History of the Philippine Civil Service1

HISTORY OF THE PHILIPPINE CIVIL SERVICE

Personnel Management

The term civil service has two different meanings:

• 1.A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as

• proven by competitive examinations.

• 2.The body of employees in any government agency other than the military.

A civil servant or public servant is a person in the public sector employed

for a government department or agency

• The Civil Service Commission of the Philippines (CSC) is a government agency which deals with civil service matters and conflict resolution. It is tasked with the responsibility of overseeing the integrity of government actions and processes

Early Beginnings and Spanish Origins of the Philippine Civil Service

• Kingdoms and Sultanates Governed by Datus and Sultans

• 1565- Spanish Settlement and Colonization began.

• 1896- The beginning of Philippine revolution against Spain

• The Treaty of Paris of 1898, 30Stat.1754, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in Spain surrendering control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, parts of the West Indies, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States in exchange for a payment of twenty million dollars. [1]. It was signed on December 10, 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War, and came into effect on April 11, 1899, when the ratifications were exchanged.

• June 12,1898 Proclamation of Independence and establishment of the First Philippine Republic

American Roots of the Philippine Civil Service

• The Civil service system in the Philippines is a product of its colonial history under Spain and the United States of America. The First Philippines Commission otherwise known as the Schurman Commission, adopted and organized by American President William Mc Kinley, sat about to lay down the foundation of a Philippine civil service. This was established on January 20, 1899. The objective was to formulate the criteria for employment of Filipinos in the government. Therefore, as early as April 1899, the Shurman Commission guaranteed to the Filipino people “ a honest and effective civil service in which, to the fullest extent practicable, natives shall be employed”

• The civil service system in the Philippines was formally established under Public Law No. 5 ("An Act for the Establishment and Maintenance of Our Efficient and Honest Civil Service in the Philippine Island") in 1900 by the Second Philippine Commission. A Civil Service Board was created composed of a Chairman, a Secretary and a Chief Examiner. The Board administered civil service examinations and set standards for appointment in government service. It was reorganized into a Bureau in 1905.

Public Act No. 5 established the framework for a merit-based civil service system,

mandating the appointment and promotion to government positions according to merit

and through competitive examination as far as practicable. It defined the classes of

officials and employees covered by the civil service, which included all officialswithin the executive branch: central, departmental

and provincial.

• USA colonial rule of the Philippines started in 1905 with very limited local rule

• 1933- partial autonomy was granted preparatory to planned full independence from the United States in 1946.

Filipinization of Filipinization of the Philippine the Philippine Civil ServiceCivil Service

• General Francis Burton Harrison- undertook rapid filipinization of the Civil service

• Woodrow Wilson- appointed 5 Filipinos to the Philippine Commission of the Legislative. Giving it a Filipino Majority for the first time.

• In 1916 the Civil Service Law was embodied in the new Administrative Code.The Bureau of Civil Service was, however, to continue under the control of an American director until Jose Gil was appointed in 1920 as the first Filipino Directorof Civil Service. American leadership, coupled with Filipino cooperation made possible good government service throughout the period of 1899-1920. The period 1913-1921 marked the rapid Filipinization of Civil Service. In 1913, there were 2,623 Americans and 6,365 Filipinos in the government services. By 1921, there were only 614 Americans as against 13,240 Filipinos at the services

• The Jones Law of 1916 provided for the Filipinization of the Civil Service,diminishing the employment of Americans in the government service until its full emancipation by the 1935 Philippine Constitution. That constitution established the independence of the civil service system from partisan influence, the permanence of the merit principle and security of tenure of permanently appointed civil servants.

• In 1959, Republic Act 2260, otherwise known as the Civil Service Law, was enacted. This was the first integral law on the Philippine bureaucracy, superseding the scattered administrative orders relative to government personnel administration issued since 1900. This Act converted the Bureau of Civil Service into the Civil Service Commission with department status.

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