DAVAO City Public Safety and Security Command Center (PSSCC) head Benito de Leon said their office is losing competent men trained with technical expertise because they can only hire contract service workers and not regular employees.
“I lose competent people who make this as a training ground for higher paying jobs offered by other companies, like they go abroad because of the technical expertise. I certify in a bit that they have been employed in [PSSCC] so we lose that technical expertise na sana the city stands to benefit from what we have invested in them,” he said.
De Leon said they saw the need to make the PSSCC a separate office of the city to address this problem.
He said currently, PSSCC borrows personnel from other departments, and these personnel are contract of service workers only and yet they learn technical expertise, entrusted with security information, allowed the handling of very expensive and costly facilities and equipment. De Leon said these tasks should have been handled by regular employees.
“A regular employee should be in a better position to safeguard and to ensure that these properties are properly safeguarded. So kung regular department siya permanent yung employee natin, mapagkakatiwalaan natin ng maigi because there is now secure of tenure and you call direct to them to do what they should do,” he said.
De Leon said as an institutionalized office, they will also have a fixed budget to work on and plan on.
“We can also send them (personnel) to trainings not only locally but also nationally and internationally so they can up their competence tapos we could take pride of being copied by other local government units,” he said.
De Leon said their office, which is recognized as among the city’s best practices and main destination of local government units for benchmarking, would serve its purpose more if it is institutionalized.
“President Rodrigo Duterte has taken pride of PSSCC and 911 and many local government and schools are coming in the city [to visit it],” he said.
However, he pointed out, the PSSCC, which is being benchmarked and followed by other is an “ad hoc” unit.
“That is something that we have to work on but nonetheless at this point we are inspired with the show of support and even if it is still temporary, the officers and personnel are serving the best to serve the interest of the Dabawenyos,” he said.
PSSCC is under the city mayor’s office as an ad hoc or temporary creation, De Leon said it can be dissolved anytime upon the desire of the seating mayor.
De Leon initially urged the creation of the PSSCC as a separate office through a letter of request sent to Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, copy furnished to Davao city Council committee on peace and order chair Mabel Sunga-Acosta.