Marcos shuts down appointive posts

PRESIDENT Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has declared vacant all positions in government with presidential appointments “to ensure the continuous and effective delivery of government services.”

Through Executive Secretary Victor Rodriguez, Marcos issued Memorandum Circular (MC) 1 “declaring vacant certain positions in the departments, offices, agencies and bureaus in the executive department and fixing rules.”

Under the order, positions of presidential appointees whose appointments are classified as co-terminus, those occupying positions created in excess of the authorized staffing pattern, all non-career executive service officials (CESO) occupying career executive service (CES) positions, and contractual and/or casual employees were deemed vacant effective June 30.

“Vacancy in the heads of departments, offices, agencies and bureaus where no replacement has been appointed or designated, shall be filled up by the next-in-rank and most senior official as officer in charge (OIC),” the President said.

The OIC “shall perform the duties and discharge the responsibilities of the office until [July 31, 2022], or until a replacement has been appointed or designated, whichever comes first,” he added.

All non-CESO occupying CES positions in agencies of the executive department shall remain in office and continue to perform their duties and discharge their responsibilities on a hold-over capacity until July 31, 2022 or until their resignations have been accepted and/or their respective replacements have been appointed and/or designated.

The affected contractual and casual employees whose contracts expired on June 30 will continue in service until July 31 unless otherwise earlier terminated or renewed.

They were also directed to turn over “records, documents, books, equipment and other properties of their respective offices to their successors and/or the highest career official in their respective agencies.”

The President's order, which was signed on Thursday, takes effect immediately.

During the campaign, Marcos had said he would fill up the 180,000 available plantilla posts in the government if elected.

He said there are around 600,000 to 700,000 job order workers in the government despite the high number of vacant plantilla positions.

Marcos also said regularization is a major issue not just for the private workers, but also for the state employees “because some of them are only hired through job orders or contracts of service for one reason or another.”

He also pointed out that many government job order workers, especially those in the local government units (LGUs), are only earning around P10,000 per month.

“Hindi ko lubos maisip kung paano nakakaraos ang ating mga JO (job order) workers ngayon. Aayusin natin iyan para naman maging masaya rin ang kanilang pamilya (I cannot imagine how our job order workers are getting by. We will fix that so their families can be happy),” he said.

Marcos also said he will propose a law for government workers under job orders or contracts who consistently receive “excellent performance evaluations” for at least three consecutive years to be given the chance to be hired as permanent employees.

He said if job order workers with outstanding performance ratings could even be regularized even if they have no civil service eligibility.