THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) called on Congress to pass the National Government Rightsizing Program (NGRP) bill, saying that it would allow the reclassification of positions and the efficient filling of vacant posts in government.
“The Rightsizing Program will fix the long-standing issue of unfilled positions. It’s not just about removing and merging agencies, but at the same time, we wanted to also fix the positions and then do reclassifications within departments and agencies across the national government,” Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said during the public hearing of the Senate Committee on Finance on the Department of Budget and Management’s budget on Monday.
The budget chief explained that the rightsizing program can reclassify positions to fill vacant government posts, ensuring efficient use of manpower across the bureaucracy.
She said that the ultimate goal is to create an agile and responsive government.
“We don’t want a bloated government that fails to deliver quality services, wasting public funds. We will achieve this by streamlining certain agencies and strengthening others where needed,” she said.
Pangandaman added that the NGRP aims to promote a lean, efficient and responsive government workforce by optimizing agency operations, rightsizing organizational structures, enhancing interagency collaboration, and eliminating redundant or outdated functions, programs and projects.
She also proposed the reclassification of positions to help fill vacant posts in the government.
Pangandaman had expected the bill to become law last year but recognized that its passage might be delayed due to other priority measures of the Marcos administration.
“We hope that the bill will be passed into law this year,” Pangandaman said.
In November 2022, a House panel approved a proposal rightsizing the bureaucracy for a lean, efficient and responsive government workforce, which was cited by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in his first State of the Nation Address as one of his legislative priorities.
Pangandaman previously said the proposal for rightsizing would determine which among the 187 government agencies and government-owned and -controlled corporations with about 2 million personnel may be streamlined through merging, restructuring or abolition.
According to the Staffing Summary from the DBM, the total number of permanent positions for 2024 exceeded 1.979 million. Among these, 1.810 million positions (91.46 percent) are occupied, leaving 169,136 positions (8.54 percent) vacant.
Although approximately one in 10 authorized positions remains unfilled, information from the Civil Service Commission revealed that the government engaged 832,812 nonpermanent government workers under job order or contract of service status as of June 30, 2023.
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