In its first two years in office, the Duterte administration has authorized the creation of nearly 235,000 government positions in the civil service and the military.

          192,684 civilian positions and around 42,020 positions for military and uniformed personnel were created from July 2016 to December 2018, totaling 234,704.

34,822; 90,655; and 109,217 of these positions were created in 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively.

*Note: Number of existing positions is not equal to total authorized positions of the previous year because of other staffing actions (e.g. abolition, reclassification, conversion, etc.)

A huge bulk of the civilian positions created during President Duterte’s term thus far are accounted for by the education sector with 158,123 created for by the Department of Education (DepEd), the largest agency of the government, and 10,554 positions provided to State Universities and Colleges (SUCs).

Next in the ranking of National Government Agencies (NGAs) with the most newly-created civilian positions is the Department of Health with 7,011 positions.

          The Regional Government of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) also continues to expand with the authorization of 4,361 positions.

          The Department of Justice (DOJ) comes next with 3,486 positions, followed by the Judiciary with 1,350 positions.

          Finally, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), and Department of Finance (DOF) and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) were authorized to create a combined total of around 1,714 positions.

          The number of newly-created positions is based on the positions authorized for creation by the Department of Budget and Management through a Notice of Organization, Staffing, and Compensation Action (NOSCA) signed by the DBM Secretary.

DBM keen on filling vacant positions

          “We want to firm up the bureaucracy and improve our public service delivery,” explained DBM Secretary Benjamin Diokno.

“Most of these positions are intended for those involved in delivering public service on the ground – teachers, doctors, nurses,” he added.

          However, as of February 12, 2019, a total of 214,935 positions in the different national government agencies remain unfilled.

          The education sector accounts for most of these unfilled positions, with 74,133 vacant positions in the DepEd, to filled up by public school teachers and special education teachers in the K-12 levels, while there are 8,930 unfilled positions in state universities and colleges.

          The military sector also accounts for a huge chunk of vacancies in the government with 34,306 vacant positions for Military and Uniformed Personnel.

          The Department of Finance comes next with 15,278 vacant positions. Most of these positions reflect vacancies in DOF’s attached agencies such as the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

The Department of Health has 14,478 unfilled positions, a majority of which are intended for health care practitioners (i.e. doctors, nurses) on the ground.

The Judiciary and the Department of Justice have 13,159 and 5,577 vacant positions, respectively. These vacancies reflect the government’s need for more lawyers and legal professionals in the public sector.

Lastly, vacancies in the DENR, DPWH and DILG are 3,091, 2,347 and 2,206, respectively; in all cases, the number of vacancies have exceeded the number of positions created in the last two years.  

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Errata: In a previous version of this PR, we stated that the total number of unfilled positions are positions created within the Duterte administration.

PR No. 2019-35