A Facebook post supposedly made by former Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman questioning the firing of contractual employees of the department has triggered an online feud with her successor, Judy Taguiwalo, who lashed out at her predecessor’s “interference.”
A Facebook post attributed to Soliman circulated on social media on Monday. It decried the unfair termination of contractual or so-called memorandum of agreement (MOA) employees of the Department of Social Welfare and Development supposedly associated with her.
The post was no longer in Soliman’s Facebook account as of Thursday, and the Inquirer did not receive a reply when it tried to contact her.
Taguiwalo, who was with President Duterte at the Asean Summit in Laos, confirmed on Thursday the post had come from Soliman.
Taguiwalo, an activist and former professor, took to her Facebook account to brush off “unfounded criticisms and unwelcome interference from former senior DSWD officials.”
Taguiwalo said the hiring and firing of personnel were within the bounds of the department’s guidelines and contracts.
Soliman was the social welfare secretary in the six years of the Aquino administration and for five years under the Arroyo administration.
“My heart is heavy… Some of my former colleagues in DSWD [MOA workers] are being terminated for loss of confidence and trust by the current leadership,” Soliman’s Facebook post read.
“Is it because they are associated with me, they cannot be trusted despite their outstanding and very satisfactory ratings on their performance contracts? Is this fair? Is this just?” the post said.
Union silence
Soliman also expressed frustration at the silence of the employees’ union, Social Welfare Employees Association of the Philippines (Sweap).
“Is power consuming the ideals of fairness, workers right to due process? When the test for fairness and just cause is implemented, I think there is failure in the current situation. So where is Sweap? In the end could it be selective justice?” she said.
Responding through her Facebook page, Taguiwalo said: “I will not be derailed by unfounded criticisms and the unwelcome interference from former DSWD senior officials.”
She said she was focusing on work and was addressing “problems that we continue to unearth and that are being reported to us not only by various ranking officials, rank and file employees and, more importantly, beneficiaries and ordinary citizens.”
The department has around 16,000 workers under the MOA scheme whose employment contracts are renewed every few months.