Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva renewed his call for the government to provide security of tenure by absorbing qualified workers hired under temporary arrangements such as job orders (JO) and contract of service (COS) especially when there are available plantilla positions in their respective organizations.
Villanueva is alarmed on the steady rise of endo workers in government reaching 939,771 JOs and COS workers in 2024, on top of the estimated two million permanent positions in government, as the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) presented the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP) before the Senate Committee on Finance on Monday.
“Kung titingnan po natin ang datos, tila palaki nang palaki ang bilang ng mga endo workers sa ating gobyerno. Despite raising this concern every year for the past nine years, this practice is still ongoing,” Villanueva said.
“Iniisa-isa po natin ito sa bawat ahensya ng pamahalaan, lalo na po ang national government, na lahat po tayo would agree na is the number one violator ng sinasabi ng ating Konstitusyon na security of tenure para sa mga manggagawa,” he continued.
Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman assured Villanueva that the DBCC is prioritizing providing plantilla positions to qualified JOs and COS in the implementation of the recently signed law on optimizing the bureaucracy.
While the implementing rules and regulations of the Government Optimization Act are being crafted, Pangandaman said the DBCC already set aside P10 billion for its implementation.
“Section 10 of RA No. 12231 allows an agency’s Optimization Plan to include a provision for additional plantilla positions for qualified casual or contractual employees, as well as job order or contract of service workers with at least 10 years of continuous service in the agency,” Villanueva emphasized.
