ILOILO CITY (PNA) — The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has yet to come up with a guideline regarding the release of the R1,000 additional monthly allowance for government employees after President Arroyo announced its release on March 15.

DBM Assistant Regional Director for Western Visayas Alfonso Bedonia said the administrative order that was signed by President Arroyo has to be transmitted to their central office for the guidelines to be prepared.

The additional allowance as announced will be retroactive to February, thus the employees will receive R3,000 each to cover the three months from January.

Bedonia said the implementation would cover all those that are covered by the Salary Standardization Law, government-owned and -controlled corporations, local government units and special compensation employees.

He said the release of the allowance is supposed to be March 15 but it might be affected by the system of bureaucracy and the mechanism needed for the release.

Bedonia, however, assured that it can be released within this month.

Right now, the DBM will still work on the guidelines in the coming days in the grant of the allowance because its release was only announced last Tuesday evening, he said.

Bedonia was also careful to announce whether the new benefit would fall under the allowance or basic pay of the employees.

He said that the original proposal in the 2006 budget – wherein an eight percent increase based in basic pay of government workers was pushed, was for it to be part of the allowance.

He said if it the additional P1,000 monthly pay for government workers will be treated as an allowance, then the Bureau of Internal Revenue will determine if there would deductions. But if it will be included in the basic pay, then it will be subjected to various deductions.