MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said it would submit to Congress in October the proposal for a fresh round of salary increases for civilian government workers, as the Salary Standardization Law (SSL) expires this year.

In his first media briefing on Tuesday, August 27, Acting Secretary Wendel Avisado said the results of the study for another salary hike will be out by September.

“There’s an ongoing study in coordination with Towers Watson and GCG (Government Commission for Government-owned and Controlled Corporations) and we hope that we could get the results by next month,” Avisado said.

Avisado said the proposal will be submitted once the results of the study are already out, just in time for the House of Representatives’ target passage of the 2020 budget.

Earlier this year, the DBM organized the task force that would study the new wage structure for 2020 to 2022.

Under the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020, the DBM has earmarked P31.099 billion under the Miscellaneous and Personnel Benefits Fund for the compensation adjustment.

The amount is lower than the P51.7-billion compensation adjustment for civilian workers in the 2019 budget. 

“For next year, we have that figure, but we also know that there’s an ongoing effort on the part of Congress to legislate this. By October, we will be able to take it up,” Avisado said.

Avisado had told the House committee on appropriations last week that a law is a “stronger basis” for annual government workers salary hike.

In 2016, then-president Benigno Aquino III signed the executive order mandating a 4-year salary increase to the basic salaries of government employees – arguing then that government pay was only 55% of market rates.

Under the government’s staffing summary, there are a total of 1.86 million permanent positions for state workers in 2019, of which only 1.66 are currently filled.

By 2020, the government expects the number to become slightly smaller at 1.82 total permanent positions, to be filled by only 1.63 million workers. – Rappler.com