Bureaucrats punished for accusing the Palace of disrespect for the civil service

This one-part story exposes how the Career Service Executive Board (CESB), the government body that oversees the top tiers of the country’s bureaucracy, is being punished by Malacañang for its defiance.

In a March 20 resolution, the CESB did something unheard of: it accused Malacañang and the Cabinet of “transgressions” of civil-service laws, rules and regulations.

It cited the unjust termination of Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz and former Pag-IBIG Fund president and chief executive officer Manuel Crisostomo, both career bureaucrats, and the appointment of non-civil service eligible officials. These, the CESB said “have resulted in growing apprehension and demoralization” in the civil service and threatened to “further erode the institutional foundations of a professional bureaucracy.”

In return, Malacañang has reacted with a series of what appear to be punitive and retaliatory moves against the CESB.

Within days after the resolution, two of the CESB’s eight members lost their seats. Two others — one of whom was reportedly forced to resign — were replaced after a couple of weeks. Insiders at the agency say the resolution also strengthened the resolve of Palace officials to replace Civil Service Commission Chair Karina David as CESB chair.

Earlier, Malacañang had withdrawn its then two-week-old nomination of CESB executive director Mary Ann Fernandez-Mendoza as commissioner at the Civil Service Commission. Mendoza had issued a ruling that Luz was a tenured civil servant who could not be summarily terminated.

IS THE Career Service Executive Board (CESB), the government body that oversees the top tiers of the country’s bureaucracy, being punished by Malacañang?

Many in the CESB think so. After all, in a March 20 resolution, the CESB did something unheard of: it accused Malacañang and the Cabinet of “transgressions” of civil-service laws, rules and regulations.

The strongly worded Resolution No. 619 said the unjust termination of an undersecretary, presumably Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz, a career bureaucrat, and the appointment of non-civil service eligible officials “have resulted in growing apprehension and demoralization among the members of the CES (career executive service), which can further erode the institutional foundations of a professional bureaucracy.”

It also pointedly reminded President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that in a Jan. 22, 2001 speech, she had recalled that her own father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal, had advised her to “respect the bureaucracy, respect the civil service.”

In return, Malacañang has reacted with a series of what appear to be punitive and retaliatory moves against the CESB.

Within days after the resolution, two of the CESB’s eight members lost their seats. Two others — one of whom was reportedly forced to resign — were replaced after a couple of weeks. Insiders at the agency say the resolution also strengthened the resolve of Palace officials to replace Civil Service Commission Chair Karina David as CESB chair.

Earlier, Malacañang had withdrawn its then two-week-old nomination of CESB executive director Mary Ann Fernandez-Mendoza as commissioner at the Civil Service Commission. Mendoza had issued a ruling that Luz was a tenured civil servant who could not be summarily terminated.

Pressure on the board

Despite repeated calls since Friday, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita has not responded to queries on the CESB.

A close aide of one of the remaining CESB members says that on April 3, his boss met with a Palace emissary at a Pasig hotel and was asked to be the “swing vote” at the board’s April 18 meeting. The board member was supposedly asked specifically to vote for Resolution 619’s recall and for retired appellate court justice and fresh CESB appointee Bernardo Abesamis to become the body’s new chair, replacing David who had reportedly irked Palace officials for vigorously objecting to questionable presidential and non-presidential appointments.

The board member refused. No such motions were made during the April 18 meeting, although there is no telling what will take place in the board meeting scheduled for today.

The 33-year-old CESB is the governing body of the Career Executive Service (CES), which covers the top- or third-tier positions in national government agencies and state-owned corporations, including those of undersecretary, assistant secretary, bureau director, assistant bureau director, regional director, assistant director and department service chief.

CESB veterans say the appointment of non-eligibles and unjustified transfers of CESOs and CES eligibles is not new. But the relationship between Malacañang and the board has never come under as much strain as today. The reason: the continued and obvious disregard by the Palace and department secretaries for civil-service laws, the “politicization” of the career service, and the bloating of the bureaucracy’s senior levels.

CESB records show that of the 2,583 career executive positions appointed by the president, 42 percent are currently filled up by “non-eligibles,” or those who did not have to go through the rigid process undergone by career bureaucrats.

Resolution 619 lists seven categories of personnel actions by the Arroyo administration that affect CESOs and third-level eligibles and have “undermined the principles of professionalism and meritocracy.”

A list of transgressions

Topping the list are the termination of a department undersecretary via a thank-you letter and an order subsequently transferring him to another department, and replacement of a government corporate executive by a non-eligible outsider.

The resolution did not name names, but was obviously referring to the cases of Luz, a CESO 3, and former Pag-IBIG Fund president and chief executive officer Manuel Crisostomo, a CESO 1 — the highest level in the system.

Last year, Luz was sacked and ordered transferred to the Department of Labor and Employment after he refused to honor three postdated checks issued by the President’s Social Fund for the scholarship program of Zambales Rep. Antonio Diaz. These checks were apparently issued in return for Diaz’s opposition to Arroyo’s impeachment.

