Government employees are looking forward to this.
“President Noynoy Aquino said he might sign the Salary Standardization Law 4 (SSL4) increasing the salary of about 1.6-million government workers after lawyers from the Office of the President have finished reviewing crucial issues,” reports Delon Porcalla in The Philippine Star.
“I am hoping by Friday (February 19) they would be done with the last question and I can sign it,” Aquino disclosed to members of Philippine media who covered the two-day US-Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Palm Springs, California.
The report noted: “Office of the President staffers are in the process of getting the legal basis, as well as its effect on labor laws, regarding the almost synonymous or nearly redundant performance-based bonus and performance enhancement incentive.”
Moreover, as the report added, “There are also the complaints about the indexation of salaries for retired and active personnel from both the armed forces and police units, where pensioners may turn out to receive higher pay than their incumbent counterparts.”
House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II explained that “the proposed SSL4 sets a four-year government-wide salary increase program that will cost taxpayers a total of PHP850 billion.”
That figure would include the Senate proposal to increase not only the salaries of the 1.527 million government workers, including 347,000 military and other uniformed personnel (MUP), but also the pensions of 211,584 retired MUP.
Budget Secretary Butch Abad has submitted to President Aquino a draft executive order that would serve as basis for the implementation of the first tranche of SSL4 retroactive to Jan. 1 this year.
