The leadership of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), together with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), on Monday assured the Senate Committee on Finance that it will be able to regularize around 4,000 to 5,000 contractual employees before the end of the year.

DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian told the panel that those to be regularized are all serving under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

“Meron pa kaming (We still have) submissions, yung mga (those) other social workers in the entire department that are not 4Ps,” he said.

In the previous budget hearing, Senator Raffy Tulfo noted that DSWD has more than 6,000 contracts of service (COS) and job order (JO) employees working in the agency for more than a decade.

DBM Assistant Secretary Leonido Pulido III also assured the panel that they could have been working on the submitted three-year plan of the DSWD.

“Hopefully by this year Madam chair, we’re looking at 4,000 to 5,000. We’re coordinating with the DSWD through the Office of Secretary,” Pulido said.

“We’re quite confident na kaya naman pong habulin (that we can make it),” he added.

Pulido also said that they were able to convert 6,135 COS employees to contractual employees since Gatchalian assumed post.

The DSWD, with its attached agencies, is proposing to spend PHP229.8 billion under the 2025 National Expenditure Program. (PNA)