Crisostomo was removed in 2002 after he opposed the suggestion to put his agency under the proposed Department of Housing to be headed by Michael Defensor. Crisostomo quit the government after having put in more than 17 years of service in Pag-IBIG, as the Home Mutual Development Fund is popularly known. CES insiders say never has a high-ranking CESO in a high-level position treated as shabbily as Crisostomo had been.

Resolution 619 also raised the following issues: CESOs placed on “floating” status; CESOs relieved from their CES positions and replaced by non-eligibles or demoted to non-CES positions; excess undersecretary and assistant secretary positions; political appointees designated to career positions; and non-CESOs and non-eligibles appointed to CES positions despite the availability of CESOs or third-level eligibles.

As of Jan. 31 this year, 843 CESOs and CES eligibles were occupying non-CES positions, CESB statistics show. This is even though there are 6,388 positions in the career executive service that should — ideally — be occupied by CESOs.

Bloating the bureaucracy

Meanwhile, data from the budget department reveal that the Arroyo administration seems to have at least 22 more undersecretaries and eight more assistant secretaries than the previous government.

In 2000, the Estrada government had 63 undersecretaries and 64 assistant secretaries in 19 departments. Five years later, the Arroyo administration had 85 undersecretaries and 72 assistant secretaries in the same agencies.

Despite repeated pronouncements that it has trimmed the fat in the government service, the bureaucracy under Arroyo is more bloated now that it was under Estrada. DBM records show Arroyo had 1,150,681 permanent positions in national government agencies in 2005, or 47,555 more than what Estrada had in 2000.

Arroyo even had 677 positions that were exempt from the Salary Standardization Law, which were nonexistent in Estrada’s time. Part-time positions under her administration, numbering 1,617, were more than double Estrada’s. The current government also had more positions for uniformed personnel, 278,908 to Estrada’s 262,354.

The Career Executive Service operates on the rank concept, akin to the Armed Forces and the Foreign Service. The rank defines status and compensation of CESOs and their security of tenure.

To become eligible for the CES, applicants must pass the Management Aptitude Test Battery, a paper-and-pencil test that determines general intelligence and knowledge of management principles, and then a series of simulation exercises designed to measure their managerial capability and potential. Next comes a formal interview by a CESB member or panel of members, and then a performance validation on the job.

Upon passing the exams, individuals are conferred CES eligibility and their names included in the roster of CES eligibles. It is from this list that the CESB recommends to the president those who should be given a CESO rank.

The CES has six ranks, which have corresponding salary grades that range from 25 to 30. Those in the highest salary grade of 30 are paid from P28,875 to P34,323 a month.

President Ferdinand Marcos set up the CES in 1973 to professionalize the top level of the bureaucracy. In the next four years, Marcos issued mass appointments to CESOs who passed the eligibility exams and the Career Executive Service Development Program training.

Marcos, however, stopped conferring rank when some CESOs — many from the then Ministry of public works and Highways — got enmeshed in anomalies. The strongman disregarded the CES, which meant no security of tenure for third-level officials.

But in January 1986, Marcos suddenly conferred CESO ranks on 235 eligibles — a turnaround that many suspected was intended to get bureaucracy’s support for the February 1986 snap presidential elections.

De-Marcosifying the civil service

The de-Marcosification that followed Edsa 1 resulted in the removal of CESOs and CES eligibles. The CESB would be inactive until 1988, when President Corazon Aquino revived the CES program and appointed a board executive director.

The process of rebuilding the Career Executive Service, however, was slow as president after president and their Cabinet secretaries named political appointees in career positions, disregarding the qualifications of those who were eligible.

Legislators and local government officials were more likely to disregard eligibility than officials who had come from the private sector, says Elmor Juridico, director of the Employees Compensation Commission and who was recently reappointed to the CESB, where he used to be executive director.

Apparently, politicians have abused a loophole in the CES law that allows the president to appoint someone who is not a CES eligible to a CES position “in exceptional cases.” In a 1990 paper, Juridico said, “In practice…the exceptional cases requirement had been conveniently neglected. The entry into the CES of non-eligibles has become the rule while that of CES eligibles has become the exception.”

According to career bureaucrats, there have also been numerous violations of a provision in the law that says temporary assignments of non-CESOs in CES positions should not exceed 12 months and that such assignments can be renewed only once.

The posts of undersecretaries and assistant secretaries seem to be among the most vulnerable to such violations. Juridico said the proliferation of appointments to these posts during the Aquino years led Congress to put a cap on their number. Each department was allowed no more than three undersecretaries and three assistant secretaries, with the exception of a few.

Too many undersecretaries and assistant secretaries give rise to conflicts over turf and competition for the secretary’s attention, in the process creating discord and even disunity in a department, say career bureaucrats.

Multiple undersecretaries and assistant secretaries are also financially draining. The Arroyo government is now paying at least P7 million more a year than Estrada’s did. And that’s just for the salaries of undersecretaries alone, excluding benefits, such as the mandatory 13th-month pay, as well as expenses for the upkeep of their offices.

Going against the Palace

Many insiders say the issuance of Resolution No. 619 began with discussions regarding the case of Luz, who has since resigned from the CES.

