Solon questions quantity of DSWD undersecretaries, assistant secretaries

MANILA, Philippines — House Deputy Minority Leader France Castro on Thursday expressed her surprise upon learning that the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has around 30 undersecretaries and assistant secretaries.

Castro noted that investing in more social workers is better than maintaining many ranking officials in the DSWD.

The lawmaker asked DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian if the agency currently has ten undersecretaries and 21 assistant secretaries.

In response, Gatchalian said, “Let me just put it in proper context. Yes, there are ten USecs (undersecretaries) and twenty Asecs (assistant secretaries). We are currently in the process of streamlining some more. We seek the indulgence of the Office of the President and our good congresswoman so we are in the process of realigning the functions of the department.”

Gatchalian also pointed out that having these ranking officials is necessary to manage the entire DSWD bureaucracy.

But Castro pointed out that the number of undersecretaries and secretaries far exceeded those of the Department of Education, which is the biggest bureaucracy in the country.

She also added that it would be better to allot more funds to the social workers instead.

“Nabigla lang ako … Ito lang ‘yung agency na may ganito kadaming Usecs at Asecs,” Castro said.

(I was only surprised. This is the only agency with that much amount of Usecs and Asecs.)

“Kung ako ang titingin po, mas maganda na ibigay natin ang pondo para doon sa mga talagang nasa ground na nagtatrabaho, yung mga social worker,” she added.

(In my opinion, it would be better to give funds to those working on the ground, like social workers.)

In response to this, Gatchalian clarified that DSWD is also among the biggest bureaucracies among government agencies.

“We have 34,000 employees as we speak,” he said.

“We run multiple programs in departments. Yes, we are working towards streamlining; second, we also have to put into account details — we run a very big bureaucracy and we run multiple programs — but rightfully so we will review and we are currently reviewing it already,” he went on.

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