The Civil Service Commission (CSC) has invalidated a 2023 memorandum of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) regional director reassigning an official of the Catanduanes District Engineering Office to the regional office in Legazpi City.
In granting the appeal of Engr. Pedro Ceferino T. Guerrero, CSC Director IV Atty. Daisy Punzalan Bragais stated that while the Commission recognizes the managerial discretion granted to heads of agencies to effect personnel movements such as reassignment, the exercise of said power should be in accordance with CSC laws, rules and regulations.
“In this case, this Office is constrained to grant the subject appeal for non-compliance with the rules on reassignment,” stated the decision promulgated Dec. 28, 2023 but released only recently.
It may be recalled that last year, Guerrero, an Engineer III serving as chief of the Materials and Quality Assurance Section at Catanduanes DEO, received a memorandum dated Feb. 1, 2023 issued and approved by then District Engineer Edy Ferdinand R. Joven and Regional Director Engr. Virgilio C. Eduarte.
“In the exigency of service and due to voluminous projects for implementation, you are hereby requested to report to the DPWH Regional Office No. V, Rawis, Legazpi City,” the memo stated, adding that Guerrero should coordinate with the Chief, Materials Quality Assurance and Hydrology Division, for further instruction regarding the assignment.
In appealing the issue, Guerrero contended that RD Eduarte committed grave abuse of discretion and serious errors of law in ordering his reassignment to the DPWH regional office, saying that it constituted constructive dismissal.
He pointed out that his position as Engineer III is station-specific at the DPWH Virac, Catanduanes, and thus, he should never be reassigned.
As a regular member of the 2023 Bids and Awards Committee (BAC), he said that he did not commit any act or omission that would warrant the reassignment.
However, Guerrero surmised that the reassignment was due to his opposition to the stand of BAC Technical Working Group (TWG) head Engr. Rosana Camacho regarding her findings on the post-qualification of bidders for a road improvement project in sitio Banago, Batalay, Bato.
The reassignment, he told the CSC, would financially dislocate him as traveling by sea to DPWH regional office entails enormous expenses and he will be forced to rent an apartment, aside from the fact that he is under medical treatment for heart disease.
In his comment regarding the appeal, RD Eduarte alleged that Guerrero was not illegally reassigned and constructively dismissed, and, instead, did not comply with the memorandum to report to the regional office, with such defiance tantamount to insubordination.
He likewise said that the issues raised by Guerrero regarding the BAC are all unnecessary and irrelevant to the reassignment.
“The tenor of the memorandum…is for appellant to ‘report’ to the regional office…and only requires him to help in sorting out voluminous documents and not to be reassigned to said office…,” Eduarte stressed.
He cited a provision of the Administrative Code allowing any head of agency to reassign personnel, claiming that the issuance of the Feb. 1, 2023 memorandum cannot be considered to have been made on a whim, fancy or spite.
In clarifying whether Guerrero’s reassignment was proper, the CSC clarified that the memorandum was indeed an order of reassignment.
It noted that under Section 13(a) of the 2017 Omnibus Rules on Appointments and Other Human Resource Actions (ORAOHRA), reassignment is the movement of an employee across the operational structure within the same department or agency, which does not involve a reduction in rank, status or salary.
With regards to employees holding station-specific appointments, their reassignment shall be allowed only for a maximum period of one (1) year, the Commission added.
For reassignment to be valid, it emphasized that the same should not constitute constructive dismissal, which may be any of the following: reassignment of an employee to perform duties and responsibilities inconsistent with the duties and responsibilities of his/her position such as from a position of dignity to a more servile or menial job; reassignment to an office not in the existing organizational structure; reassignment to an existing office but the employee is not given any definite set of duties and responsibilities; and reassignment that will cause significant financial dislocation or will cause difficulty or hardship on he part of the employee because of geographic location.
Constructive dismissal also exists when the reassignment is done indiscriminately or whimsically because the law is not intended as a convenient shield for the appointing/disciplining officer to harass or oppress a subordinate on the pretext of advancing and promoting public interest such as reassignment of employees twice a year, or reassignment of career service officials and employees with valid appointments during change of administration of elective and appointive officials, the CSC said.
“Measured against the foregoing, this Office finds the memorandum to be legally infirm for non-compliance with the rules,” Atty. Bragais ruled.
For the memorandum issued to be valid, it should have specified the duration of the reassignment to not more than a year, considering that Guerrero’s appointment as Engineer III is station-specific and has tenurial security, the decision clarified.
It pointed out that the memorandum should have provided Guerrero with a definite set of duties and responsibilities, as it still required him to coordinate with the Chief of the Materials Quality Assurance and Hydrology Division for further instructions.
There was no specificity as to time, functions, duties and responsibilities, the CSC stressed, and there is no certainty as to whether the functions he will be discharging in the regional office are equivalent tio his duties and responsibilities of his current position.
“While the alleged duty to be performed by Engr. Guerrero was ‘only’ to help in sorting out voluminous documents involving the implementation of projects, said ‘sorting out’ appears to be a menial task as the nature of these documents and projects were not specified,” the Commission underscored.
As Engr. Guerrero may suffer significant dislocation and difficulty or hardship because of geographic location due to the reassignment, the order should have included a provision on the financial aspect of the reassignment considering the distance between the two officers, which includes accommodation/transportation allowance, it added.
“A daily commute to and from his residence/place pf work at Catanduanes will be impractical and Engr. Guerrero will eventually be forced to rent an apartment which is an added financial burden,” it noted.
There is nothing on record which shows that DPWH extended appropriate financial support to defray the expenses to be incurred as a result of the reassignment, the CSC said, considering that as a rank-and-file employee Guerrero falls within the classification of lowly salaried employee.
In the seven-page ruling, Director Bragais declared that the words “exigency of the public service” are not magic words which operate to make any reassignment valid, nothing that the records are bereft of evidence supporting the existence of exigent circumstances.
Citing a previous ruling, the CSC director said the memorandum did not state the reasons why Engr. Guerrero, who resides in and is stationed in Catanduanes, was specifically identified to address the alleged exigency.
“Neither was it established that the claimed exigency required the professional expertise of an engineer, and that there were no other available engineers in the Regional Office capable of addressing the same,” she concluded.