CSC

Workforce scale and CSC staffing: FY 2027 CSC proposal to DBM: PHP 4.8 billion; DBM-approved NEP ceiling: PHP 4.04 billion for the same commission. CSC Chairperson Marilyn B. Yap framed the proposed 2027 budget around CSC's national mandate. She reported a civil-service workforce of more than 2.25 million as of June 2026—2.02 million career and more than 232,770 non-career professionals—and more than one million job-order and contract-of-service workers, for a government workforce above 3.29 million. She said 73.6% of career professionals were in national government agencies, while 60.6% of non-career professionals and most JO/CO workers were in local government units. Against that scope, she reported CSC's 1,690-position allocation, 1,541 filled positions, 149 vacancies, and one CSC second-level-and-up employee for every 3,199 government workers.

Human-resource governance reforms: Under human-resource governance, Yap cited the 2025 rules on appointments and other HR actions, administrative cases and SALN, including digital signatures, online oath-taking, online appointment submission and digital SALN filing. She described preferential ratings for qualified JO/CO workers and other covered groups, a reduction in the JO/CO experience requirement from 10 to five years, first-level eligibility for K–12 graduates, eligibility for Sangguniang Kabataan officials, and Wellness Leave and Gambling Prohibition policies. CSC was also reviewing qualification standards more than 30 years old for a competency-based approach, considering competency-based civil-service examinations, and working with UP's National College of Public Administration on that reform. Her presentation also covered PRIME-HRM recognition and accreditation, online authentication and validation of records, and public-assistance and complaint handling.

Examinations, learning and employee relations: Yap said CSC exceeded annual examination-slot targets in 2024 and 2025, and had opened 406,556 of a 550,000-slot 2026 target by June. She reported average passing rates of 16.75% in 2024, 14.95% in 2025 and 15.84% in the first half of 2026; specialized examinations had reached 27,727 applicants in the same 2026 period, with a reported 16.25% passing rate. She also described grants of special eligibilities under laws and issuances, learning and development programmes, and public-sector employee relations, including accreditation and registration work.

Administrative justice and civil-service modernization: Yap said CSC was addressing aging administrative cases, reporting that 991 of 1,810 cases pending for two years or more had been resolved by June 2026. She presented the World Bank-funded Philippine Civil Service Modernization Program as a means to strengthen HR capability, modernize HR systems and digitize personnel management. The programme included an enhanced PRIME-HRM system, an HR management information system plus payroll system initially intended for 40 agencies with a proposed additional 20, change-management and digital-training work, and a civil-service data-management system that CSC hoped to operationalize by November 2026 and roll out nationwide by year-end.

FY 2027 budget and its allocation: CSC Chairperson Marilyn B. Yap attributed P1.453 billion of the ceiling to the Philippine Civil Service Modernization Program and about P2.58 billion to regular subsidy. She reported 100% budget-utilization rates in 2024 and 2025 and 38.46% as of June 2026. The stated 2027 allotment breakdown was P1.8 billion for personal services (46.6%), P1.23 billion for MOOE (30.65%) and P911 million for capital outlay (22.75%). She linked the increases to the fourth tranche of the salary schedule, inflationary adjustments, ICT needs and PCSMP. She also said foreign-assisted projects would rise from P333 million in 2026 to P1.453 billion in 2027 because of PCSMP.

2027 digital-service targets: For 2027, Yap outlined digital-transformation work: PRIME ESG assessment and transition readiness, HRMIS-plus-payroll go-live, testing and customization, and role-based digital training for CSC personnel, HR officers, system operators, maintainers and support teams. She also described an integrated electronic administrative system covering procurement, accounting, inventory and asset management; a national learning-management system with at least 20 existing e-learning courses migrated to it; and end-to-end online registration, examination, grading and eligibility certification. Other targets included electronic registration and accreditation of public-sector employee organizations, online processing of special eligibilities, and a digital CSC legal and administrative services system for electronic filing, clearances, payment and real-time case monitoring.

