THE government will allocate P110 billion over three years for the salary increase of government workers, including nurses and teachers, a key legislator said.

House Ways and Means committee chairperson and Albay 2nd district Rep. Jose Ma. S. Salceda said the 2020 budget provides for P32 billion for wage increase and P4 billion for miscellaneous benefits.

He noted that “these has been programmed within the organic capacity of the government and need no new taxes to underwrite it.”

“It will favor SG (Salary Grades) 1-17 with higher increases while those in SG 18-33 including the President and Congressmen will receive lower increases,” Mr. Salceda said.

In July, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the government will proceed immediately with the fifth round of adjustments to public servants’ salaries under the Salary Standardization Law.

He said that the Finance department and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) have come up with initial estimates for “affordable” salary adjustments.

“The adjustments will preserve and somewhat improve the purchasing power of civil servants considering the consumer price inflation of 3.4% over the past three years (2016 — 1.8%, 3.2%; 2017 and 2018 — 5.2%) and forward estimates for 3-year inflation of 2-4% per year,” Mr. Salceda said.

DBM has allocated P31.1 billion in miscellaneous personal funds to finance the first tranche of the SSL. Currently, the Philippines has 1.4 million civil servants. — Vince Angelo C. Ferreras

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