MANILA, Philippines – “The bulk of this number of contract of service and job order workers in the government are in the local government units at 580,323 or 69.68% as of June 30, 2023,” ang sinabi ni DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman sa isinagawang budget deliberations sa panukalang P6.32-trillion budget para sa 2025 sa Senate finance sub-committee.
Ang natitirang contractual government employees na nagta-trabaho ay sa ilalim ng mga sumusunod:
national government agencies (173,227 o 20.8%)
state universities and colleges (44,168 o 5.3%)
government-owned and -controlled corporations (28,667 o 3.44%)
local water districts (6,427 or 0.77%)
Piniga naman ni Senator Joel Villanueva, chairman ng Senate Committee on Labor si Pangandaman kung paano tugunan ang malaking bilang ng contractuals kontra sa mataas na bilang ng ‘unfilled positions’ sa gobyerno.
Ang tugon ni Pangandaman, magpapalabas ang DBM at Civil Service Commission ng joint circular kung saan nire-require ang lahat ng ahensiya na magsumite ng kanilang posisyon para sa reclassification at lahat ng unfilled positions upang makapaglaan ang DBM ng budget na naaayon.
“The DBM and Civil Service can publish a circular of sorts to really encourage, across the board, all agencies, to reclassify and fill out their [unfilled] positions. Because not all agencies request this,” ang sinabi ni Pangandaman.
“One of the things we are looking at for the circular is that for positions which have been left unfilled for more than 10 years, maybe we can scrap it and reclassify it, and create new positions,” dagdag na pahayag nito.
Sinabi naman ni Villanueva na inaasahan niya na tutuparin ni Pangandaman ang mga pangako nito, sinabi nito na hindi makapagtatakda ng standard ang gobyerno para makapag-provide ng job security kapag nag-employ ng mas maraming contractuals.
“I trust the secretary to take a lead on this because it’s been a while. We talked about this last year, and unfortunately, there are still many agencies that are not responding to our calls,” ayon kay Villanueva.
“Unfortunately, the improvement has been so slow. Because it is very hard to push for an end to contractualization, asking the private sector to get away or reject the idea of end of contract [after every six months], and yet the government is the number one violator. That would be tough,” ang sinabi ni Villanueva.
Tinuran pa rin ni Pangandaman na may mga ahensiya na ang gumagawa ng ‘restructuring at reclassification’ ng posisyon.
Tinuran nito na magsusumite siya ng listahan ng komite. Kris Jose
