Recto urges Abad to submit proposed salary hike for govt workers as soon as possible

Senator Ralph Recto on Wednesday urged Budget Secretary Florencio Abad to submit to Congress as soon as possible the bill seeking to increase the salary of 1.3 million government workers.

This was after Abad confirmed to senators during the budget hearing that the DBM is drafting the proposal for salary hike based on a commissioned study on the state of public sector pay.

Some P50.6 billion was allocated in the proposed 2016 national budget for the salary increase of 1.3 million government personnel. The details of the pay hike, however, are still to be fleshed out in a bill the Palace will later send to Congress.

“We set aside about P50.6 billion but we still have not put together a proposal based on a recently completed compensation and benefits survey that we will have to take up with the President and the Cabinet,” Abad said.

He added that there is also a proposal for a P16.8-billion performance-based incentives for 2016.

Senate discussion

Recto said the proposal for the salary hike can be tackled “in unison” with the national budget. “You can’t divorce the two. 27 centavos for every budget peso in 2016 is for personnel services,”  he said.

“There is also the need to subject the proposal to feedback and consultation from stakeholders, like government employees. Kung ano man ang numero, dapat pag-aralan kung sapat ba ito o kulang,” he added.

Recto said one critical aspect in the funding is the identification of the clear sources of funds.  “It is easy to pick a figure. The challenge is to raise the cash to fund the increase," he said.

Recto said personnel services (PS) expenses of the government will hit P810 billion in 2016, from this year’s adjusted figure of P745 billion.

“We’re going  to spend P2.2 billion a day for PS next year,” he said.

Priorities

The senator also reiterated his call that any pay hike should prioritize teachers, policemen, firemen and soldiers, as they constitute about four-fifths of the government workforce.

"Ito ‘yung Police Officer 1, Teacher 1, Firemen 1. They're mostly clustered around the Salary Grade 11 to 13 brackets. They get a basic monthly pay of between P18,549 to P21,436. These are the people who are in need of a salary hike," he said.

At present, the government's Compensation and Position Classification System — last modified in 2009 — has 33 salary grades. Except for Grade 33, which is occupied by one person, the President, each salary grade has eight steps.

"So there are a total of 257 pay categories which must be studied and adjusted. There must be distinctions and differentiation between and within the salary grades," Recto said.

"What makes the job harder is that all of these 257 pay categories must be accommodated within a ceiling, which at present is P120,000 a month--the salary the President gets," he added.

At the other end of the spectrum, he said, is the P9,000 monthly salary of a Salary Grade 1, Step 1 holder, the entry-level post in government.

Recto pointed out personal services costs have grown by 77.2 percent from P457.6 billion in 2010 to next year’s proposed P810.8 billion level. —KBK, GMA News