DAVAO CITY – All the 6,000 permanent employees of the defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) will be out by December as part of the transition into the new Bangsamoro ARMM (BARMM), with the first batch of 500 to end their contract of service by the end of this month.
The first batch would have to go starting November, according to Bangsamoro government Attorney General Sha Elijah Alba.
There would be three batches in the phaseout of all the ARMM employees, with the second batch to end their contract by the end of November and they have to go by the first week of December.
The last batch would end their service at the end of December, Alba said.
Only those ARMM employees serving in the sectors of education, health, and social services would be exempted from the phaseout, she added.
The BARMMs Bureau of Public Information said those who would be retired or separated from public service would be entitled to any of the following options as stated in the Article XVI Section 10 of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL):
- 100 percent of the monthly basic salary for every year of government service computed starting from the first year for those who have rendered one year to less than five years of service;
- Or 150 percent of the actual monthly salary for every year of government service computed starting from the first year for those who have rendered five years of service but less than 10 years; or
- Two months of actual monthly salary for every year of government service computed starting from the first year for those who have rendered 10 years or more of service.
Alba said the first batch may start claiming their separation incentives by November 15 as scheduled by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
The Office of the Chief Minister (OCM), Office of the Attorney General (OAG), Cabinet Secretary Asnin Pendatun, and representatives from the different BARMM ministries recently met with the DBM to finalize the timeline for the submission of documents needed for the processing of separation incentives of the employees, the information office said.
She said the documents were already submitted on October 11, through the Bangsamoro Government’s Manila Liaison Office (MLO).
Alba said the DBM has assured the BARMM that the separation pay of the first batch would be released by November 15 once all the documents were submitted.
She said however, that another Article XVI, Section 10 of the BOL also states that the “affected personnel who are retired or are separated from the service shall not be re-employed in any agency of the Bangsamoro Government of the National government, including government-owned or controlled corporations for a period of five years. The retired or separated personnel who are re-employed during the prohibited period shall refund, on a pro-rated basis, the separation incentives they received under this Section.”
Alba said the hiring for plantilla positions in the BARMM would be opened only when the Bangsamoro Parliament approved the staffing pattern proposed by the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Management (MFBM).
“We need to await the approval of the staffing pattern. Once it is approved by the Parliament, that’s the only time that we can publish the permanent positions for application,” Alba said.