Bello’s appointments sink DOLE employees’ morale

The appointment by Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello III of non-career labor attachés and deploying them as soon as they were appointed may have violated existing policies of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), leading morale among the more qualified career labor attaches to nose dive.

Nicon F. Fameronag, president of the Lilac Center for Public Interest, Inc., said this in a press release yesterday, explaining that as a policy, the DOLE requires appointed labor attachés to have at least a residency period in government service of not less than three years, two of which must have been served at the Department or its attached agencies before they are allowed to be deployed for overseas posts. He was referring to DOLE Administrative Order 101 Series of 2011, which to date is still in effect for it has not been superseded.

“The DOLE has a pool of seasoned labor attachés whose members could be tapped for foreign assignment. In fact, many of them are in the DOLE at present waiting for a marching order. Also, there are more career officials who have successfully made the grade after enduring the DOLE’s rigorous selection process, but which process may have been tossed into the gutter to accommodate Sec. Bello’s appointees,” Fameronag, a former labor undersecretary and protégé of the great Blas F. Ople, considered the father of the Philippine Labor Code, said.

“The DOLE has never been short of qualified career officers,” he added.

Documents obtained by the Lilac Center reveal that shortly after Bello assumed his post as Labor chief in the second half of 2016, the DOLE was able to get the approval of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for the creation of at least nine (9) new permanent positions for labor attaches.

“Everyone knows how difficult it is to get DBM approval for the creation of additional permanent positions in the bureaucracy, but it is good to have more labor attaches. OFWs will surely benefit from their services. However, it is unfair and an injustice to pack the labor attaché corps with non-career officials especially if these appointees lack the experience when it comes to implementing DOLE’s programs, projects, and services for OFWs,” Fameronag said.

Records show that Sec. Bello’s first non-career appointee for a labor attaché position from outside the Department was a certain Atty. Romeo Garzon whose appointment (re-employment) papers were signed on 1 December 2016. Garzon would have assumed a juicy post in Washington, D.C. until it was discovered that he was a dual citizen and, therefore, is automatically disqualified from holding such an office. He was said to be a nephew of Presidential Peace Process Adviser Jesus Dureza.

Aside from Garzon, eight (8) other “outsiders” have been appointed labor attachés from January 2017 onwards. They were Angelica Sunga, Attache I, who is now in Hong Kong; Macy Monique Alarcon Maglanque, Attache I, assigned in Singapore; Maria Corina Padilla-Buñag, Attache II, assigned in Milan; Haney Lynn G. Siclot, Attache II, admittedly a niece of Sec. Bello’s wife, and now assigned in Rome; Celeste Marie Ramos, Attache II, posted in Toronto, Canada; Jesus Vicente Magsaysay II, Attache I, posted in Abu Dhabi; Fidel A. Macauyag, Attache II, now in Taichung; and Ma. Teresa B. Olgado, Attache I. Also a non-career labor attaché is Mary Rose Escalada, assigned in Tokyo, Japan.

Among Bello’s appointees, only Macauyag has experience in government service, he having worked with the Commission on Audit in 1995 and served as city prosecutor in Cagayan de Oro City. Two other appointees have been the subject of complaints for inefficiency, incompetence, and laziness, but the DOLE is not known to have acted with dispatch on these complaints.

The Lilac Center also bared that the attaches who were subject of written complaints were merely slapped on the wrist by being summoned for “home consultations”, while career attaches who were performing their work had their assignments prematurely terminated and recalled home.

Interestingly, Director Jesus A. Cruz, Jr., who has been named in complaints against Secretary Bello with the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) certified eight (8) of the appointees to have been screened and found qualified by the Promotion Personnel Selection Board in his capacity as the Board’s chairman and as director of the International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB), the office supervising DOLE’s overseas operations.

Sources at DOLE who requested anonymity disclosed that the labor attaché pool is disappointed with Sec. Bello’s appointment of non-career officials for this leaves no room anymore for those who patiently spent years in the service and are aspiring to get foreign assignments as labor attaches.

More than anything else, the sources say the paramount concern is the new appointees’ lack of adequate knowledge and experience in labor diplomacy as some of them may not have completed the DOLE’s Pre-Deployment Training Program for Overseas Labor Personnel, including language training; passed the psychological and medical examination; and been cleared from reportorial, financial and other accountabilities in the Department, and legal accountabilities/administrative case based on security clearances from appropriate government agencies.

Fameronag observed that the appointments were also made in haste, noting that seven of them were supposedly published at “CSC Publication” on 11 January 2017, and Sec. Bello signed their appointments on 23 January 2017, a mere seven working day period to solicit, qualify and shortlist applicants; administer tests; conduct individual or panel interviews; obtain clearances, etc.

“This is unbelievable and gives rise to a suspicion of irregularity, particularly since government positions have already been rationalized and that justifying the creation of new positions would face thorough scrutiny from the Civil Service Commission and the DBM,” Fameronag said, as he urged CSC Chairperson Alicia Dela Rosa-Bala to take a look into the appointments because these apparently don’t bear the signature of an authorized CSC official.

“The appointing authorities cannot willfully invoke the cliché ‘in the exigency of the service’ because clearly there was no immediate necessity to accommodate people from outside the Department to handle a very sensitive post like that of a labor attaché’s. If the DOLE is indeed sincere in promoting the best interest of our overseas Filipino workers, it should not have allowed inexperienced individuals to man our foreign labor posts,” Fameronag added.