Policy and purpose
- The State declares it is committed to protect the rights and promote the welfare of the Filipino worker.
- The Act directs expansion and streamlining in the Office of the Solicitor General to ensure efficient and effective performance of the Government’s legal service.
- The Act requires increasing legal and administrative staffing to meet the Republic’s burgeoning need for legal services.
- The Act mandates promoting litigation and other skills, augmenting benefits, enhancing employee welfare, and encouraging academic growth and honing of legal and communications expertise.
Organizational expansion and structure
- The Act requires increasing the staff of the Office of the Solicitor General and upgrading their positions.
- The Act increases the legal divisions to at least thirty (30), from fifteen (15).
- Each division must be permanently headed by an Assistant Solicitor General.
- Each division must consist of ten (10) lawyers and such other personnel as may be necessary for the office to carry out its functions.
- The Act reorganizes the Office’s administrative structure into the Financial Management Service, Docket and Case Management Services, and Human Resources Management Service.
- The Act provides that all general occupying positions affected by the Act at the time of approval shall thereafter occupy the positions mandated by the Act, perform the duties of their new positions, and receive the corresponding salary and benefits without the necessity of any new appointment.
Appointment standards and ranks
- The Act provides that the Solicitor General shall have cabinet rank.
- The Act provides that the Solicitor General must have the same qualifications for appointment, rank, prerogatives, salaries, allowances, benefits and privileges as the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeals.
- The Act provides that an Assistant Solicitor General must have qualifications, rank, prerogatives, salaries, allowances, benefits, and privileges like an Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals.
- The Act sets that the qualifications for appointment, rank, prerogatives, salaries, and privileges of Solicitors shall be the same as judges, with the following mapping:
- Senior State Solicitor — Regional Trial Court Judge
- State Solicitor II — Metropolitan Trial Court Judge
- State Solicitor I — Municipal Trial Court in Cities Judge
- The Act gives the Solicitor General the power to determine the qualifications, prerogatives and responsibilities of Associate Solicitors.
Compensation and funding for positions
- The Act fixes basic monthly compensation and grades for key positions:
- Solicitor General: Grade 30–31
- Assistant Solicitor General: Grade 29–30
- Senior State Solicitor: Grade 28–29
- State Solicitor II: Grade 27–28
- State Solicitor I: Grade 26–27
- Associate Solicitor III: Grade 25–26
- Associate Solicitor II: Grade 22–25
- Associate Solicitor I: Grade 18–24
- The Act requires raising the positions and salaries of non-legal personnel in the Office to the level of their counterparts in the Court of Appeals.
- The Act authorizes further increases in salaries and privileges of personnel, subject to availability of funds, to match later increases granted to their respective Court of Appeals counterparts.
Employee benefits and professional support
- The Act authorizes, subject to availability of funds, the Office to provide employees the following benefits:
- Health care services through a health maintenance organization (HMO), with the mandatory annual executive check-up of the Solicitor General, Assistant Solicitors General, and Service Heads paid by the Office.
- Accident insurance policies procured by the Office at its own expense for travels during official duties and functions.
- Scholarships for deserving employees on official time and at the expense of the Office to enhance academic growth and upgrade legal and communications skills; scholars must be selected based on competitive examination.
- A provident fund composed of contributions by the Office and by its lawyers and employees to a common fund for payment of benefits to lawyers or employees or their heirs.
- The Act requires, subject to availability of funds, that the Office bear:
- Fees for relevant seminars.
- Professional membership fees for lawyers.
- Registration fees and related miscellaneous expenses incurred in completing the mandatory continuing legal education (MCLE) course.
- For other employees holding positions requiring a professional license: professional membership, registration fees (including those for mandatory continuing professional education (CPE)), and related miscellaneous expenses.
- The Act authorizes contracted transportation services for employees until the Office can procure additional motor vehicles for this purpose, subject to availability of funds.
- The Act allows the legal staff of the Office to receive honoraria and allowances from client departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the Government, consistent with Executive Order No. 292 (Revised Administrative Code of 1987).
- The Act grants a franking privilege: all official mail matters and telegrams of the Office addressed for delivery within the Philippines must be received, transmitted, and delivered free of charge.
- The franking privilege excludes private/nongovernment addressees exceeding one hundred and twenty (120) grams.
Special allowances and salary-increase conversions
- The Act grants special allowances to the Solicitor General, Assistant Solicitors General, Senior State Solicitors, State Solicitors I and II, and Associate Solicitors I to III.
- The amount of special allowances must be determined by the Secretary of the Department of Budget and Management and the Solicitor General.
- The Act requires the special allowances to be implemented uniformly in sums and amounts and only to the extent supported by the funding sources under Section 11.
- The Act imposes a ceiling: the special allowance must not exceed One hundred percent (100%) of the basic salary of solicitors provided in Republic Act No. 6758 (Salary Standardization Law).
- When any subsequent salary rate increases provided under Republic Act No. 6758, as amended, are implemented:
- Special allowances granted under Section 10 are considered implementation of the salary increases as may be provided by law.
- The special allowances equivalent to the increase in basic salary are converted as part of the basic salary.
- Converted amounts funded as basic salary must be funded from the Office’s regular appropriations.
- Any excess allowances not converted as basic salary continue to be granted as such and continue to be funded under Section 11.
Funding sources and trust fund rule
- The Act provides that the funds required to implement the Act—including health care services, insurance premiums, professional/educational/registration fees, contracted transportation benefits, and other benefits—shall be taken from:
- Five percent (5%) of monetary awards given by the Courts to client departments, agencies and instrumentalities of the Government, including those under court-approved compromise agreements.
- Fifty percent (50%) of fees collected by the Special Committee on Naturalization.
- All other income, fees and revenues earned and collected by the Office of the Solicitor General.
- The Act authorizes the Office of the Solicitor General to charge deputation, certification and other similar fees in the cases it handles.
- The Act declares that amounts collected under these sources constitute a trust fund in the name of the Office of the Solicitor General to be managed and used by the Solicitor General to carry out the Act.
Implementing rules, appropriations, and effect
- The Act requires implementing rules: within sixty (60) days from the approval of the Act, the Solicitor General, in coordination with the Secretary of Budget and Management, must promulgate rules and regulations necessary to carry out the Act.
- The Act directs that funding for office streamlining and physical expansion be taken from the funds and budget of the Office of the Solicitor General under the annual General Appropriations Acts.
Repeals, separability, and operative continuity
- The Act repeals or amends, to the extent of inconsistency, pertinent provisions of:
- Executive Order No. 292 (Revised Administrative Code of 1987), as amended
- Republic Act No. 9139
- Executive Order No. 460 dated December 3, 1997
- Executive Order No. 482 dated May 7, 1998
- Administrative Order No. 117 dated February 17, 1994
- and all laws, decrees, orders, rules and regulations, or parts thereof, contrary to or inconsistent with the Act.
- The Act includes a separability rule: if any provision is declared invalid or unconstitutional, the remaining provisions continue in full force and effect.