Unfunded facilities, mobility and energy priorities: Yap identified unfunded proposals outside the requested budget: ready-for-implementation regional and field-office projects, renovation and improvement of records storage, dormitories, parking and other facilities, refurbishment and waterworks, replacement of vehicles generally seven to nine years old, and green-energy systems. She said the mobility list included a car for BARMM, three central-office minibuses and passenger vans for the central office and selected regions. The proposed solar-panel and generator systems were intended to reduce electricity costs and provide backup power for frontline and ICT services as CSC expands digital systems.

FY 2027 NEP ceiling and CSC original request: CSC said no increase from the NEP ceiling toward its original request was approved during the hearing. Chairperson Marilyn B. Yap connected its remaining needs to salary adjustments, inflation, ICT and modernization; additional facilities, vehicles and backup-power projects remained outside the funded proposal.

CSC original request and unfunded facilities: CSC Chairperson Marilyn B. Yap separately described unfunded regional and field offices, renovation and records facilities, older vehicles, and green-energy backup systems, without an aggregate wish-list amount. Rep. Amado Carlos A. Bolilia IV pledged to seek more CSC funding through budget review if the needs were placed in a priority list. No increase or item approval was recorded.

Inspection resources and Region VI office: Rep. Sarah Jane I. Elago asked that CSC inspectors have adequate funding to assess functional compliance with workplace-harassment requirements; CSC said routine inspections were charged to its GAD budget. Rep. Julienne "Jam" L. Baronda supported rehabilitation of the Region VI office and said she would speak with its regional director. Neither exchange produced a new allocation.

PERA increase is a separate employee-benefit proposal: Rep. Dadah Kiram Ismula cited a bill to raise the PHP 2,000 monthly Personal Economic Relief Allowance for government employees. CSC Chairperson Marilyn B. Yap supported considering the increase but said CSC did not control financial benefit allocations and would continue dialogue with DBM. The proposal was legislation affecting employee benefits, not an increase to CSC's agency budget; the hearing recorded no adopted benefit change.

Seven-day solo-parent leave for JO and COS workers: Nazal asked why the seven-day solo-parent leave for qualified job-order (JO) and contract-of-service (COS) workers was not expressly included in the 2025 CSC-COA-DBM joint circular on ancillary benefits, citing Republic Act 11861 and its implementing rules. Yap said Section 11.2 of the circular covers benefits granted under existing laws, and CSC interprets the Solo Parent Welfare Act to grant seven days of wellness leave to solo parents of either sex. She said CSC had found a 2004 circular allowing seven days of solo-parent leave, had circulated it to departments, and was in dialogue with DSWD, which she identified as the Act's primary implementing agency, to clarify the entitlement. Nazal said departments remained reluctant to implement it because of audit or disallowance concerns. Yap said the joint circular already involved DBM and COA and addressed those concerns, but agreed that its relevant provision could be reiterated.

Pathways from JO/COS work to vacant plantilla positions: Nazal asked for a government-wide plan, targets and timetable to match qualified JO/COS workers to unfilled plantilla positions, assist those without eligibility, and reduce reliance on contractual work; he said CSC's inventory counted 919,868 JO and COS workers. Yap declined to promise absorption targets, saying CSC is not the appointing authority and a worker's qualifications must match the vacancy. She described CSC's preferential-rating route: JO/COS applicants who take the examination and score at least 70% receive an additional 10%, while still needing the required experience, training and educational qualifications. CSC had reduced the experience requirement for that preferential rating from 10 years to five years earlier in the year. Yap said applicant and passer numbers had increased, but CSC did not have data to establish that the measure had caused JO/COS workers to be absorbed into plantilla posts.

Limits on monitoring and on CSC authority over JO/COS employment: Pressed on long-serving JO/COS workers, persistent vacancies and possible favoritism or reluctance to fill plantilla posts, Yap said CSC could not remove the education, experience, training and civil-service-eligibility requirements set in EO 292. She again said the Commission lacked data linking preferential-rating passers to civil-service absorption. She suggested that a planned data-management system might eventually supply information for a correlation or an absorption program, but said CSC could not guarantee civil-service employment while qualification standards applied. In her account, employment of JO and COS workers falls under DBM rather than CSC, and legislation could address the issue. Nazal argued that government should monitor workers who can remain contractual for more than 10 years; Yap replied that CSC had no roster or tracing system because JO/COS workers were outside its civil-service jurisdiction, though a monitoring system could ideally be designed.

