DBM recommends amendment to EO to activate salary increases for gov’t workers

By Karl Angelo N. Vidal, Reporter
THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has recommended that President Rodrigo R. Duterte amend an executive order (EO) increasing government workers’ salaries, amid the 2019 national budget impasse.
In a statement on Friday, the Budget department said it has recommended to the Office of the President the amendment of EO No. 201 or the fourth tranche of state employees’ salary adjustments signed by then president Benigno S.C. Aquino III in 2016.
“This amendment will authorize government agencies to utilize available appropriations under the re-enacted budget in the meantime to meet the funding requirements of the salary adjustments, subject to existing budgeting, accounting and auditing rules and regulations,” the DBM said in the statement.
“With this measure, the long overdue compensation hike that our public servants have been looking forward to can finally be granted.”
The fourth tranche of adjustments in the salaries of government employees would have had its funding sourced from the 2019 national budget.
However, lawmakers remain in deadlock over details of the P3.757-trillion spending plan for the year, with the Senate accusing the House of Representatives of making last-minute adjustments to the ratified budget measure.
The government is currently operating on a reenacted 2018 budget, which leaves new programs and even big-ticket infrastructure projects unfunded.
“[G]iven current developments constraining the endorsement of the Enrolled Bill by Congress, the Department of Budget and Management needed to prepare a contingency plan to meet the funding requirements of the salary adjustments,” the statement from the DBM read.