Pasig to regularize 646 more contractual employees

The city government has earlier regularized 100 street sweepers and engineering aides who have been working as contractual employees of the City Hall for 20 years and longer. (File Photo: VicoSotto/Twitter)

MANILA – About 646 contractual employees of the Pasig City government who have been working for 15 years and more are expected to get permanent status positions under the city’s regularization program, Mayor Vico Sotto said on Monday.

Sotto said the city government is now starting to process the documents needed to regularize the city’s long-time job order (JO) and contract of service (COS) workers.

“Nasa 646 employees po yan, expect niyo mare-regularized na kayo (you can expect to be regularized). Hopefully, we can do that by this year, pero ang pinaka-late naman nyan ay early next year pero yung proseso mismo nagsisimula na po (but the latest is early next year and we are starting to work on the processing itself),” he said in a Facebook live.

The city government has earlier regularized 100 street sweepers and engineering aides who have been working as contractual employees of the City Hall for 20 years and longer.

“Ang pangarap natin para sa Pasig, isang civil service, isang byurukrasya, isang lokal na pamahalaan na una insulated sa politics (Our dream for Pasig is a civil service, a bureaucracy, a local government which is insulated from politics),” Sotto said.

He added that the move is apt with providing better services to the people.

“Hindi po madaling proseso yan, medyo mahaba-habang proseso, matagal pong proseso ang gagawin natin pero basta tungo tayo sa tamang direksyon at nakita naman natin na nasa direksyon tayo (This is not an easy process, it is a relatively a long process, but as long as we are in the right direction and we see that we are already in that path),” Sotto said. “In just a year, we already have come a long way in terms of our reforms on human resources.”

Sotto added that the city government continues to improve the systems on human resource management.

He said the Pasig city council has already created 1,600 new plantilla positions for the regularization program of the local government.

Sotto said long-time casual and job order workers who are low-income earners will be provided the opportunity to upgrade their working status.

“Yung mga vacant na mababa, yan po yung posisyon na ia-abolish para po tumaas ng konti (Those lowest vacant positions will be abolished so they can be upgraded),” he said.

Meanwhile, Sotto said 60 percent of the procured tablets for the use of public school students for distance learning mode is expected to be delivered on Sept. 30 and will be automatically distributed in schools starting October 1.

The laptops for the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Pasig teachers have already arrived, he said, and the city government is just waiting for the tablets.

The local government has earlier allotted PHP1.3 billion budget to procure tablets, laptops, and learning devices for elementary and senior high school students and teachers in public schools, which they can use while face-to-face classes are still prohibited.

On the other hand, Sotto said the local government is currently repairing and upgrading the system of the city’s scholarship website but is expected to be functional starting this week.

“Hopefully okay na yan (it will be good) by today. Pasensya na po dun sa nangyari (I’m sorry about what happened),” he said.

The Pasig patient information management system as well as the contract tracing application (app) are nearing completion on the data migration and are set to be operational starting this week.

The final testing will be done on Tuesday, he said.

After that, residents are urged to register on the app as the city government will roll out a soft system implementation of the apps.

“‘Pag nakita natin na maayos ‘yung sistema tsaka natin siya gagawing requirement sa lahat ng mga establisyimento at para sa lahat ng mamamayan ng Pasig (If we see that the system is working well, that’s the time we will require its use for all establishments and for all the people of Pasig),” Sotto said.

“We need to use technologies available in our resources to boost our efforts in our fight against Covid-19,” he added. “Always stay safe. Please take care always,” Sotto said, reminding everyone to adhere to the government’s health protocols and preventive measures against Covid-19.