By Brian Campued
Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Sec. Cesar Chavez on Monday said the agency is targeting to regularize all its contract of service (COS) employees by next year.
During the presentation of PCO’s proposed 2025 budget at the House of Representatives, Chavez said the regularization of the agency’s COS workers is part of the proposed reorganization process and new organizational structure submitted in May 2024 and is currently under review by the Department of Budget and Management.
“The PCO has already submitted to the DBM our proposed new structure last May 2024. According to the DBM, it is now being reviewed. Should it be approved, there will be hopefully a decrease in the number of COS positions by the end of 2024 and hopefully, no more COS positions by 2025,” the new Communications chief said.
According to Chavez, the COS personnel of PCO represent a fraction of the 485 positions as of June 30.
He said there are a total of 267 plantilla positions, with 207 filled and 60 still unfilled—by which the PCO-Human Resource Management is in the process of filling at least 50% of the vacancies by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, during the budget deliberation, Chavez said that he plans to issue a memorandum circular to designate fact-checking officers in all PCO-affiliated agencies as part of the government’s efforts in fighting fake news and disinformation.
“Immediately after I took my oath as Acting Secretary of PCO, I met the Malacañang Press Corps and informed them [about] our initiative. In the next few days, I’ll be issuing a memorandum circular address to all state media that means PTV-4, Philippine Information Agency, Radyo Pilipinas-Bureau of Broadcast Services, the Philippine News Agency, the IBC-13, and the PCO Proper that all of them will designate a fact-check officer,” Chavez said.
“A fact-check officer or anti-fake news officer will help us that we cannot be an instrument or a purveyor of fake news,” he added.
The PCO chief previously bared the said plan in a media interview after taking his oath as Acting Secretary last September 5. – avds