Modernization project outcomes and performance measures: For the Philippine Civil Service Modernization Project, which Nazal described as seeking P1.45 billion, he asked what measurable improvements by the end of 2027 Congress could expect in hiring time, appointment processing, vacancies, HR records and payroll, and whether CSC would commit to numerical targets or reportable key result areas. Yap said the primary aim of Prime ESG, described as a shift from Prime HRM, was to improve human-resource management across recruitment and selection, performance management, learning and development, and rewards and incentives. She said the program was transitioning and had a target of 40 agencies across local governments, state universities and colleges, and national government agencies; the stated approach was to train and assess agencies' existing human-resource systems. The source does not contain a completed answer on numerical outcome targets or the remainder of the project explanation.

Reporting and enforcement of the gambling prohibition: Ismula asked how CSC would monitor compliance with its gambling prohibition, including the expanded ban outside office hours, whether monitoring, enforcement and awareness work had budget support, and whether disciplinary actions had been recorded. CSC Assistant Commissioner Ariel Ronquillo said the resolution's reporting-and-enforcement provision permits officials, employees, clients and the public to report violations—anonymously if desired—through the Contact Center ng Bayan or other complaint-referral systems, with reports to be promptly acted on under existing rules. Yap and CSC Assistant Commissioner Ariel Ronquillo said the Contact Center and public-assistance complaint desks were already part of CSC's programme and were installed in regional and field offices. CSC Assistant Commissioner Ariel Ronquillo said there were no recorded cases yet under the new 2026 resolution because it was relatively new, though there had been cases under the earlier policy. He said CSC had received questions and comments about the policy and viewed it as promoting the proper conduct of public officials as role models; he also said the prohibition covered both on-site and online gambling.

Possible eligibility treatment for IP mandatory representatives: Ismula asked about civil-service eligibility for Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representatives (IPMRs), noting the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act's representation mandate at barangay, municipal and provincial sanggunian levels, and asked how their position compared with elected councillors. Yap said the eligibility of councillors and other covered officials is specifically provided by law, whereas IPMRs did not yet have such eligibility. She said CSC had been asked to study preferential treatment for indigenous peoples, but consultations showed difficulty with treating indigenous status alone as the basis; CSC would instead consider qualifying standards tied to service. Yap said CSC could work toward a preferential-rating system for IPMRs and identified their government service as a potential basis. She later described a possible approach analogous to treatment for JO/CO workers and other groups: credit one to three years of IPMR service toward the five years of government-service experience required to qualify for CSPR. This was presented as a possible CSC action, not a completed eligibility grant.

PERA increase and compensation-system reform: Ismula said the Personal Economic Relief Allowance (PERA) was a fixed monthly benefit of P2,000 and cited House Bill No. 3874, an Akbayan Reform Bloc proposal to increase it. Yap said CSC personnel would support such legislation, but CSC did not control the government funds or resource allocation for financial benefits. In response to Ismula's question about broader, sustainable and equitable incentive reform, Yap said CSC could continue its dialogue with DBM on PERA, position classification, qualification standards and possible adjustments, while recognizing DBM's prerogative over government resource allocation. Ismula closed by urging CSC to press and recommend the increase in PERA for government employees.

Request to use higher physician qualification standards at Adila Sirati Memorial Hospital: Momo asked CSC to act on a request from Adila Sirati Memorial Hospital in Surigao del Sur, which he said had recently been upgraded from a second- to a third-level hospital and had many vacant physician posts. He asked that the hospital be allowed to adopt the qualification standards (QS) in DOH Administrative Order No. 2016-0032, which he described as higher than CSC's standards, so it could begin hiring and avoid outside intervention in physician selection. Yap said CSC would verify that the request and required documents, including the DOH circular, had reached the central office. After Momo said they had been submitted about a month earlier, she said the documents would be traced and reviewed, with ASCOM Ariel coordinating directly with him. Yap said CSC standards are minimum qualification requirements and agencies generally have authority to set higher standards; CSC would study how to address the request as soon as possible. Momo said an express CSC approval would give the hospital confidence against possible legal challenges, and Yap said CSC would act on the request immediately.

