Some things need clarification: There are around 4,000 unfilled teaching and non-teaching posts that the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) government chose not to fill up. We lack the time it takes to assess the qualifications of the applicants for these posts.
Since we lack the time to make the necessary assessments of the applicants’ qualifications for these teaching posts, we will leave this up to the leadership of the new Bangsamoro government—as is proper. We trust that the new leaders of our autonomous region will make the best choices and fill up the remaining vacancies.
Teaching is a job that requires high levels of both knowledge and skill. It would be a disservice to both the teacher applicants and to the students of the Bangsamoro region if we rushed this process.
Meanwhile, we are dealing with a related issue. Some of the teacher applicants told us they paid people who collected fees to make arrangements for them. When we asked those teacher applicants for the names of these people who supposedly made arrangements for them to get jobs as teachers in ARMM for pay, the teachers refused to identify them. We do not deal with people outside the application process defined and guided by the law. We definitely do not encourage such practices.
Because they had made such arrangements outside of the correct process of selection for teachers under the ARMM guidelines, they expected to get jobs where vacancies were posted. Some of them may expect this because they are related to retired teachers who held those posts before them.
Teaching posts are not for sale.
There are procedures and guidelines that must be followed to fill all posts in the regional autonomous government, and these procedures and guidelines focus on merit instead of fixers and influence.
The people who work in the Bangsamoro area are hired and promoted purely on merit, and for no other reason.
As for the issue of where the budget for the unfilled vacancies went, we do not have access to those funds. It is the policy of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) not to release funds for unfilled posts.
Over the last seven years, the ARMM government has done all it can to make the government systems work as they should, even with the institution’s flaws. We are committed to that, especially now that the Bangsamoro government, which promises better systems, is now taking charge of what we have built.
source: RIO DEPED ARMM
