Professionalization of the Philippine Civil Service

Abstract

This research paper is about the professionalization of the Philippine civil service in terms of its human resource policies and indicated by the tightening of the entry requirements to the service; attraction. motivation and retention of personnel in the service through a salary scheme comparable to the private sector. and continued human resource development. This paper aims to determine whether the Civil Service Commission is able to professionalize the civil service through its recruitment and selection policies, compensation policies. and performance evaluation policies. It covers the period from the Ramos to Arroyo administrations. Furthermore, the paper seeks to determine the reforms done by the CSC in the three policies. In addition, the research study makes use of the Department of Health and Education as its case studies. The two departments were chosen because they usually receive the highest appropriation in the national budget. In line with this, the paper seeks to give a background of the human resource policies of both departments. Finally, (the research study intends to make recommendations by which these three human resource policies can be improved. The theory of Richard Hall about professionalization and the study of Amelia Varela are the guiding principles of the study. According to Richard Hall, professionalization is the movement towards a professional model which is composed of structural and attitudinal attributes. On the other hand. Amelia Varela's study enumerated certain personal reforms that were adopted by the Civil Service in order to professionalize the Philippine civil service. This then serves as the professional model through which the Philippine civil service is moving towards to. While Varcla’s study enumerates the reforms done in the personnel department of the service, this study focuses on whether these reforms have pushed the Philippine civil service towards professionalization. In order to accomplish the study, several methods were utilized. Above all. the study makes use of the combined case and historical study since it identified two departments as the participants and situated the study from the Ramos administration until the Arroyo administration. Moreover, the study used Key Informant interviews, surveys, and pertinent documents and archival records as a source of its data. As seen [from the results of this study. the human resource management reforms adopted by the Civil Service Commission do not professionalize the Philippine civil service. The Civil Service Professional Examination has not tightened the entry requirements for the service since its subject coverage are very basic and are all taught in the high school level. Moreover, it does not include in its examination a measurement of the behavior and values of the applicant which are deemed to be more necessary than academic learning since people in the civil service would be dealing with people and not with material things. The compensation system, likewise, was not able to professionalize the service since it fails to attract. motivate. and retain intelligent students and government employees respectively. Finally, the performance evaluation system used by the government does not guarantee continued human resource development since almost all government employees are given a very satisfactory grade or almost outstanding grade vet the perception of the public towards the government remains negative.