Manila gov’t finally pays up

On top of their 13th month pay, government employees in the City of Manila can also look forward to finally getting a long-overdue salary increase.

Manila Treasurer Liberty Toledo said on Tuesday that the fourth tranche of wage hikes under the Salary Standardization Law would be implemented this month, starting with city hall personnel being given a portion of the salary adjustment they should have gotten since 2013.

“We will pay employees the equivalent of the wage hike they [should have] received from January 2014 this year,” Toledo added, saying, “The [pay increase was] supposed to take effect in January 2013 but we can pay only the back wages [due them since the start] of the year” because of budget constraints.

According to her, Mayor Joseph Estrada wanted employees to get what was due them before Christmas. “We have allocated P325 million for the retroactive salary payments to employees of the city government. As I understand it, the payroll is now being processed for the distribution of these payments,” Toledo said.

More than 8,000 of the city’s regular and temporary government workers are expected to benefit from the implementation of the pay hike. Contractual and job order employees are not entitled to the incentive.

From highest to lowest

With the city government implementing the fourth tranche of wage hikes, employees under the lowest salary tier—Salary Grade 1—will have their monthly pay checks raised to P9,000 from P8,287.

Those in the middle level (Salary Grade 17) will receive P29,028 from P26,292. At the top end of the pay grade table, officials in the highest tier (Salary Grade 33) will see their salaries go up to P120,000 a month from P107,470. This means that those at the lowest level will receive more than P8,000 in back wages while those at the top level can look forward to getting around P150,000 in back pay.

The Salary Standardization Law or Republic Act No. 6758 was enacted in 1989, detailing basic wages for government officials. Legislators, however, have yet to enact an updated wage law for civilian government employees as well as military, police, fire and jail personnel. A joint resolution issued by the Senate and the House of Representatives in 2009 finally called for four tranches of gradual salary increases for government personnel.

Manila government employees were supposed to receive the fourth tranche starting in January 2013 but due to the lack of funds, the city government was unable to implement it.

Estrada initially promised to release the back wages in July during his state of the city address as he noted that the city’s finances had improved due to higher revenue collections.

However, as the months passed, employees began wondering whether he would keep his word, especially after Estrada released to Manila policemen their peace and order activity allowance.

“I know city hall employees [have been] complaining about this, but it is hard to [keep everyone happy] when we don’t have money,” he said in a recent interview.

Bigger budget next year

Estrada had also pledged to get the city out of debt by 2015. The Manila City Council is now preparing to enact next year’s budget which it wants to raise to P12 billion from this year’s P9 billion.

Toledo said that while employees would receive just their back wages for 2014, the city government could, in the future, still opt to give them the rest of what is due them.

“The mayor and the city council could decide on that if they think that it can sufficiently be implemented with the funds that we have in the future,” she added.