Marcos slams CSC for abetting high PH unemployment rate
Sen. Imee Marcos slammed the Civil Service Commission (CSC) today for abetting the high unemployment rate in the country by failing to certify applicants eligible for thousands of government jobs that have been left vacant for years.
As the country struggles with the negative impact of the COVID-19 on the country's labor sector, Marcos said it is imperative that the CSC fill up the vacant positions in government agencies.
Marcos, who is poised to tackle the CSC budget for 2021, noted that more than 269,000 permanent government positions were left unfilled in 2019, with almost 178,000 still vacant at the end of August this year.
“When government positions are left unfilled, the unused budget for hiring personnel are later declared as yearend savings," Marcos said.
"These suspicious savings become bonuses divvied up among agency officials,” she added.
She also said some P7.6 billion from the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF) in the 2020 budget supposedly for the hiring of new personnel in various government agencies remains unutilized.
Marcos said she believes internal wrangling among CSC board members and a passive attitude in taking government agencies to task were complicating the delay in filling up vacant government posts.
“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Ceasefire and work, serbisyo muna (service first),” Marcos said. “The CSC will have difficulty justifying its proposed budget for next year if no initiatives are made for better housekeeping,” she added.
She said the CSC should fasttrack a policy that makes contractual employees eligible for government jobs that they have performed for years but which they could not claim commission-certified salaries and benefits.
"The government must stop being the biggest promoter of end-of-contract employment. Let’s stop treating contractuals as mere supplies whose salaries are taken from funds for miscellaneous and other operating expenses,” Marcos said.
She added that idle funds for government posts that continue to remain vacant should be removed from proposed agency budgets and instead be used to increase funding for the government’s COVID-19 response.