I have spent seven years, six months and twenty three days as a contractual employee detailed in Pag-IBIG Fund under contract with an invisible manpower agency - the DBP Service Corporation.  There are two reasons why I stick with the job.  Number one is I love the job I was assigned to (though 40% of my salary goes to the agency), and number two is I was led to believe I will be absorbed as a regular employee once the reorganization of the Fund kicks off.

But when the reorganization took place early January this year my hope did not materialize.  The regular positions being opened are only for the placement of the regular and casual employees under the old organization structure.  If I am disappointed, so are my fellow contractual employees.  As a result, contractual employees who are rendering more years in service than me are taking flight for a greener pasture.  Some landed jobs in Singapore but most in Dubai and a few here in our locality including me.  But we are not the last to resign from the Fund; some are planning to follow us.  In other words, Pag-IBIG Fund is experiencing a very own brain drain.

Since absorption to a regular government service is not possible, what can the Fund do to arrest to the flight of the contractual employees? Simply convert employment scheme from contractual system to job order system.  What's the difference between the two?  In the former, the Fund is tapping a manpower agency for employees.  The agency then will receive 40% of the employees' salary as administrative cost.  In the latter, the Fund will enter a job order contract directly with the employee who will receive the payment of the service rendered without cut.  Since it is only a job order contract, there is no employee-employer relationship between the two parties involved.  In other words, the worker is not an employee of the Fund.

If other government agencies particularly Philhealth implemented this scheme for the workers' benefit, why can't Pag-IBIG Fund follow?