No layoffs of contractuals, says Sarangani governor

ALABEL, Sarangani, Philippines – Gov. Migs Dominguez gave assurance that there would be no layoffs of contractual workers in the provincial government despite his party’s dismal showing in the May 10 elections.

“If your question is whether the Capitol will fire all the contractual workers and hire new ones in a sweeping revamp, the answer is no,” he told The STAR in an interview.

He said they have professionalized the local bureaucracy, and tenures depend on the quality of work put in by individual employees, not on any political considerations.

“We have instituted a merit system for all our employees, contractual or otherwise, to ensure efficiency in the delivery of basic services by our provincial workforce, about 200 of whom are contractuals,” he said.

Every department, according to Dominguez, is subject to periodic review and re-evaluation, and performance is being monitored by a team also tasked to ensure that all conservation measures in place are carried out to the letter.

“Simple things as implementing paperless inter-office memos, recycling paper, etc. We also keep our level of contractuals to only about 200,” he said.

For his development plan in the next three years, Dominguez would have to reckon with an opposition-dominated Sangguniang Panlalawigan, which has the power of the purse and could prove to be stingy when it comes to funding his pet projects.

Although Vice Gov. Steve Solon, his running mate in the Sarangani Reformation and Reconciliation Organization (Sarro), was re-elected, nine of the 10 new provincial board members belong to the People’s Champ Movement (PCM) of Rep. Manny Pacquiao, who trounced Solon’s uncle, Roy Chiongbian.

To make matters worse, five of the province’s seven town mayors and majority of the vice mayors and councilors joined Pacquiao’s bandwagon to a landslide win over their Sarro opponents in the recent elections.

Dominguez himself was almost upstaged by PCM standard-bearer Juan Domino, an insurance man and a perennial loser in Sarangani politics. 

As to the PCM’s stand against the coal-fired power plant project in Maasim town, Dominguez said he was leaving the matter up to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which granted an environmental clearance certificate to the project during the time of Secretary Lito Atienza.

Opposition board member Eugene Alzate earlier said he would file a resolution calling for the scrapping of the 200-megawatt power plant project, which is also being opposed by Pacquiao due to its possible effects to the environment.

Behind the $400-million power plant is Conal Holdings, which is owned by the family of the governor’s mother, the Alcantaras.

The PCM has described the election results as a repudiation of Dominguez’s administration, but the governor, who is on his third and final term, had said it was a wake-up call, a time to reflect on where his administration had come up short despite its best efforts.

“If they are rational people, and I would like to believe that they are, they will appreciate what I am doing for the province,” he said, referring to the local opposition.

Nevertheless, Dominguez is unfazed, confident even that the opposition will come to see the folly of being “obstructionist.”

He said opposing just for the sake of opposing would get the province nowhere, and that in the end, it is the people would suffer.

“Let us cast aside party affiliations and look at the best interest of the community at large,” he added.