Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Thursday urged the national government to conduct a mass regularization of casual workers who have been employed in various state agencies for years, if not decades.

Being the country’s biggest employer, Recto said the national government should initiate such program during Labor Day, noting that many contractual workers in government have been employed for so many years but are not entitled to benefits.

“It can begin with contractual workers in government hospitals. Not only medical staff, but essential workers like attendants, cleaning and sanitation personnel, equipment technicians—without whom no hospital can exist,” Recto said in a statement.

“The are many civil servants who work on the basis of one short-term contract to another. Hindi na e-‘endo’. Hindi rin naman nape-permanent. They languish in the bureaucracy’s version of purgatory,” Recto lamented.

Recto was referring to the popular short term for “end of contract” or the termination of work after a fixed period.

The senator said it is high time for the government to “open a pathway” to regular employment for the thousands of casuals who may be eligible for jobs which carry security of tenure.

“Let us begin with the most deserving. It should be a regularization based on merit,” he said.

The senator said the government can start off with the President issuing a policy announcement on May 1, saying even a promise from the Chief Executive can be a good starting point for the process to proceed.

Recto expressed belief a presidential directive would trigger a census of temporary workers in the public sector who are hired under government employment schemes like “job order”, “emergency hiring”, ”Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)”, or “Contract of Service.”

Based on the records provided by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) to Congress during the deliberations on the 2021 national budget last year, the government has around 600,000 contractual employees as of August 2020—a five-fold increase from the 120,000 the CSC reported in 2010.

“At 600,000, the ‘contractuals’ are bigger than the Army, and second in size to the almost million-man DepEd (Department of Education) workforce,” he said.

This figure, he said, “distorts and hides” actual government spending for personnel services because salaries of casuals are charged to maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOEs) and not on “Personnel Services.”

He also pointed out the government agencies are saving money under these arrangements since they do not have to pay for the pension contributions of what are essentially private workers.