Solon files bill to give casual gov’t workers service eligibility after 5 years
The Batasang Pambansa facade (Photo from the Facebook account of the House of Representatives)
MANILA, Philippines — Casual or contractual government employees who have been in service continuously for at least five years may soon get civil service eligibility if a bill filed by BH Rep. Bernadette Herrera is passed and signed into law.
If Herrera’s House Bill No. 1387 is enacted, the Civil Service Commission would be tasked to formulate evaluation standards to determine which employees would qualify for automatic civil service eligibility.
The bill says that contractual or casual workers in the first and second levels would be eligible.
“Subject to the provisions of the Constitution and applicable civil service laws, rules and regulations, all incumbent government employees, as of the approval of this Act, who are holding casual or contractual positions in the first and second levels and who have rendered continuous service for the last five (5) years shall be granted civil service eligibility by the Civil Service Commission,” the bill said.
“Provided, however, that they shall not be entitled to any promotion unless they obtain the appropriate eligibility requirement for that position,” it added.
According to Herrera, the government must take care of its workers to ensure that their economic needs are covered. Data from 2010, which she cited, apparently shows that out of the government’s 1.4 million employees, around 120,000 are said to be under a contractual status.
“As many as 120,000 state workers are said to be contractual employees, and in some agencies such as Department of Transportation, as much as 40% — almost half of the Department’s 6, 948 personnel — remain to be temporary, contractual or ‘job order’ workers,” she said in the bill’s explanatory note.
If the government seeks to end the practice of contractualization in the private sector, Herrera said that the public service industry must first start in its own backyard.
“If the current government’s thrust is to end contractualization or ‘Endo’ in the private sector, so too should it regularize government workers who suffer the same fate. Granting regular status will serve as an incentive towards more productive work, investing in one’s job, and taking on a longer-term view at one’s career advancement,” she said.
“Considering the services they extend in all government offices vis-å-vis the insufficient benefits and privileges accorded the casual and contractual employees, the government should grant these dedicated employees who have rendered efficient service in the bureaucracy an opportunity to obtain their civil service eligibility,” she added.
The government had been urged to regularize workers before. In July, Alliance of Concerned Teachers Rep. France Castro called for regularizing casual and contractual employees, claiming that 500,000 government workers have non-regular status.
READ: Regularization of gov’t contractual workers pushed
DBM’s ‘rightsizing’ plan, removing redundant contractual workers to save money, has also been criticized recently.
Public Services Labor Independent Confederation (PSLink) argues that the plan is out of sync with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy and the rising price of goods in 2022.
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