Public servants support CESB

WE IN THE CONFEDERATION OF Independent Unions in the Public Sector (CIU), an umbrella organization of 170 workers’ unions in national government agencies, government-owned and -controlled corporations, local government units and state universities and colleges, express our grave concern over the Arroyo administration’s apparent bullying of the Career Executive Service Board.

We view this “uncivil war”—as the May 11 editorial of the Inquirer put it—as a serious threat not only to third-level government personnel but also to rank-and-file employees. We cannot ignore Malacañang and its Cabinet’s transgressions of civil service laws, rules and traditions, as enumerated in CESB Resolution No. 619, just to yield the way for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s favorite “let’s move on” line.

How can the goal of professionalizing the bureaucracy be achieved when the recruitment and appointment of public officials are neither based on merit and fitness nor done by a politically neutral body or individual? No way can we allow this betrayal of our rights to go on!

Ms Arroyo wants to quote her father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal: “Respect the bureaucracy, respect the civil service.” But even as she speaks these words and trims down the bureaucracy, she continues to create new offices and appoint “excess” undersecretaries and assistant secretaries who are not even career executive eligibles. Supposedly, they serve at the pleasure of the President, but definitely at the expense of legitimate and principled officers.

We in the career service are here to serve the public, not to please politicians. CIU’s opinion is that Civil Service Commission Chair Katrina David and executive director Mary Ann Fernandez-Mendoza et al. are being subjected to harassment and vindictiveness for defending the right of Cesos (career executive service officers) to security of tenure.

Some lines from the 1961 campaign speech of President Macapagal may yet stir awake a sleeping conscience: “The primary and fundamental need of this nation is moral leadership. The state of corruption in the public service depends upon the personal deals and examples of the highest official of the land.

“For my part, I seek nothing for myself or for my family.

“I seek the presidency with clean hands and an unimpeachable public record of rectitude.”

With these words in mind, we in the CIU strongly and fully support the CESB and its Resolution No. 619. We call all employees’ organizations in the government to stay vigilant in order to defend and preserve the strong foundations of a professional bureaucracy.