More plantilla positions sought

SENATORS on Tuesday cited the need to pass a law that would automatically create plantilla or permanent positions for qualified contractual employees that have held job-order positions for decades, amending a bill that would get rid of obsolete positions to streamline state services.

At a Senate consultative meeting on Senate Bill No. 890, which seeks to do away with obsolete government positions to boost the delivery of public services, Senate President Francis G. Escudero proposed to include a provision that automatically creates a permanent position for a contractual worker that has held the job for a certain period of time.

“It shouldn’t be that the Department of Budget and Management will just sit on this for a decade and not create (these positions),” he said in mixed English and Filipino.

The Senate President said a substitute bill would be filed next week to fast-track floor debates on the measure.

He sponsored the bill before the Senate plenary in late December, saying the measure would not necessarily downsize the government and remove employees but only intended to raise the quality of services.

“Giving our employees the right position because they have been holding it for many years, some form of language part of the mandate to create plantilla positions to accommodate qualified contractual employees,” Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian said at the same meeting.

Under the bill, government agencies may, within their yearly appropriations, rightsize their offices to streamline services.

Personnel affected by the rightsizing would be entitled to retirement and separation benefits, provided that the employee had served at least 5 years in the government. — John Victor D. Ordoñez