DBM: 4th salary hike possible through EO

Government employees whose fourth tranche of salary increase this year has been delayed by the impasse over the 2019 national budget may actually receive their much-awaited pay hike through an executive order to be issued by President Duterte.

Acting Budget Secretary and officer in charge Janet Abuel told media after Wednesday’s Development Budget Coordination Committee meeting that an executive order will allow the government to disburse the salary adjustments in case the reenacted budget continues to drag.

This was contrary to an earlier pronouncement by former budget chief and now Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno who said that only with the 2019 appropriations can the government implement the salary hike mandated under Executive Order No. 201 issued by former President Benigno Aquino III in 2016.

But Abuel said the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) was still hopeful that the 2019 general appropriations act will be approved ahead of the EO issuance.

In February, House appropriations committee chair Rolando Andaya Jr. told the Inquirer that a draft EO providing funding for the pay increase under last year’s Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund was already “on the President’s desk.”

But Diokno said there was “no legal basis” to Andaya’s claim that the salary hike can be implemented without the 2019 budget in place.

Following Abuel’s pronouncement that the DBM had submitted to the President the draft EO to implement the salary hike, Andaya said: “It seems that this time around, public service has taken over pride.”