Senator Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara on Tuesday assured that government workers will receive increases in their salaries on January 1 next year once Congress approves the final version of the Salary Standardization Law 5 (SSL-5) within the week.
Angara, who chairs the Senate finance panel, made the assurance after the Senate approved on third and final reading Senate Bill 1219 with a vote of 21-0-1, Monday night.
This was shortly after the House of Representatives passed its own version of the SSL-5. In the upper chamber, only
Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon was the lone senator who abstained from voting on the measure.
Angara, who defended the bill on behalf of its sponsor Senator Ramon Revilla Jr., said the fifth round of salary increases will be implemented in four tranches, starting January 1 next year.
The succeeding salary increases will be implemented in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Angara said a total of P130.45- billion would be needed to implement the four tranches of the SSL-5, with P33.16-billion as the funding requirement for 2020.
The senator said funding for the first tranche of the SSL-5 is already provided under the P4.1-trillion national budget, which the Senate and House earlier ratified.
“We are increasing the salaries of our civil servants in response to the continued hike in daily expenses such as food, transportation and even the education of their children,” Angara said.
Under SSL-5, the lowest salary grade level employee, who is receiving P11,068 a month, will enjoy an increase in his compensation to P11,551 in 2020, to P12.034 in 2021, to P12,517 in 2022, and to P13,000 in 2023.
For Salary Grade 11 employees or the entry-level for teachers, they will receive an increase from R20,754 a month to P22,316 (2020), P23,877 (2021), P25,439 (2022), and P27,000 (2023).
Angara said the biggest increases would apply to employees belonging to the Salary Grades 10 to 16 bracket or the professionals, who comprise the bulk of the bureaucracy.
For instance, he said the Teacher 1 to Teacher 3 positions would see increases in their salaries ranging from 24 percent to 30.7 percent from the first to fourth tranches of the SSL-5.
According to Angara, the lowest increases would apply to the middle managers, executives and the top officials of the country or from SG 25 to 33, at a mere eight percent.
Angara explained this is because they were already covered by significant increases in the previous round of salary increases or SSL-4.
In the SSL-5, the decision was to focus on the employees in the middle, Angara said.
The lawmaker also said that under the Constitution, the salaries of the President and Vice President will remain the same and whatever increases that would be provided by the new law would only be enjoyed after their terms. The same applies to the incumbent members of Congress.
Meanwhile, employees with Salary Grades 1 to 10 or the sub-professional levels, the increases in the pay will be from 17.5 percent to 20.5 percent over four years. (Hannah Torregoza)