Agencies with the largest reported JO and COS workforces: San Fernando asked which national government agencies had the largest numbers of job-order (JO) and contract-of-service (COS) workers. CSC Commissioner Ryan Alvin R. Acosta identified the five largest reported groups as the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), 44,870; Department of Health, 35,183; Department of Education, 35,014; Department of Social Welfare and Development, 23,819; and Department of Environment and Natural Resources, 12,840. He attributed the larger JO numbers to agencies that provide welfare benefits and therefore have seasonal or episodic staffing needs.

Long-serving JO/COS workers performing regular work: San Fernando asked for the CSC and DBM issuances stating that job-order (JO) and contract-of-service (COS) personnel should not perform work like regular employees. He said government data nevertheless showed many had worked for more than six years, repeatedly doing regular, necessary and desirable work, and asked what corrective action the CSC was taking. Acosta agreed that workers continuously engaged for several years in regular and necessary functions should by then have been made permanent, while distinguishing them from personnel needed for temporary or episodic programs such as welfare distribution.

Acosta's proposals to curb improper contractual employment: Acosta said the CSC had not adopted the specific action points he was about to outline and that some were his personal views. He proposed studying whether local-government personnel-service caps remain appropriate, whether JO/COS caps are needed, and how the DILG could work with DBM; he said 70% of government JOs and COS personnel were in LGUs. He also proposed professional, permanent HRMO posts in every LGU; a congressional review of mandatory-position laws that can constrain lower-income LGUs; a less rigid DBM scrap-and-build policy paired with faster review of obsolete vacant posts; agency-by-agency staffing analysis instead of waiting for an omnibus bureaucracy-wide recommendation; and trigger reviews when an agency repeatedly hires JO/COS workers for the same post. He said these concepts could reduce the first category of workers while preserving properly used temporary arrangements for government agility.

CSC and DBM roles, JO/COS data, and absorption limits: San Fernando said the CSC and DBM had appeared to pass responsibility between them on JO/COS concerns and qualification standards. Yap said the CSC is responsible for qualification standards, but not for creating or classifying positions; she described those functions as parts of an integrated system that had been separated. She said the DBM-COA-CSC joint circular requires agencies to maintain a current inventory of JOs and COS, their deployment and functions, so agencies can analyze their own staffing needs and build an evidence base for policy. Yap said a connected HRMISPS-type system might support that work, but the CSC could not guarantee JO/COS personnel's absorption into the civil service at that time.

Political and budget pressures in contractual employment: San Fernando relayed a DBM figure that 51% of JO/COS workers had career-service eligibility and raised the view that vacant positions were being held for political appointees. Yap said this was not the Commission's view but her personal view of political realities, citing short elected terms, local preference for trusted workers, and budget limits between plantilla personal services and MOOE. She said JO/COS arrangements can be essential for service delivery but legal barriers to integration must be addressed. San Fernando agreed that some arrangements are necessary, but warned that they can be abused to keep workers permanently contractual in both LGUs and national agencies; Yap said they were on the same page.

PSLMC activity and public-sector unionism funding: San Fernando said the latest PSLMC resolution he had found was from 2023 and asked how often the council had met. Yap recalled meetings after she joined in 2024 and in 2025, including a recent July meeting at which cases before the PSLMC were acted on, but the exchange does not establish a clear, reliable count or sequence. San Fernando also questioned a reduced public-sector-unionism sub-program allocation of about ₱30,000 to ₱88,000 per regional office. Yap said DOLE registers public-sector organizations and that the CSC's role is to attest or accredit an exclusive bargaining unit chosen by an organization and register its collective negotiation agreement; the CSC cannot organize workers because the law requires non-interference. She said the office had shifted from inventory-based targets to acting on registration requests as they arrive, with seven days as the maximum time for action under ARTA.

