THE fourth and last tranche of salary hikes for government employees authorized by the Salary Standardization Law took effect on Jan. 1, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said.
“The government recognizes the indispensable role of its dedicated personnel in serving our beloved country. We are firmly committed to help them amidst rising prices of goods and services. We hope this latest salary increase will cushion the impact of inflation,” Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman said in a statement on Wednesday.
Republic Act (RA) No. 11466 or the Salary Standardization Law raised public servants’ salaries in four phases starting Jan. 1, 2020.
Under the law, the salary increase covers all civilian personnel, whether regular, casual, or contractual, appointive or elective, full-time or part-time, existing at the time of the law’s signing or thereafter created in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches; constitutional commissions and other constitutional offices; state universities and colleges; and government-owned or -controlled corporations (GOCCs) not covered by RA No. 10149 or the GOCC Governance Act of 2011.
It also applies to all salaried personnel in local government units (LGUs), whether regular, contractual or casual, elective or appointive; full-time or part-time, existing at the time of the law’s passage or thereafter created in LGUs, and all positions for barangay personnel who are paid monthly honoraria.
“Those engaged without employer-employee relationships and funded from non-personnel services (PS) appropriations and budgets shall be excluded from (its) coverage,” it added.
Also excluded from the pay hike are military and uniformed personnel, GOCC staff covered by RA No. 10149, and individuals whose services are engaged through job orders, contracts of service, consultancy or service contracts with no employer-employee relationship.
The DBM said that around P48 million is being allocated to conduct a study on the government’s compensation structure.
“President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. directed us to conduct a study to ensure that the compensation of all civilian personnel will be generally competitive with those in the private sector doing comparable work to attract, retain, and motivate corps of competent and dedicated civil servants,” Ms. Pangandaman said.
“Apart from the conduct of the study, the DBM is also undertaking a review of the rates of the existing benefits being provided to qualified government employees to assess if these may need adjustment in the future,” she added. — Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson
