Philippine Budget Department Streamlines Payment of Government Workers' Salaries and Benefits
Key Takeaways
- •The Department of Budget and Management issued Circular Letter No. 2026-10, removing the need for agencies to file a separate request before certain personnel funding gaps can be addressed.
- •Acting Secretary Kim Robert C. de Leon said the reform is intended to prevent delays in the payment of benefits owed to government workers.
- •The streamlined process covers national government agencies with authorized permanent civilian plantilla positions recorded in the DBM's web-based PSIPOP, which agencies must update during the last week of every month.
- •Covered expenditures include salaries and step increments, multiple allowances, midyear and year-end bonuses and cash gifts, productivity incentives, and counterpart contributions to PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, and employee insurance programs.
- •Funding deficiencies arising from hiring, promotion, reclassification, or other human resource actions taken after Sept. 30, along with requirements outside the circular's scope, still require a separate budget request for DBM review and evaluation.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has removed the requirement for a separate request to cover certain personnel expenses, in a move intended to streamline how the government handles salary and benefit funding gaps across agencies.
Under Circular Letter No. 2026-10, the DBM can now determine covered funding requirements using updated personnel and financial data, without waiting for agencies to submit a separate request.
DBM Acting Secretary Kim Robert C. de Leon said the reform seeks to prevent delays in the payment of benefits due to government workers.
The reform covers national government agencies with authorized permanent civilian plantilla positions included in the DBM's web-based Personnel Services Itemization and Plantilla of Personnel (PSIPOP). Under the circular, agencies are required to review their PSIPOP and update the Plantilla of Personnel during the last week of every month — a recurring task that now supplies the personnel data the DBM relies on to determine funding requirements on its own.
Covered personnel services expenditures include salaries and step increments; the Personnel Economic Relief Allowance; uniform and clothing allowance; midyear and year-end bonuses and cash gifts; medical allowance; the Productivity Enhancement Incentive; and representation and transportation allowances.
The streamlined process also covers the government's counterpart contributions to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., the state health insurer; the Home Development Mutual Fund, also known as the Pag-IBIG Fund, which manages housing-related savings; the Employees Compensation Insurance Premium; and the Retirement and Life Insurance Premium — taking the streamlined route beyond direct pay into the government's social insurance and savings obligations for its workforce.
However, personnel funding deficiencies arising from hiring, promotion, reclassification and other human resource actions undertaken after Sept. 30, as well as requirements outside the scope of the circular, will still require a separate budget request for DBM review and evaluation. In practice, the Sept. 30 cutoff separates the requirements the DBM can now determine on its own from those that still follow the agency-initiated request route. How consistently agencies complete those monthly updates, and how many funding gaps end up back in the request queue, are the operational details to watch as the circular is applied.
Source: BusinessWorld — Justine Irish D. Tabile
