Department of Budget and Management Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman said on Monday, Aug. 12, that entry-level pay for educators in public schools will increase by around P3,024 in 2025.
This comes following the signing of Executive Order (EO) No. 64 which will increase the salary of government employees in four tranches, wherein the first part will happen retroactively this year, covering the period January to December 2024.
For educators classified as Teacher I, their baseline Salary Grade 11 of P27,000 will increase to P30,024 in 2025 or the second tranche of the implementation of the salary standardization law. This will cover around 360,000 teachers, Pangandaman said.
This year, they are also expected to have a salary increase of P28,512, which is the first tranche of the salary standardization law.
Pangandaman said that government agencies can now adjust the salary increase this week and may implement it starting this August, depending on how fast agencies can carry out the new wages.
The salary increase will benefit around 1.36 million government employees in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches; government-owned or controlled corporations not covered by Republic Act No. 10149; constitutional commissions and other constitutional offices; and local government units.
Of these 1.36 million employees, 165,007 are sub-professionals; 1,170,647 professionals, such as teachers and lawyers; and 22,640 personnel in executive functions.
The DBM said it had allocated P70 billion in the 2025 National Expenditure Program to ensure the implementation of the initial tranches of the salary increase.
Meanwhile, some P36 billion have been set aside for Personnel Services expenditures under the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA) in preparation for this salary hike, which the DBM previously proposed to the President.
The EO also aims to provide each government employee P7,000 for their medical allowance as a subsidy to avail of Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) benefits or HMO-type benefits.
Salary increase for COS?
For those government employees under the contract of service (COS) and job order (JO) workers and consultants, Pangandaman said that they can have a premium increase of only up to 20 percent.
"Kunwari ang salary grade ngayon ay 10,000, pwede po tayo mag-angat ng 20 percent premium para po sa kanila para madagdagan po ng konti ang kanilang salary kasi they don't have yet the same benefits from the Civil Service," Pangandaman said.
Apart from COS and job order workers, those excluded from the salary increase are military and uniformed personnel, government agencies that are exempt from RA No. 6758, and GOCCs under RA No. 10149 and EO No. 150.
The DBM chief also urged government agencies to acquire COS and JO workers in the unfilled plantilla positions.
According to Pangandaman, there is a total of 2.17 million plantilla positions, wherein 92 percent are filled and the remaining eight percent, or around 168,000 plantilla positions are unfilled.
"We encourage our department heads to absorb yung mga JO at COS natin," she said.