State workers press for raise, ask high court

Government workers on Monday asked the Supreme Court to compel the Department of Budget and Management to release the fourth and final tranche of salary increases that state workers are supposed to receive this year under the Salary Standardization Law.

In their petition, 50 government workers led by House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya asked the Court to order Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno to pay out the salary adjustments, even though the government is using a reenacted budget because of a delay in the passage of the General Appropriations Act for this year.

Diokno has said that implementing the salary adjustments without the passage of the 2019 national budget would be illegal.

But petitioners argued that the release of the fourth tranche of pay increases under Executive Order 201 signed by former President Benigno Aquino III in 2016 should be a ministerial duty on the part of the DBM.

“There is no basis for the delay in the release and disbursement of funds as there are available alternative sources of funds for the fourth tranche of personnel benefits under EO No. 201,” they said.

The petitioners cited two alternatives for the DBM to cover for the P42.7 billion necessary for the fourth tranche of increases—the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund and the savings from the reenacted 2018 budget.

READ: P25 wage hike on Nov. 27 ‘not enough’

The petitioners said the MPBF currently has P99.446 billion, which is “allowed to be used for payments of personal benefits, such as deficiencies in authorized salaries, bonuses, allowances, associated premiums and other similar personnel benefits of national government personnel, among others.”

Petitioners said P75 billion from the MPBF fund is allotted for “payment of compensation adjustment” and “funding requirements for staffing modifications and upgrading and salaries,” which could be used by the DBM for the fourth tranche of salary increases.

“As can be seen above, only P42,705,911,000 is needed by the DBM to fund the fourth tranche salary increase and adjustment for the year 2019, when it has a total amount of P99,446,295,000 in the MPBF. Even if DBM simply uses the P75,169,215,000 covering allocations for compensation adjustment and salary upgrades, it is still more than the required forty-two billion requirements for the fourth tranche salary increase and adjustments. In fact, even if DBM wishes to use the proposed 2019 GAA for MPBF, which amounts to P51,575,607,000, it can still cover the required amount for salary increase and adjustment,” the petition said.

The petitioners also said the DBM may get just one-fourth of the required funding for the fourth tranche of about P10.676 billion “to cover for the first three months of 2019… considering that the 2019 GAA may still be passed within the first quarter of the year 2019.”

They also said the DBM may use the savings under the reenacted 2018 national budget.

“While the 1987 Constitution prohibits any transfer of appropriations by law, it does provide for certain key government officials to ‘augment any item in the General Appropriations Act for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.’ This provision thereby recognizes the need for some flexibility in budget execution in order to adequately respond to unforeseeable events,” they said.

Lastly, petitioners argued that the fourth tranche—being a “continuing program”—should be automatically given allocation in the national budget and should not depend on passage of the GAA for 2019.

With these arguments, petitioners asked the Court to issue a preliminary mandatory injunction requiring the DBM and Diokno to immediately release the fourth tranche of salary increases to government workers without waiting for the passage of the 2019 GAA.

The Court is expected to tackle the petition in session today.

The Palace, meanwhile, blamed Congress for the delay in salary increases.

“The one holding [the salary increase] hostage would be Congress, not the executive department,” Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said at a news briefing.

He added that they would await the decision of the Supreme Court.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers renewed its call for more substantial pay increases, given the high salaries that top government officials receive.

“The 4th tranche only amounts to an increase of P575 for Teacher I, P789 for Teacher II, and P1,008 for Teacher III, and it is us who compose around 90 percent of the workforce in public basic education. Meanwhile, the President will receive an additional P101,656 and DBM Secretary ‘Joke-no’ may receive as much as P71,601 more. It is impossible to miss the injustice here,” said Joselyn Martinez, ACT national chairperson.

READ: Rody to seek deal on teachers’ pay hike