DND wants to form subdepartment to manage resources ‘efficiently’

Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro at a Senate hearing in June 2024 —File photo from the Senate Public Relations and Information Bureauto protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country as enshrined in the Constitution. (Bibo Nueva España/Senate PRIB)

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of National Defense (DND) plans to form —through a congressional bill — a subdepartment  to “manage efficiently” all its resources and agencies, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said on Tuesday.

“We want to file a new bill to create a new department that can manage efficiently all resources and agencies under us,” Teodoro said.

He added the subdepartment will also help the DND oversee its recently approved plantilla positions or “permanent position items in the government with a corresponding authorized budget allotment in the annual General Appropriations Act.”

READ: CSC reveals 203,000 gov’t posts remain unfilled

“Currently, we have an approved plantilla of only 320 people, and we cannot possibly continue to manage them with this kind of system,” Teodoro said during the hearing of the Senate subcommittee on finance

He added the agency is also constrained from hiring subject matter experts due to strict civil service rules and regulations and low salary grade levels.

In line with this, Teodoro said the DND would aim to be “very creative in hiring a lot of subject matter experts.”

“Particularly the IT and cyber field [who] will not comply with civil service rules and regulations because no. 1 they may not have finished education and sometimes their records may be questionable but rather than leave them be exploited by the dark side might as well get them to work for the right side,” he explained.

Based on the Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) staffing summary for 2024, there were about 1,943,138 permanent positions in government agencies such as the Department of National Defense and the Department of Interior and Local Government, among others.

Of this figure, 1,772,470 positions are filled, and 170,668 items are unfilled.