BY REGINA BENGCO
EXECUTIVE Secretary Eduardo Ermita yesterday
said he has asked President Arroyo to either terminate the
services of 15 idle presidential advisers and assistants or
assign to them to other positions.
Ermita made the disclosure a day after Civil
Service chair Karina David, who is retiring next week after
completing her seven-year appointment, said politics and
Arroyo’s excessive appointment of unqualified persons are the
roots of unprofessionalism in government service.
Ermita said his recommendation to do away
with the idle advisers and assistants is part of a continuing
review of Palace positions.
He said there are only six presidential
advisers and 43 assistants, with most of them not receiving
salaries.
He also justified the appointments, saying
this is authorized under the Administrative Code (AO 290).
David told the Makati Business Club the
government now has 60 excess undersecretaries and assistant
secretaries, mostly appointed by the President. She said the
agrarian reform department has eight excess, the defense and
environment departments have seven each, and the interior
department has six.
She said presidential appointees occupy 3,500
of the 6,000 managerial positions in the executive branch. She
said more than 40 percent of the career positions appointed by
the President are not eligible, and yet there are 4,000 eligible
career officials who are waiting to be appointed to managerial
posts.
She also said there are about 90 retired
military and police officers who are occupying key managerial
posts in the transportation department and immigration bureau.
She added that people are appointed in acting
capacity to keep them under control.
David called for the passage of the Career
Executive Service System law which will rationalize the hiring
system in the bureaucracy and limit the powers of the President
to appoint the unqualified to executive positions.
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said David’s
statements were a "sweeping generalization (that) do a
disservice to the over one million civil servants, both career
and appointed, who work diligently each and every day to serve
the people of the Philippines."
"Be that as it may, all presidential appointees must perform.
If they don’t, they have to go, whatever their credentials may
be," Bunye said.
