Marcos secures pay raise for government workers until 2027

The first tranche of increases across all salary grades begins retroactively from January 1, 2024. It applies to civilian personnel in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as in constitutional commissions and offices, GOCCs, and LGUs.

MANILA, Philippines – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has issued an executive order (EO) allowing the increase of government workers’ salaries across all pay grades and step increments.

In EO 64 dated August 2 and uploaded to the Official Gazette on Saturday, August 3, Marcos updated the Salary Schedule for Civilian Government Personnel to have increases in four tranches beginning retroactively from January 1, 2024.

The second tranche will begin on January 1, 2025, the third on January 1, 2026, and the fourth and final tranche on January 1, 2027.

The rates in the new salary schedule represent the monthly salary for full-time regular or contractual personnel, whether appointive or elective.

It applies to all civilian government personnel in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, constitutional commissions and offices, government-owned or -controlled corporations (GOCC), and local government units (LGUs).

Workers that are not covered are those that fall under the categories of job order, contracts of service, consultancy, service contracts with no employee-employer relationship, or GOCCs covered by a separate compensation system.

For LGUs, local lawmakers will determine the percentage of the salary schedule they will implement based on the LGU’s financial capacity.

For instance, special cities and first class provinces and municipalities must pay 100% of the provided rates, while sixth class municipalities may pay just 65% of the new rates.

Qualified government employees will also get a medical allowance of P7,000.

National government agencies are expected to source the funding of the increases from “any available appropriations” under the 2024 General Appropriations Act, while the funding needed for the next years will be included in the succeeding national expenditure programs.

EO 64 highlighted a 2008 congressional joint resolution and the Salary Standardization Law of 2019 saying that the state needed to ensure the compensation of all civilian personnel would generally be competitive with the private sector doing comparable work “in order to attract, retain, and motivate a corps of competent and dedicated civil servants.”

The Department of Budget and Management earlier allocated P70 billion in the proposed P6.35-trillion 2025 national budget for the salary increase of government workers. – Rappler.com