A pay increase soon?

There's good news for nearly 1.3 million government employees.

      

The national government is setting aside P50.6 billion in the proposed 2016 national budget for the planned salary hike for government workers, which requires congressional approval.

      

Sen. Ralph Recto said the average increase in the monthly pay of government workers would be P3,000. He arrived at the figure by dividing the proposed P50.6 billion by 1,295,056 employees in the government payroll and using 13 compensable months in a year.

      

Recto said it is possible that the mulled pay hike in 2016 "may just be the first installment of a bigger pay adjustment that will be implemented in phases."

      

He recalled that in the initial implementation of Salary Standardization Law (SSL) III, the public sector pay guide in current use was spread out over four years.

      

Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Florencio Abad has confirmed before senators that his department is drafting an SSL IV based on a commissioned study on the state of public sector pay.

      

Recto urged the DBM to submit the bill as soon as possible so it can be tackled "in unison" with the national budget. 

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