August 18, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Labor coalition NAGKAISA yesterday expressed concern that the latest signing of the Authorities Optimization Act might result in the mass layoff of public staff.
NAGKAISA urged Congress and the Civil Service Fee to place in place obligatory safeguards to make sure that authorities rightsizing is not going to be a canopy for mass layoffs or additional contractualization within the public sector.
“The federal government should not optimize on the expense of its employees. True reform means effectivity with justice, and productiveness with equity,” NAGKAISA chair Sonny Matula stated.
He famous that the newly signed Republic Act No. 12231 or the Authorities Optimization Act grants the President sweeping powers to reorganize, merge or abolish companies underneath the chief department.
Matula stated the rightsizing and streamlining prior to now merely trimmed common employees however left the issue of poor authorities companies and low-quality jobs.
In accordance with Matula, nearly 30 p.c of public staff are underneath job order or contractual employment regardless of working within the authorities for many years.
“They continue to be probably the most susceptible to rightsizing. To disregard them is to erase a long time of sacrifice,” Matula stated.
He additional flagged the “unjust system” for separation incentives, together with zero advantages for many who labored for lower than 5 years.
He proposed the fairer system of one-month separation pay per 12 months of service along with the Authorities Service Insurance coverage System advantages, no matter tenure.