A LEGISLATOR has filed a bill seeking to provide unemployment financial assistance for government employees in contractual, casual and job-order work.
Kabayan Party List Rep. Ron P. Salo filed House Bill 6186, which if passed will be known as The Government Unemployment Assurance Fund.
“With the regularization of all government employees still being a work in progress, it is necessary that a financial assistance be extended to these employees upon the termination of their contract in order to assist them as they seek other employment opportunities,” Mr. Salo said in his explanatory note.
Under the bill, contractual, casual or job-order government employees, who were pre-terminated by the government without the consent of the employee concerned, are eligible for aid.
Funding will be sourced from mandatory contributions by the employer and employees.
Employers will be required to remit 20% of the employee’s monthly basic compensation within seven days from the end of each month. Meanwhile, employees will remit five percent of his or her monthly basic compensation within the same period.
An eligible government employee will be given unemployment financial assistance if he or she is separated from work for at least 30 days.
In case the employment contract is renewed, the benefits under the bill will not be provided.
“Notwithstanding the above measures, the government should implement more measures aimed at the regularization of as many government employees as possible, in order for the government to have the moral ascendancy to call for an end to the practice of ‘endo.’ Nonetheless, it is noted that regularizing all these ‘endos’ in the government will pose a great challenge, especially on the aspect of fiscal management,” Mr. Salo said.
On Wednesday, the House committee on civil service and professional regulation approved a substitute bill seeking to grant regular status and civil service eligibility to contractual, job-order, and casual government employees.
Mr. Salo is an author of one of the 14 House Bills that were consolidated. — Genshen L. Espedido