In its Feb. 14 meeting, the board agreed to issue a resolution that would only adopt David’s dissenting opinion on the case Luz had brought against Executive Secretary Ermita before the Civil Service Commission (CSC) regarding his transfer to the labor department. David, a CESB ex-officio member by virtue of being CSC chair, inhibited herself.

Present that day were David, CESB vice chair Ramon Nieva and board members Eduardo Gonzales, Fernando Cui, Godofredo de Guzman, Jarius Paguntalan, Gerardo Plana and Carina Valera. (David inhibited herself.)

The CSC had said it had no jurisdiction over Luz’s case, although it upheld his reassignment as a “management prerogative exercised by the President” in the best interest of public service. David had dissented, saying the CSC had jurisdiction over the case, Luz had security of tenure as a CESO, and his reassignment was tainted with bad faith and not done in the interest of public service.

On March 14, the CESB decided to issue an omnibus resolution covering what it said was a wide range of violations of rules and laws affecting the CES.

Nieva and the CESB secretariat drafted what would become Resolution No. 619, which was approved on March 20. But when the CESB met on March 24 to sign the document, Nieva had already been replaced by Abesamis, and Plana by Ma. Paz Foronda, who used to work for Bernardino Abes, now search committee head at the Office of the President.

Abesamis and Foronda immediately questioned Resolution 619’s legality, pointing out, among other things, that the March 20 meeting’s minutes had not been ratified. But under CESB rules, a resolution is deemed adopted on the day it is approved; its signing is ministerial.

By the time the CESB met again on April 18, Juridico had replaced Cui. The Board was also told former environment undersecretary Rolando Metin would replace Paguntalan.

Juridico says he was unaware of Resolution 619 until he saw the April 18 meeting agenda. But he says he knew the resolution could not just be withdrawn and so gave inputs to improve it, especially on provisions that he says lacked legal basis. He says he did not know of any move to oust David as CESB chair.

Juridico says Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas had asked him to return to the CESB. “She noted that nobody at CESB had an institutional memory,” he says.

Tense meeting

CESB executives describe the meeting as tense, with David and Abesamis having a shouting match after the latter continued raising questions that some board members felt were aimed at having Resolution 619 withdrawn.

Abesamis says he sought to reopen deliberations on Resolution 619 on “procedural and substantive grounds” in a bid to improve it. He adds, “I was not appointed purposely to attend the board meeting and get the resolution withdrawn. That’s a misimpression that people got.”

CESB executives say that while the new appointments came unexpectedly and “in one fell swoop,” the Palace was helped partly by the fact that Nieva was serving in a holdover capacity, his term having ended last October. Cui, a Presidential Management Staff director, had also resigned from the board after Resolution 619 was approved.

Still, a Cui colleague says the PMS official was “forced to resign” because the Palace was disappointed over his inability to thwart the resolution. Cui did not sign the document.

Plana and Paguntalan, meanwhile, could be replaced anytime because both were serving in an acting capacity. Yet, CESB officials point out, their “acting” status was in itself is a first in the board’s history.

Past presidents-from Marcos to Joseph Estrada-had issued regular appointments to their six appointees to the CESB, replacing them only when they resigned or finished their six-year term of office. But Arroyo broke tradition when she appointed Plana in an acting capacity in 2004 and subsequently did the same with Paguntalan.

All four new CESB members now sit in an acting capacity. Says a CESB official: “This illustrates how politicized the situation is. President Arroyo has politicized even the CESB. Any of the new board members can be replaced any time.”

Furor over DAP

“The assumption is that the governing board exercises its best judgment independently and collectively,” David herself says. “This is why board memberships usually have a term of office. An appointment in an acting capacity means that the person basically serves at the pleasure of the appointing authority. This can impair independence because the person’s focus is at the very least divided between the interest of the institution and that of the appointing authority.”

Abesamis, though, says that despite his “acting” status, he still wants “to serve to the best of my ability.”

But the CESB’s independence may be put to a test this June, when the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) is scheduled to have a new president. In August, de Guzman’s term at the CESB also expires, opening another vacancy in the board.

In the DAP board’s March 31 meeting, Chairman Jimmy Yaokasin read a “desire letter” from President Arroyo, who expressed her wish to have Antonio Kalaw, a DAP senior vice president, elected the next DAP chief executive. A DAP board member says the unprecedented letter was “clearly an attempt of the president to influence the board.” (The election of the DAP president is tentatively scheduled on May 19.)

Several DAP board members say there are “better qualified candidates” for DAP president than Kalaw, who supposedly lacks expertise in any of the think tank’s thrusts. CESB executives also say that should a pro-Malacañang person become DAP head, the Palace would find it easier to muster the necessary numbers to remove David as CESB chair, as well as force through or recall certain policies. The DAP president automatically becomes a CESB ex-officio member.

No law stipulates that the CSC chair should be the CESB chair. But should David ever be removed as CESB chair, it would yet be another first. Since the CSC became a constitutional body under the 1987 Constitution, its chair has also been that of the CESB.