Government employees and officials will receive increases in their salaries on Jan. 1 next year once Congress approves the final version of the Salary Standardization Law 5 within the week, said Senator Juan Edgardo Angara.
The Senate approved Monday night on third and final reading Senate Bill 1219 with a vote of 21-0-1, shortly after the House of Representatives passed its own version of the SSL-5. Minority Leader Franklin Drilon was the lone senator who abstained from voting on the measure.
Angara, who defended the bill on behalf of its sponsor Senator Ramon Revilla Jr., said the fifth round of salary increases will be implemented in four tranches, starting Jan. 1 next year. The succeeding rounds will be implemented in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
A total of P130.45 billion would be needed to implement the four tranches of the SSL-5, with P33.16 billion as the funding requirement for 2020.
Angara, the chairman of the committee on finance, said funding for the first tranche of the SSL-5 is already provided under the 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” he said.
Hiking their salaries would give them some breathing room and motivate them to work harder at their respective jobs, he added.
Under SSL-5, the lowest salary grade level employee, who is receiving P11,068 a month, will enjoy an increase in his compensation to P11,551 in 2020, to P12,034 in 2021, to P12,517 in 2022, and to P13,000 in 2023.
Salary Grade 11 employees or the entry-level for teachers will receive an increase from P20,754 a month to P22,316 (2020), P23,877 (2021), P25,439 (2022), and P27,000 (2023).
Angara noted that 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, he said the Teacher 1 to Teacher 3 positions would see increases in their salaries ranging from 24 percent to 30.7 percent from the first to fourth tranches of the SSL-5.
The lowest increases would apply to the middle managers, executives and the top officials of the country or from SG 25 to 33, at a mere 8 percent.
Angara said executives were already covered by significant increases in the previous round of salary increases or SSL-4.
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 sub-professional levels, the increases in the pay will be from 17.5 percent to 20.5 percent over four years.
Assistant House Minority Leader France Castro on Tuesday slammed House Bill 5712 or the Salary Standardization Law of 2019 that mandates what she said was “a measly increase to (government) rank-and-file employees.”
On Monday, the House committee on appropriations, chaired by Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, approved its version of the bill that upgrades the salaries of government workers by Jan. 1, 2020. On the same day, the chamber approved the bill on second reading in plenary session.
The bill, principally authored by Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, House Majority Leader and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, and Ungab, was expected to have approved on third and final reading Wednesday.
Castro said that the increase would only be eaten up by the high prices and income tax due to the TRAIN Law.
READ: Measly pay hike for state workers scored