spot_img
28 C
Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

ARMM workers fear massive displacement

- Advertisement -

COTABATO CITY—Officials and employees have painted a grim scenario of massive displacement and tugs-of-war of workers and teachers for positions in a smaller Bangsamoro bureaucracy, when the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is abolished.

The Senate version of the Bangsamoro Basic Law would inevitably displace workers and teachers in the ARMM from their current employment or mid-level positions, officials said.

ARMM human resource managers (HRMs) said a separation package amounting to 300 percent of all affected employees’ basic salaries was also reduced to only 200 percent in an amendment introduced by Iloilo Senator Franklin Drilon, an ally of former President Benigno C. Aquno III.

Anak Mindanao Party-List Representative Makmod Mending Jr. told the Manila Standard that he had originally proposed a 300 percent separation package for permanent ARMM employees, separated from government service because of the BBL.

Worse off, practically only one position would be available for two or more displaced employees or teachers when agencies are merged, said Engineer Avila Abubakar, the HRM of the Office of Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman.

- Advertisement -

For instance, Abubakar said, the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education are merged under BBL education provision, and so only one set of plantilla positions would exist for both agencies that used to have separate sets of staffing patterns and employees.

Abubakar said the merger of agencies into single entities would leave only one set of positions up for grabs for three or more contending applicants in an Autonomous Region for Bangsamoro.

Drilon had said the separation package and the size of bureaucracy should be reduced, considering constraints in government financial resources.

“But again, the question is where is Drilon’s heart positioned on the matter of education for the young Bangsamoro,” said an officer of the ARMM employees union, who asked not to be named for fear of reprimand.

The officer said the employees had thought, all along, that only coterminous mid-level and top level executives would be initially affected by government reorganization, as the ARMM transforms into a Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), when BBL is passed into law and ratified in a plebiscite.

The Departments of Agriculture, Agrarian Reform, and Environment and Natural Resources will also be place under one single department, officials noted.

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles