ACT TEACHERS Party-list Representative France Castro contradicted claims that rightsizing the government bureaucracy will not affect teachers and health care workers.

Castro said that with the planned rightsizing, teachers will be forced to carry the tasks of education support personnel.

“Through this proposal, government agencies will hire more and more personnel on contracts of service and job orders who will not be considered as government employees and will not be paid the salaries and job security as such,” she said.

Agencies with the most number of JOs and COS include the Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Health, Department of Education, Department of  Environment and Natural Resources and Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Castro warned that rightsizing the government will result in massive layoffs.

“Instead of answering the just demand of government employees and workers for salary increase and regularization, government through rightsizing will only effect massive layoffs, retrenchment, and displacement, and worsen contractualization,” the lawmaker said.

“The Department of Budget and Management already knows that this proposal will affect 2 million government employees. The agency wants to save P14 billion in exchange for the jobs and security of tenure of 2 million Filipinos that would be affected by this proposal,” she added.