Newly-hired teachers fill out civil service forms during a gathering early this week at the ARMM provincial capitol in Cotabato City. Philstar.com/John Unson, file
MANILA, Philippines — The government is the No.1 violator of President Rodrigo Duterte’s promise to eradicate “endo” and a bill that aims to “resize” the bureaucracy will address that, the budget chief said on Tuesday.
“We have already filed a rightsizing bill before the two houses of Congress,” Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said in a speech before the Makati Business Club.
In a question-and-answer portion that followed, he explained that there is a need to tackle the government’s growing 1.26-million-strong workforce, more than a tenth of which were hired on a non-permanent basis.
“There are a lot of ‘endos’ in the government. All these things will be addressed in the bill,” Diokno said.
Duterte has vowed to end the practice of “endo”, short for “end of contract,” which technically means a worker no longer works for a firm after six months.
While this is consistent with the law, some employers have abused this through a practice known as “555”, where companies fire employees before the sixth month to avoid hiring them as regular employees and giving them benefits.
In the government, a total of 131,193 positions are filled with casual, contractual or elective posts as of 2010, accounting for 10.4 percent of the total, latest Civil Service Commission (CSC) data showed.
This covers those working in the national and local government units (LGUs), local water districts, state universities and colleges as well as government-owned and -controlled corporations.
Under Senate Bill 1167, or the Rightsizing the National Government bill, the president will be given powers to abolish or merge state agencies or to transfer their functions as the need arises.
Such moves will be undertaken should the chief executive see agencies that have “duplicating or overlapping” functions that, otherwise, could be merged.
“For instance, one of the possibilities I am thinking of is we create a separate Department of Housing. That’s one possibility,” Diokno said.
“Or we can divide the DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government) into two, one for LGUs and one for local defense. Those are possibilities,” he said.
‘Rightsizing’ committee
A rightsizing committee will also be organized under the bill. This will be co-chaired by the executive secretary and the Budget chief.
Leaders of the National Economic and Development Authority, Presidential Management Staff and the CSC chair will sit on the panel as members.
Among others, the committee is tasked to produce a rightsizing framework and plan for the president’s approval and to monitor its implementation in each agency.
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The plan should include retirement benefits and separation incentives to be offered to those who will be affected by the re-organization. No estimates as to how many workers will be affected were provided.
“It’s not only about just removing people. It’s also about getting the right skills. We will ensure that as we do this, efficiency of government operations will be prioritized,” Diokno said.
