COMMISSIONER Zenaida Brigida Hamada-Pawid of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) is not an appointed chairman, only a chairman-designate, but she insisted for and got paid P133,500 a month or P26,654 more than other commissioners like her at the cash-strapped tribal institution, documents provided by NCIP employees show.

NCIP employees said that Pawid violated the laws and jurisprudence when she insisted on getting P90,000 a month as chairman-designate when she should be paid only P78,946 like the other commissioners.

They claimed that Pawid also gets P22,000 representation and transportation allowance; P18,000 extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses and P3,500 cellcard allowance a month for a total of P133,500 monthly compared to a commissioner’s take of only about P106,846 a month.

The employees added that Pawid has announced in fora and meetings that she is only a designated chairman of the NCIP, not appointed and that she can be replaced anytime. She was appointed as a commissioner representing Region 1 and the Cordilleras on October 31, 2010. She was designated only as per her admission, and not appointed as required in the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act-Implementing Rules and Regulations, as chairman of the NCIP on May 30, 2011.

In G.R. No. 122197, dated June 26, 1998, the following decision and opinions were upheld: “Designation is simply the mere imposition of new or additional duties on the officer or employee to be performed by him in a special manner. It does not entail payment of additional benefits or grant upon the person so designated the right to claim the salary attached to the position [COA Decision No. 95-087 dated February 2, 1995].

Pawid resorted to pressures and machinations to get the salary of regularly appointed NCIP chairman, which prompted the untimely retirement of Finance Director Jose Tamane in October 2011. Tamane’s untimely retirement resulted in non-implementation of the human resource development program and cut short finalization of the rationalization plan, the employees said.

Bantay Kalikasan chairman Gina Lopez, an ABS-CBN executive told The Manila Times that the move to malign Pawid’s reputation did not come originally from the NCIP employees but from miners that the commissioner has been battling for years now.

“I’m sure it’s not true. That’s from the miners. That commissioner Pawid is a person of integrity. There has been a consistent effort to malign her due to her stand against mining. I have a serious concern about the source of this current attempt to undermine her credibility,” Lopez said.