BOC extends job contracts of staff affected by nepotism rule

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has given contractual staff with relatives also working in the agency more time to keep their respective jobs before they will be given the boot by the middle of this year.

Under Customs Administrative Order (CAO) No. 02-2015 issued by BOC Commissioner John Phillip P. Sevilla and Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima last Jan. 9, such employees whose contracts of service lapsed on Dec. 31 last year “may be allowed” to renew their job contracts for another term not more than six months, after which no extension shall be allowed.

The stop-gap measure was aimed at “[preventing] disruption in the performance of public functions and rendering of public services due to the nonrenewal of contract of services in the bureau which expired as of Dec. 31, 2014,” according to the BOC.

The agency was still seeking “sufficient time” to hire and train new workers to replace those who would lose their jobs under CAO 03-2014, which laid down the BOC’s antinepotism rules that were implemented starting last year.

Under CAO 03-2014, the BOC ordered that “[n]o person who is a relative of a current officer or employee of the bureau shall be appointed or designated to any position in the bureau.”

The rules defined the term “relative” as a “family relation within the fourth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity.”

The antinepotism rules had been issued to “promote equal opportunities, meritocracy and impartiality in job hiring, promotion and grant of workplace benefits” while also preventing conflict of interest among BOC officers and employees when performing their functions as well as enforcing customs laws and regulations, the agency had said.

But in the meantime, the BOC via CAO 02-2015 has given contractual employees whose contracts cannot be renewed anymore “sufficient time” to find another job outside the agency.