President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. presides over the sectoral meeting on the updates on the government right-sizing program in Malacañang Palace on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. Yummie Dingding
MANILA — Rightsizing in the executive branch is meant to "upskill and reskill" government workers and "is not aimed at terminating employees", Malacañang said on Tuesday.
President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. earlier in the day met with the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to discuss the matter.
During the meeting, Marcos ordered the further assessment of the "present set-up in the executive branch to determine redundant positions" and find out which posts could be merged, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) said.
"Government rightsizing is not aimed at terminating employees but to serve as a tool to upskill and reskill the current government workforce to improve state services and programs," the PCO said.
The House of Representatives in March passed on third and last reading House Bill No. 7240 or the proposed National Government Rightsizing Act.
The proposed rightsizing will determine which among the 187 government agencies and government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), with some 2 million personnel, may be streamlined through merging, restructuring or abolition, Secretary Amenah Pangandaman previously said.
According to data gathered by the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group, there were 1,755,242 career and non-career government officials and employees as of August 2021, based on the latest Inventory of Government Human Resources Report from the Civil Service Commission.
More than 4 percent or 71,635 of the nearly 1.7 million officials are working in 126 GOCCs.
GOCCs include the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Development bank of the Philippines, Government Service Insurance System, Social Security System, and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.
In his first State of the Nation Address, Marcos listed the "National Government Rightsizing Program" among the measures that he urged lawmakers to prioritize passing.
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