a government agency is enough for simple people like me. But when you are in a position where it's considered as a dead-end career, that's your the end. Ha ha ha.

Finishing a master's degree is even not enough guarantee that you may be promoted to a much coveted higher position. Maybe, changing or taking another career path may satisfy your thirst for a career growth and development.

Last month, I am contemplating of taking a new career path, but it seems, my age would hamper me. I am already old enough to be accommodated in another kind of work; hence, after consulting with my husband, we both decided that I stay where I am now. Maximize my potentials when I can be needed. In fact, I feel bored and unchallenged this time. There's no room for career growth and development, and even the possibility of attending seminars for our work improvement could not be done, may be due to limited funds.

I envy those states where government workers are salaried much higher than in our country. They have more perks than we have. I have an aunt who was a federal government worker in the US. She related to me how convenient and how well they are given benefits while they work and after retirement. There's no thought or room for them to resort to graft and corruption because they are paid well enough.

I can now see why in our country, even the lowest rank of government employees are tempted to corrupt. It is because their salary for a month is not really enough to support a family of three, is not even enough to send a child to school until college, is not even enough to save for hospitalization and medicines, is not even enough to put up a decent abode for his family, is not even enough to buy a decent three square meals a day, is not even enough to buy decent clothes for the whole family and is not even enough to afford a decent kind of living in general.

My April DTR only shows one simple perk a government worker can have like me. Aside from that, there are no other greater benefits one can have, save for the very low salary one earns in a month.

Election is a few months away. May the Filipino people be wise enough this time to elect a president who is 100% willing to save the poor plight of government workers.