S1L50 – “The Thirteenth Month Pay” Law
Miss Deema Niwala, on your feet…”
After looking around the classroom and making sure there was no possibility of any other person answering to the same name, this girl from Tublay finally rose her feet, “are you sure, sir?”
“Am I sure of what??”
“Nothing, sir…uh…it’s just been ages since you called me as your first reciter,” Deema said.
“It’s been claimed, Miss Deema, that we have a certain former Philippine president to thank for the fact that usually around this time of year, employees receive their so-called ‘Thirteenth Month Pay’ and that without that particular past president, nobody would be enjoying an extra month’s salary today,” I decided to do away with my usual long Iecture intros and jump into asking a key question right away, “so I wonder if your vast stock knowledge of useless trivia would concur with that claim.”
“If you’re referring to former President Marcos, yes sir, he did issue P.D. 851 on December 16, 1976 formalizing the giving of 13th month pay to employees in the private sector. But I wouldn’t credit him with our enjoyment of 13th month pay as the concept is understood and implemented today.”
“Wait, let’s get one thing clear, Miss Deema. Did he or did he not give everybody 13th month pay?”
“He did NOT give everybody 13th month pay, sir. Not today and not even back in 1976. That PD 851 is a very short 1-page document. In fact, not counting the ‘whereases’ it consists of only 3 sections. The most important was section 1 where it said ‘all employers must give their employees receiving a basic salary of not more than P1,000 a month a 13th month pay.”
“That sounds pretty general to me, don’t you think so?” even the class was nodding their heads in agreement.
“Because it used the phrase ‘ALL EMPLOYERS’ sir, but the filter phrase is ‘employees receiving a basic salary of NOT MORE THAN P1,000 A MONTH.”
“Can you translate that in present terms, Miss Deema” I asked.
“Well, sir, most economists agree that the inflationary adjustment factor between now and the 1970s is around TEN TIMES. So in current terms, that’s like saying only those earning less than P10,000 a month are entitled to 13th month pay. That means other than a few well-paid kasambahays or housemaids, practically nobody would be entitled to 13th month pay today, if we were to follow only PD 851. The average daily minimum wage now is P420, so a minimum wage earner would be making around P12,600. If a minimum wage earner doesn’t even qualify, nobody else would qualify, sir.”
“Well, evidently SOME law must be making it possible for everybody to be receiving it today, Miss Deema” I teased her, because I know she knows more that the whole class can benefit from. I just have to fish it out of the girl.
“It’s a compilation of many laws sir, the Labor Code of the Philippines, several industry-specific Magna Cartas, several Revenue laws also helped set the tax exemption basis, even as recently as the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion or ‘TRAIN’ law, countless Departmental Orders and Executive Orders, all issued waaaaay after Marcos was already gone—”
“Waaaay after?” I mimicked Miss Deema to try to discover why she seems to want to diminish the praises lately being showered on the late dictator.
“Waaay after, sir, it’s a myth that he’s responsible for it single-handedly. If anything, the confusingly suggestive language he used in PD 851 in the ‘whereas clauses’ were used by many employers for years to evade compliance.”
“What do you mean ‘confusingly suggestive’ language, Miss Deema?”
“Sir, Marcos said in that PD—’whereas, the Christmas season is an opportune time for society to show its concern for the plight of the working masses so they may properly celebrate Christmas and New Year’—so for many years, the 13th month pay was confused with the Christmas bonus, which was gratuitous and therefore not compulsory. Or some employees whose faith did not allow them to celebrate Christmas were often discriminated against and deprived of the 13th month pay.”
“My, my, that is awful indeed,” I said, “so how was that corrected, Miss Deema?”
“Through many Supreme Court decisions in countless labor cases, sir. Patiently over the years, our hardworking justices slowly polished and refined the evolving definition of 13th month pay and they are responsible for ‘secularizing’ it and completely divorcing its misleading association with Christmas. It wasn’t Marcos who did that. It was the mess he left behind about 13th month pay that the court cleaned up.”
“Right. So thanks to ‘stare decisis’ we now get an extra month of salary each year,” I recapped.
“Oh, no, no, no, sir—oops!”
“I’ll let it slide again this time, Miss Deema,” as the class chuckled, seeing Deema struggle with the injunction that nobody in class is allowed to copy my verbal mannerism, “what were you about to say?”
“Oh…uh..just that 13th month pay is not really necessarily an extra month of salary, sir. The formula is, everything the employee earned during the year, divided by 12. So even if an employee worked for only one month, which is the minimum, she’d still receive a 13th month pay of one month’s salary divided by 12.”
“Wonderful,” I said and now all I have to do is close the lecture by giving the last definitive remark.
“And so as not to diminish the joy and excitement of getting your 13th month pay, class, I’ll have you know that it is also tax-free!”
“Up to a maximum of P90,000!” Deema added, sending everybody laughing.
“It’s Christmas, Deema! Let Sir have the last say!!” they chorused and laughed
“Be our guest, sir” Deema turned over the floor to me.
“Why, thank you, Miss Deema…I just want to say, Merry Christmas to all of you…and…uh…and…”
“Spit it out, Professor!” the class said.
“And I love you all.” I said finally.
Dead silence.
I wondered why.
Did I say something wrong?
I was in near panic. I looked at Deema. She pointed with her mouth…at the blackboard!
“Oh!”suddenly I got it. I banged the blackboard, and everybody broke out clapping, laughing and exhanging hugs all around.
I felt much better. I felt relieved.
Merry Christmas, Lord!
About the Author
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”
About Images: Some of the images used in the articles are from the posts in Atty. Joel Rodriguez Dizon’s Facebook account, and/or Facebook groups and pages he manages or/and member of.