THE Department of Budget and Management yesterday said around 5,000 contractual employees serving under the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) will be regularized before the end of the year.
DBM Assistant Secretary Leonido Pulido told the Senate finance sub-committee that there is a continuing effort between the agency and the DSWD “to start the regularization of at least 4,000 to 5,000” of the latter’s contractual employees.
“Hopefully, by this year, we are looking at 4,000 to 5,000 (contractual employees). We are coordinating with the DSWD through the Office of the Secretary,” Pulido said.
Sen. Imee Marcos, the sub-committee chair, said the DSWD is the biggest violator of the law since it has the highest number of contract of service (COS) and job order (JO) workers who are hired on a short-term or per-project basis.
Marcos said the DSWD should be an example of regularizing its COS and JO workers. The would-be regularized employees form part of the DSWD’s more than 16,000 COS workers.
Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian said the 5,000 DSWD workers to be regularized are those who deliver the financial assistance for 4Ps beneficiaries.
He said under his watch, 6,135 COS employees have been made “contractual employees.”
In August, the Civil Service Commission said that the government has around 203,000 unfilled positions due to slow hiring, strict qualification requirements, and lower pay compared to the private sector.
