DENR employees appeal for fairness, equality in impending layoffs

MANILA, Philippines—The labor union at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is appealing to the government to “soften the blow” of a looming rationalization program that is expected to cut the agency’s workforce by at least 20 percent.

Leaders of the DENR Employees Union (DENREU), the local union at the agency’s headquarters in Quezon City, asked Environment Secretary Ramon Paje, who is on leave, to help find “creative ways to mitigate the impact” of the program to eliminate redundancies in personnel.

In an assembly at the DENR’s main lobby, dozens of union members spoke out against the impending rationalization, noting that many of those who would be affected were the “small, lowly paid workers” belonging to the lowest salary grades.

“We understand that it’s national policy, and that under the global political economy, rationalization is the way to go. We also understand that the rationalization in the DENR is long overdue,” DENREU president Julie Gorospe-Ibuan said. “But what we are asking for is that the sacrifice need not be made by just the small, lowly paid workers. The burden has to be shared by everyone.”

Ibuan said the rationalization should not affect only those in Salary Grades 1-6, whose ranks include drivers and clerks, but also staffers and officers in higher positions.

Her group also asked for assistance from the department to suitably “prepare” those who would lose their jobs by offering alternative forms of livelihood.

Under the government’s rationalization program, mandated by Executive Order No. 366 issued in October 2004, all government entities in the executive branch are required to review their organizational charts and submit rationalization plans to the budget department.

The executive order states that employees belonging to less significant positions shall not be forced to leave government, but will instead be given the option to be reassigned to another agency, or leave and get paid.

But Ibuan said the union has been kept mostly in the dark about the rationalization plan, meaning those who might have to be separated from their jobs would have so little time to prepare themselves and their families.

“On May 1, we will be in the streets to ventilate our grievances,” she said. She said the union also has not had the chance to raise the issue with  Paje, who has appointed Undersecretary Demetrio Ignacio as officer-in-charge in his absence.

Paje is on vacation in the United States prior to his participation in the World Bank’s ministerial meeting on Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services, and the World Ocean Summit, both in Washington D.C.