Education Secretary Leonor Briones PHOTO BY JOVIC YEE
EDUCATION Secretary Leonor Briones has warned department personnel against moonlighting as collection agents and reminded all employees to keep their personal information private.
In an order issued on Thursday, Briones reiterated the Department of Education policy prohibiting personnel from acting as collection agents of private lending institutions (PLI), after receiving reports of “fraudulent representations in certain regions with regard to obtaining salary loans from accredited PLIs under the department’s automatic payroll deduction system.”
The misrepresentations, Briones said, involved the submission of genuine or falsified pay slips, government-issued IDs, tax ID numbers, appointment papers, assignment orders, certificates of compensation and other personal records by people posing as DepEd employees, as well as active department workers, who submit falsified pay slips to the PLIs.
“It has reached this department that there are still DepEd personnel serving as agents of PLIs despite the reiteration that such act is prohibited,” Briones said. Jeannette I. Andrade