During a beer-drinking spree (I actually had just one bottle) last week with a friend, he told me that he had left his post at the DILG’s IT Department to move to a private company. He had several such opportunities before but recent developments have prompted him to grab this latest offer.

I’m fairly familiar with the Philippine Government’s Salary Grade (and the Salary Standardization Law) so I understand why one would want to go private. We’ll, it’s common knowledge that there’s no money in government service (unless you’re alignjed with a jueteng lord) but I have been told that there are a lot of perks and benefits that come along with it.

A government employee with a salary grade of 11 would bring home just over 8 thousand pesos a month. Barely enough for a single person to live by, much more to raise a family.

Still, work in a government office isn’t as stressful as in other private corporations. Add that to the wide plethora of benefits for you and your family along with the saying that “a government employment is yours to keep until retirement” is something to consider. There’s no such thing as security of tenure in the private sector.

So, my friend asked me if ‘it was a good move’ and I said, under the circumstances, getting twice the take-home pay is better if you have more than one mouth to feed.

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