By Filane Mikee Cervantes/Philippine News Agency
MANILA — Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Wednesday said the upper chamber would scrutinize how fast government agencies are hiring teachers, policemen, and health personnel in the review of the 2020 national budget proposal.
Recto stressed the need to focus on the delays in personnel hiring, which has been hounded by “red tape, lack of qualified applicants and delays in the release of funds.”
Recto said due to these delays, the national bureaucracy was forecast to end 2018 with 246,596 job vacancies.
“One can rapidly build classrooms or hospitals, but if there is a lack of teachers and nurses, then there is a mismatch in available infrastructure and human resources. That can also be said of roads if we have the funds but lack the engineers to build them,” Recto said.
Citing 2019 national budget data, Recto noted that the Philippine National Police (PNP) will create 10,000 new positions, while the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, 2,000; and the Bureau of Fire Protection 3,000.
The Department of Health has also been given PHP8.6 billion “to retain or recruit” 435 doctors, 15,893 nurses, 324 dentists, 441 medtechs, 4,000 midwives, and 3,508 other health workers under its Human Resources for Health (HRH) Deployment program.
For the Department of Education (DepEd), some PHP32 billion has been included in its 2019 budget to, among others, “fill up vacancies and create new teaching positions.”
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