President Rodrigo R. Duterte signs on the guestbook after arriving at the Edwin Andrews Airbase on July 21. He is welcomed by Zamboanga City Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco Salazar and Brigadier General Domingo B. Palisoc, commander of the third Air Division of the Philippine Air Force. (MNS photo)
MANILA (Mabuhay) – Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto on Tuesday urged the Duterte administration to “practice what it preaches” and end the contractual employment of up to 120,000 state workers by absorbing them as regular employees.
This as President Rodrigo Duterte demanded private firms to stop hiring personnel on a contractual basis, threatening to shut down those who would not comply with the order to end the long existing practice locally referred to as “endo,” a shorthand for “end of contract.”
Recto said the government should “open a pathway to regular employment for thousands of casuals who are eligible for permanent civil service.”
Saying the size of casual and contractual workers in government were “as big as the Army,” Recto said there should be an inventory of temporary state workers, including those hired through “job-order,” “emergency hiring,” and the “memorandum of agreement” schemes which are all postings that do not afford an opportunity for regularization.
The last count was by the Civil Service Commission in 2010, which had found that there were 21,315 contractual workers and 97,951 casuals, running up to a total of 120,000.
This does not include workers hired through job orders, who were paid through the Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) of government agencies, and those hired in subcontracted terms like security guards and maintenance or utility workers.
“The fact is, government is one of the biggest buyers of outsourced labor in the country today,” Recto said.(MNS)