Land Bank employees' case and CSC measures to reduce adjudication delays: San Fernando first thanked CSC for supporting fuller public-union participation in PSLMC. He then raised a complaint that the Land Bank of the Philippines Employees Association filed in 2019 alleging constructive demotion after the removal of allowances, benefits and incentives that he said totaled P100,000. He said CSC ultimately found the removals lawful and not a demotion of rank, but argued that the annual loss was still severe for a working-class family and asked why the decision had taken years and what would prevent similar case backlogs. Yap said long-running administrative cases had been her first concern on joining CSC. She described a case inventory, a goal for incoming cases generally not to exceed six months depending on complexity, use of decision templates for recurring matters, backward-looking disposition targets at Commission meetings, separate policy and case-adjudication meetings, and pre-Commission fact sheets prepared by the three executive offices' lawyers. Yap also described shorter Commission review paired with stronger Office of Legal Affairs review, and the possibility of releasing a decision once approved by the Commission, subject to editing and the applicable effectivity rule. She said CSC's case-disposition record had improved from the end of 2024 through 2026 and that it aimed by year-end to leave only 5% to 10% of new-case backlog, while continuing to excavate older cases.

CLAS digital workflow for faster case disposition: San Fernando asked what budget was recommended for the Civil Service Legal and Administrative Services Electronic System (CLAS) in 2027 and how it would speed case disposition. Yap said it was charged to the regular ISSP budget but did not give a figure during the exchange. Ronquillo said CLAS would permit online filing of pleadings and digital transmission from receiving to records, the Office of Legal Affairs, divisions and action officers, replacing physical files with scanned documents. He said connected regional and central offices could transmit needed records without waiting for physical delivery, including onward transmission from the Office of Legal Affairs to the secretariat and executive offices. San Fernando asked the committee to receive CSC's current inventory of pending administrative complaints.

CSC's role in JO/COS grievances under the joint memorandum circular: Bolilia said job-order (JO) and contract-of-service (COS) workers needed a clear agency to approach on security of tenure and grievances. He questioned the apparent gap between CSC's participation in Joint Memorandum Circular No. 1, Series of 2025, and earlier statements that CSC had no role over JO/COS workers, asking whether workers should go to DBM or CSC. Acosta said it had been accurate in 2025 to say CSC lacked jurisdiction, but that the President asked CSC at the end of 2025 to participate in formulating the JMC with DBM and COA. He said CSC's concrete contribution was its interpretation of Section 11.2 as covering JO/COS workers for solo-parent leave, while noting that DBM and COA have their own positions and DSWD is the implementing agency for the Solo Parent Act. Acosta said the three bodies could develop a mechanism for JO/COS workers to air grievances about contracts or agency compliance with the JMC. He affirmed that CSC now has an interest because of that involvement, but clarified that it does not have exclusive legal jurisdiction or general rule-making authority over JO/COS workers.

Preferential rating is not automatic eligibility for a plantilla post: Bolilia asked about the civil-service examination passing rate and the revised preferential-rating system, understanding that a JO worker with five years of service and a score of 70% would be treated as having passed. Yap corrected that this does not apply automatically: CSC must still evaluate experience and qualifications, and additional requirements remain after the eligibility examination. Bolilia summarized that a worker with five years of service may have a route to a permanent or plantilla position, subject to meeting those necessary requirements.

Complaint referral, written status updates and nationwide case tracking: Bolilia asked about CSC's Contact Center ng Bayan and its case-management system. Ronquillo said citizens can directly report violations or anomalies observed in government agencies; the contact center refers the report to the agency concerned and monitors the action taken. He said complainants receive written status reports through a mechanism that records the reports and responses. On administrative and other cases, Ronquillo said CSC's existing electronic case and document management system tracks cases filed in Commission offices nationwide, not only the central office, and is being improved through the Civil Service Legal and Administrative Service System.

