There are 264,000 vacant positions in the government that need to be filled up, otherwise, they would be abolished, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said on Wednesday.

In his regular forum in Manila, Diokno said authorized vacant positions were as of July 30.

Teaching and teaching-related positions comprised the bulk of vacant positions or 125,000 or 47.4 percent of the total vacant posts.

These were followed by general civil servants with more than 90,000 vacant positions, or 34.2 percent of the vacant positions in government, military and uniformed personnel with more than 34,000 vacant positions, or 13 percent, and medical and allied medical jobs with almost 14,000 vacant positions, or 5.3 percent.

Diokno said he would issue a circular directing all agencies concerned to fill all authorized positions available or risk abolition of positions if left unfilled five years from creation.

He said his office would know by September if those positions would be filled by the concerned agencies, otherwise, by the end of the year, the DBM would abolish the posts.

The DBM has estimated at least P116 billion budget annually would be needed for salaries and other compensations if the 264,000 vacant positions would be filled.

“We cannot deliver our programs and services as efficiently and effectively as possible without our civil servants there doing the work,” Diokno said.

For the proposed 2019, 10,000 new positions for policemen, 3,000 positions for firemen, and 2,000 positions for jail officers are slated to be opened. Celerina Monte/DMS