Press Release
January 25, 2010

CIVIL SERVICE ELIGIBILITY FOR STATE WORKERS
WITH LONG YEARS OF SERVICE

Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. today urged the leaders of Congress to ensure the approval of the bill granting automatic civil service eligibility to state workers with a minimum of five years of service before they go into election recess.

Pimentel said the bill, already passed by the Senate and House of Representatives, will entitle casual, contractual or temporary state workers with at least five years of continuous, efficient government service to civil service eligibility.

The proposal, authored by Pimentel, is contained in Senate Bill 3063 which will amend Republic Act 6850 which provides that affords temporary employees who have rendered a total of seven years of government service to civil service eligibility.

The proposal, he said, is pursuant to the constitutional mandate (section 2, paragraph 6, Article IX-B of the Constitution) which provides: "Temporary employees in the government shall be given protection as may be provided by law."

"More often than not, non-permanent employees are poorly compensated, receive nominal bonuses, and are not well-provided with comprehensive health care, in spite of the long number of years that they have devoted in government offices. By this long service in government, the implication is that these employees have demonstrated competence, efficiency and diligence in the performance of their duties," Pimentel said.

The legislator from Mindanao cited section 2, paragraph 2, Article IX-B of the Constitution, which requires that "appointments in the civil service shall be made according to merit and fitness to be determined, as far as practicable and except in positions which are policy determining, primarily confidential, or highly technical, by competitive examinations."

Pimentel said "it may be reasonable and fair to consider the employee's competence, efficiency, diligence, loyalty, length of service, educational attainment, and trainings attended as compliance with the standards of merit and fitness set forth in the Constitution."

"The grant of civil service eligibility through this legislation is the least we can do to reward employees who have faithfully and diligently served the government. It is their last hope to uplift their economic condition," he said.

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