THE BAGONG Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) Panay strongly denounces Senate Bill (SB) No. 890, or the so-called “Government Optimization Act,” as a grand retrenchment scheme disguised as reform. An enrolled copy of the bill was already transmitted to Malacañang last July 14. Under the pretext of improving service delivery and eliminating redundancy, the bill grants sweeping powers to the President to abolish, merge, or scale down entire government agencies and functions—at the expense of thousands of rank-and-file workers and contractual employees.
This so-called “rightsizing” is nothing more than downsizing the public sector while expanding the role of the private sector in delivering essential public services. It is a brazen push to privatize government functions, which history has shown only leads to higher costs for the people, weaker public accountability, and mass displacement of workers.
SB 890 is the latest in a long line of neoliberal policies forced on the Philippines since the 1980s as part of structural adjustment programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These included trade liberalization, tariff reduction, and the privatization of public enterprises. Notable examples include agricultural trade liberalization under GATT-WTO in 1995, water privatization in 1997, the Oil Deregulation Law of 1998, and the EPIRA Law in 2001.
BAYAN-Panay stands with the thousands of government employees—many of them in vulnerable, contractual, and casual positions—who now face uncertainty, job loss, and the erosion of their right to job security and union representation. The bill’s so-called “protections,” such as separation incentives and retraining programs, are paltry tokens that do not compensate for years of public service and livelihood lost. The provision barring reemployment in government for five years only deepens the injustice inflicted on displaced personnel.
This is union-busting and wholesale retrenchment wrapped in bureaucratic jargon.
We likewise denounce the token labor participation in the Committee on Optimizing the Executive Branch (COEB). Dominated by Malacañang appointees, the committee process is vulnerable to political abuse, with no real mechanism for workers to oppose unjust recommendations or assert their rights.
In Panay, where thousands depend on government employment amid stagnant wages and rising prices, the bill will only worsen poverty, deepen inequality, and increase reliance on patronage and political connections to survive.
We call on all government employees, unions, people’s organizations, and local government units to denounce this deceptive and dangerous bill and to call on President Marcos to veto this measure, as it brings nothing but mass displacement, injustice, and insecurity to thousands of government workers.
Let us unite in defense of our jobs, our public services, and our right to a government that serves the people, not the interests of big business and foreign creditors.
Junk the Government Optimization Act! Defend public sector jobs! Stop privatization of public services! End all neoliberal policies! – ELMER FORRO, secretary general, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan – Panay
