Excess, unused GOCC funds to cover salary hike, benefits of 1.8 million gov't workers

MANILA, Philippines — Close to two million government workers are expected to benefit from the unprogrammed appropriations that will be funded by the idle and unused funds of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), with a total of P67.6 billion to be utilized to cover salary increases and benefits of the country's civil servants.

In a list enumerating the items that will be covered by 2024 unprogrammed appropriations, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) revealed that two priority programs that would receive funding are personnel benefits and Salary Standardization Law (SSL) VI.

Forty billion pesos will be allocated for the roll out of salary increases of 1,820,610 government employees. The DBM earlier announced that the first part of the four-tranche salary increase for national government employees will commence this year, retroactively from January 2024. This will be followed by yearly salary adjustment starting January 2025 until January 2027.
 
Under the first tranche, the average rate of salary increase for all salary grade levels — SG 1 to SG 31 — will be 4.41%. The proposed rate of increase under SSL VI will be slightly higher than SSL V.

A total of P27.6 billon, on the other hand, will be used to cover the payment of government personnel benefits. The amount appropriated herein shall be used to cover the requirements for the payment of personnel benefits, such as but not limited to, compensation adjustments, staffing modifications, and the grant of Performance-Based Bonus for personnel of National Government Agencies. 

Among the GOCCs with excess funds that will be tapped for unprogrammed appropriations are the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp., P117 billion; and the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), P89.9 billion. 

PhilHealth earlier remitted P20 billion last May, funds that were allocated for the P27.7 billion in emergency benefits and allowances of COVID frontliners. On Wednesday, an additional P10 billion was remitted by PhilHealth to the national government.