CODI inspections and compliance reporting: Elago asked whether CSC had conducted the yearly spontaneous inspections contemplated by the Bawal Bastos Law, how many agencies had been covered, whether the samples were sufficient to establish functional compliance, and how the work was funded. Ronquillo said regional offices regularly inspect HR mechanisms in agencies under their jurisdiction, but CSC did not then have data on the presence of Committees on Decorum and Investigation (CODIs); he undertook to ask regional offices to gather the data and submit a report to Elago's office. Yap said the work was charged to the GAD budget and integrated into implementation through CSC rules. Elago requested the inspection details and enough funding for inspectors to assess functional compliance.

CSC handling of sexual-harassment cases and CODI accountability: Elago asked when CSC, instead of an agency, university or LGU CODI, handles a sexual-harassment case. Ronquillo confirmed that under certain circumstances a case may be filed with CSC and said CSC had some cases involving officials and employees of other agencies. Elago requested general details and recommendations to help speed case disposition, alongside support and reporting information for public-sector employees. She then asked about agency heads who fail to create CODIs; Ronquillo said CSC had no record of an agency head charged with neglect of duty for failing to constitute one.

ILO Convention 190 and public-sector guidelines: Elago asked whether CSC had issued public-sector implementation guidelines following the Philippines' 2024 ratification of ILO Convention 190, which she described as covering violence and harassment in the world of work. Yap and Ronquillo said the relevant provisions were embedded in CSC rules, including the rules on administrative cases and the integration of sexual harassment and the Safe Spaces Act. Ronquillo also cited CSC's continuing participation in the Public Sector Labor Management Council, chaired by Yap. Elago responded that ILO C190's coverage extended to work-related travel, training, social activities, commuting, digital communications and employer-provided accommodation, and urged CSC to update its guidelines within the year or early the next year to implement the convention's requirements.

Emergency leave, wellness leave and job security: Citing successive storms, flooding and other calamities, Elago asked whether CSC was studying an update to Special Emergency Leave that could accommodate employees who need more than five days. Ronquillo said CSC had issued a 2013 policy allowing calamity victims five days of special emergency leave each year, available when a calamity strikes upon proof that the employee was affected. Elago requested a status report on that policy and wellness leave. She noted the public sector's five-day wellness leave for mental health, physical well-being and work-life recovery, then said the wider needs of public-sector workers included regularization, security of tenure, adequate benefits and pension support. Baronda asked that Elago receive the requested status report, and Ronquillo agreed.

Persistent vacant government positions and the optimization program: Mendoza asked why 224,999 vacant positions, reported as of July, had remained unresolved through his seven terms in Congress. Acosta said the number came from CSC's Inventory of Government Human Resources and proposed using the ongoing government optimization program, over which the legislature has oversight, to examine longstanding vacancies agency by agency. He said there was anecdotal evidence that agencies retained obsolete posts because DBM's scrap-and-build approach required a post to be abolished before a new one could be created. Acosta recommended moving away from that default toward an honest assessment of each agency's staffing needs, and urged implementation of optimization decisions as each agency's review was completed instead of waiting for the full program, which he said could take five years.

House Bill 93 and the limits of service-based civil-service eligibility: Mendoza asked CSC to support House Bill 93, his proposed equivalency measure under which at least three years of satisfactory service and demonstrated competence would make a worker eligible, arguing that this could help resolve unfilled positions and the large JO/COS workforce. Acosta replied that the problem was not a shortage of eligible applicants: he said CSC produces more than 160,000 new eligibles each year while only 14,000 are absorbed. He identified other constraints, including agencies holding obsolete vacancies for future restructuring, local-government personnel-service caps, and agencies using JO/COS hiring to avoid longer regular hiring processes. Acosta said an automatic three-year route could encourage local governments to hire unqualified people and later treat tenure as a substitute for qualification, undermining CSC's merit-and-fitness mandate. He said the Commission would study and discuss the bill, while presenting preferential rating as CSC's existing partial accommodation for experienced workers who take the examination and fall slightly short.

Civil-service examination passing rates and the quality of applicants: Mendoza asked CSC to reconsider the examination's 80% passing standard, saying the nationwide passing rate was only 15% and contrasting it with other examinations. Acosta said he personally takes the examination before it is administered and considered its items fair. He attributed the low rate to the country's education standard and the broad, heterogeneous pool of civil-service examinees, rather than to the quality of the test questions; he said this was his personal view, not an official CSC statement. Acosta again said the underlying vacancy problem was not a lack of eligibles, referring later in the exchange to an annual surplus of roughly 145,000 to 150,000 eligibles.

