Pay hike for soldiers, cops just waiting Congress OK

Uniformed personnel’s salaries will go up by an average of over half current levels if Congress will approve the executive’s proposal for an additional P63.4 billion to cover the pay hike.

In a statement late Tuesday, the Department of Budget and Management said the Office of the President last Sept. 20 concurred with a draft Congress Joint Resolution aimed at doubling the salaries of entry-level policemen as well as soldiers by next year.

“If signed by both houses of Congress, the resolution will double the base pay of a police officer (PO) 1 in the Philippine National Police, a private in the Department of National Defense, and equivalent ranks in the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Bureau of Fire Protection, Philippine Public Safety College, Philippine Coast Guard, and the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority,” the DBM said.

For instance, a PO1’s monthly base salary will jump by 100 percent to P29,668 from P14,834 at present, according to the DBM.

In all, the average pay increase effective Jan. 1 next year across all the ranks will be 58.7 percent, the DBM added.

But the DBM said that “the provisional and officers’ allowances will no longer be part of the compensation of military and uniformed personnel as these are granted as an interim measure pending the modification of the base pay schedule,” citing Executive Order No. 201 signed by former President Benigno Aquino III in 2016.

EO 201 raised the salaries of civilian personnel as well as granted new and increased allowances for military and uniformed personnel, mandating compensation adjustments in four annual tranches starting last year until 2019.

Citing its estimates, the DBM said the proposed base pay hike among firefighters, jail guards, police and soldiers will cost an additional P63.4 billion, which would be funded from the miscellaneous personnel benefits fund as well as “any available allotment in the respective budgets of the agencies concerned.”