National employees, including military and police personnel, are the beneficiaries of P121.7- billion allocation in the proposed 2019 national budget, a House official said on Saturday.
House Majority Leader and Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. said P51. 7 billion is earmarked for the fourth and final tranche of the Salary Standardization Law IV which covers civilian employees.
Started in 2016, the SSL IV is a four-year program to raise public sector pay pursuant to Executive Order 201 signed by President Benigno Aquino in February 2016.
The pay hike prior to that, SSL III, ran from 2009 to 2012, through E.O. 811 of President Arroyo and House-Senate Joint Resolution 4.
For uniformed personnel, P70 billion has also been included in next year’s budget to fund the second installment of the law raising the base pay of soldiers, policemen, jail and fire officers, and coast guards.
The law, Joint Resolution 1 of Congress, was signed by President Rodrigo Duterte in January this year.
“The P121. 7 billion for next year’s pay hike for civil servants and uniformed personnel accounts for almost a tenth of the P1.185 trillion budget for personnel services for 2019,” Andaya said.
Personnel services or PS, in turn, makes up for almost 32 percent of the Palace-submitted P3.757-trillion government spending request for next year, he said.
But the P1.185-trillion PS allocation, he explained, funds the first-year compensation for the 10,000 Teacher 1; 10,000 Police Officer 1; 3,000 Fire Officer 1; 2,000 Jail Officer 1 and other positions to be created in the bureaucracy next year.
“The increase in the number of government employees and retired uniformed personnel triggers a corresponding hike in the payroll and pension cost of the government,” Andaya said.
Based on a DBM document, authorized civilian positions in the national government was 1.1 million in 2015. This year it is pegged at 1.32 million and is programmed to reach 1.41 million next year.
Also to benefit from the pay hike for uniformed personnel are selected employees of the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority, said Andaya.