Labor representation in public-sector labor relations: Mendoza asked CSC to support House Bill 92, which he described as creating an independent public-sector labor-relations body to provide impartial handling of labor disputes after the ratification of ILO Convention 151. He argued that CSC serves as personnel manager while also deciding complaints, and called for a tripartite body comparable to the NLRC. Yap replied that labor representatives already sit in the PSLMC and that regional congresses were then nominating labor-sector representatives. Mendoza said the current labor representatives were only observers and urged that they become full members able to vote; he said the proposal had passed at committee level and was important to government-worker labor management.

Support for sector representation beyond observer status: Baronda relayed Deputy Speaker Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza's request for CSC support for the House bills referred to in the exchange as House Bills 93 and 94. Yap said she had no objection to sector representation that is more than observer status. She said public-sector representation had also been an issue for the CSC optimization team because there was no mechanism for selecting labor-sector representatives. Pending a solution, she said the agency's exclusive bargaining unit could temporarily represent labor and the workers' organization in that agency.

Current backlog and transition from the existing electronic system to CLAS: Baronda asked whether CLAS was already operational. Yap said it was still under development, with implementation targeted for 2027, while Ronquillo said the Office for Legal Affairs currently used an electronic case and document management system. Yap reported 7,781 remaining cases: 5,228 non-disciplinary cases and 2,553 disciplinary cases. Baronda cited unresolved cases in Region 6 involving lawyers hired in 2017 and recalled in 2019; she said the cases were still pending and affected the workers' next steps. Yap asked for the names, and Ronquillo said CSC would check them. Baronda said she looked forward to digitalization connecting all regions.

Cybersecurity funding within CSC modernization: Poe followed up on cybersecurity after the hacking concern he had raised the previous year. Looking at the National Expenditure Program, he said he could not find a distinct cybersecurity item despite P1.4 billion for modernization and asked for the amount allocated to cyber protection. Yap said cybersecurity was integral to Prime EGS and HRMISPS as well as CSC's other digital programs. She said CSC was drafting a data-privacy and cybersecurity manual that would incorporate data-privacy requirements, recent House cybersecurity issuances and DICT's implementation framework. Yap said CSC would later submit a disaggregated cybersecurity amount for Prime EGS, HRMISPS and its other digital programs, because it could not then give a single specific figure. Poe asked for that breakdown so cybersecurity funding would not be reduced, removed or obscured within another budget item.

Online SALN oath-taking and protection against impersonation: Poe asked how CSC would authenticate online oath-taking and filing for Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs), warning that AI-generated live-feed impersonation could expose an official to liability. Ronquillo said the new omnibus SALN rules require verification of both the oath administrator's and oath-taker's identities before the oath can proceed. He described an online video process in which the administrator asks identity questions and must be personally convinced that the declarant is the SALN owner. Poe said that Zoom alone was insufficient and asked about collaboration with DICT, the PNP or NBI. Ronquillo said CSC had an ongoing partnership with DICT on ICT matters and would raise the concern with it; he said oath administrators had notice to take all necessary precautions against fictitious oath-takers.

Clarifying the SALN personal-property category 'others': Poe asked for guidance on what could be recorded under the SALN category 'others,' so that property would not be misfiled or hidden in an undifferentiated category, especially with electronic filing. Ronquillo said the category concerns personal property that had previously been allowed to be jointly declared at an estimated value. Under the 2025 SALN rules, however, cash in bank and cash on hand must be declared separately, and registered personal property, including motor vehicles and guns, cannot simply be lumped into 'others' and must be individually declared.

Failed data-center bidding over confidentiality safeguards: Poe asked why the Central Office Data Center upgrade, for which he said P212 million had been set aside, was being rebid. Ronquillo said the first bidding had failed because the sole bidder did not meet the terms of reference's required guarantee and specific safeguards for confidentiality of information it might access from CSC. The technical working group recommended a failure of bidding after detailed evaluation, and the bids and awards committee agreed. Poe commended CSC for prioritizing data privacy over accelerating the procurement, and said he hoped a new bidding would use terms of reference that protected privacy and that the failed bid would not be held against CSC in the budget.

