Govt workers to get pay hike next year
Credit to Author: Javier J. Ismael| Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2019 17:02:23 +0000
Government workers will enjoy an increase in their salaries beginning January 2020 once Congress approves the final version of the Salary Standardization Law 5 (SSL-5).
The Senate approved late Monday Senate Bill 1219, shortly after the House of Representatives passed its own version of the measure.
Only Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon abstained from voting on the measure.
Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, who defended the bill on behalf of its sponsor Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr., said the fifth round of salary increases would be implemented in four tranches, starting January 1 next year. The succeeding rounds will be implemented in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The government would need P130.4 billion to implement the salary increases.
Angara, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, said the funding for the first tranche had been provided in next year’s P4.1 trillion national budget.
“We are increasing the salaries of our civil servants in response to the continued hike in daily expenses such as food, transportation and even the education of their children. By hiking their salaries, we not only give them some breathing room as far as their finances is concerned, but we are also motivating them to work even harder in their respective jobs,” Angara said.
Under SSL-5, the compensation of the lowest salary grade level employee will be increased to P11,661 from P11,068 a month next year. This will further go up to P12.034 in 2021, P12,517 in 2022, and P13,000 in 2023.
For Salary Grade 11 employees or the entry-level for teachers, the pay will be increased from P20,754 a month to P22,316 (2020), P23,877 (2021), P25,439 (2022) and P27,000 (2023).
Angara said the biggest increases would apply to employees belonging to the Salary Grades 10 to 16 bracket or the professionals, who comprise the bulk of the bureaucracy.
For instance, the Teacher 1 to Teacher 3 positions would see increases in their salaries ranging from 24 percent to 30.7 percent.
The lowest increases would apply to the middle managers, executives and top officials or those with salary grades 25 to 33, at a mere 8 percent.
Angara explained that these executives already had significant increases in the previous round of salary increases.
Under the Constitution, the salaries of the president and vice president will remain the same and whatever increases is provided by the new law will only be enjoyed after their terms. The same applies to the incumbent members of Congress.
“This means that only the newly elected members of the Senate and the House of Representatives in 2022 will be able to enjoy the new salary rates under SSL-5,” Angara said.
For the employees with Salary Grades 1 to 10 or the subprofessional levels, the increases in the pay will be from 17.5 percent to 20.5 percent over four years.