Whether a CSC rule can extend the nepotism prohibition: Sagarbarria asked about the scope of the CSC's authority to define and regulate nepotism. She contrasted the third-degree coverage she described under Section 59, Book V of Executive Order No. 292 with fourth-degree references she described in the Local Government Code and the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards. She then questioned the 2025 ORA-ORA provision treating a common-law relationship as equivalent to marriage for nepotism purposes: she asked for its statutory basis and whether an administrative rule could add a substantive category to a prohibition that Congress had already defined. She said the objective of preventing nepotism was not at issue; her concern was the boundary between implementation and legislation and whether the policy should instead be addressed through legislation.

CSC response: merit, fitness, and indirect favoritism: CSC Assistant Commissioner Ariel Ronquillo acknowledged Sagarbarria's position and agreed that the Commission could not create a prejudicial rule by administrative fiat without a legal basis. He said the purpose of the nepotism prohibition is to protect merit and fitness in civil-service appointments from favoritism. Ronquillo argued that the Commission relied on Supreme Court pronouncements applying the principle that what cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly: he cited the Court's treatment of the designation of a relative, although designation is not an appointment and is not expressly covered by the statutory definition, and referred to Laurel v. CSE. He said that was the Commission's basis for treating favoritism toward someone who stands in the same place as a relative as presenting the same concern.

Common-law partners and the rule's uncertain issue date: When Sagarbarria clarified that her question concerned common-law partners, Ronquillo said a common-law partner stands in the same place as a married couple and that, in his view, the same relationship exists among the parties involved. Asked whether the rule had been issued the previous year, he said it predated Chairperson Yap's assumption and estimated that it may have been issued about three years earlier; he described it only as relatively recent.

Civil-society question on agriculturist qualifications and appointments: Rep. Julienne "Jam" L. Baronda said the committee had included civil society in its proceedings since the previous year and read a question from the accredited Philippine Association of Agriculturalist Inc., National Capital Region chapter. The question said Republic Act No. 12215, the Philippine Agriculturalist Act, had taken effect in 2025 but qualification standards had not yet been updated, resulting in appointments of non-registered agriculturists in national agencies and LGUs. It asked what the CSC had done about those appointments, the status of a circular updating qualifications for national agencies, SUCs and LGUs, and whether the CSC could enforce the related salary adjustment for Agriculturist I posts. Yap said the CSC has authority over qualification standards and that a draft for agriculturists would be discussed and possibly finalized at the next Commission meeting, which she then placed in the third week of September. She said salary implementation was for DBM, not the CSC.

Written concerns for CSC study and comment: Yap said the CSC had first prioritized qualification standards for DepEd guidance counselors. She asked for copies of the other written concerns so the Commission could study and address them; Baronda said the committee would submit them to the CSC for comment.

Regional office facility concerns: Before moving to close the hearing, Baronda voiced support for a Region 6 office-rehabilitation request, saying its wish list was 'only 1.6' without stating a unit, and said she would discuss it with RD. Yap added that a road-expansion project would affect a regional office, leaving only one meter of the building, and said Region 3 would be without a fixed office for the next three months.

Motion to terminate CSC budget deliberations: Baronda moved that the committee terminate its hearing on the proposed FY 2027 budget of the Civil Service Commission, including the Career Executive Service Board and attached agencies, under House Bill No. 10858.

Committee terminates the CSC budget hearing: Rep. Jose "Bong" J. Teves Jr. announced that the motion to terminate the hearing on the proposed FY 2027 Civil Service Commission budget had been moved and seconded. He asked for objections, heard none, and declared the motion approved.

Hearing suspended until September 2, 2026: Baronda moved to suspend the House Bill No. 10858 committee hearing at Noglares Hall until September 2, 2026, at 9 a.m. The motion was seconded; Rep. Jose "Bong" J. Teves Jr. heard no objection and declared the hearing suspended to that date and time.