PUBLIC Works Secretary Vince Dizon on Thursday urged the youth to join the fight against rampant corruption in government.
Dizon particularly encouraged fresh graduates who had passed the engineering licensure examination to apply in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
He said it is not enough to make erring public works officials accountable, but more importantly to change the system, and recruit young and dynamic individuals who have not been corrupted.
“We need fresh blood in the DPWH to change the culture — the systemic problem in the DPWH. We need new, young, fresh people not corrupted by the system to come in and start changing the system,” he said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has directed Dizon to recruit dynamic and idealistic young professionals to fill the 2,000 vacant positions in the department.
Dizon also confirmed that a reshuffle at the DPWH is likely between January and February.
As the implementing arms of the DPWH, the regional and district offices play a vital role in ensuring that the implementation of flood control projects and other infrastructure works comply with the procurement process, specifications and structural plans.
Dizon earlier announced that an initial batch of DPWH officials had been relieved. They were identified as directors Ronnel Tan (Region 1), Jovel Mendoza (Region 4A), Virgilio Eduarte (Region 5) and Danilo Villa (Region 7); assistant directors Neil Farala (Region 4B) and Annie dela Vega (Region 5); and district engineers Ruel Umali of the Metro Manila 3rd District Engineering Office and Many Bulusan of the South Manila District Engineering Office.
Also relieved for lack of civil service eligibility were OIC district engineers Sherylann Gonzalez (La Union), Roy Pacanan (Iloilo City) and Peter Scheller Soco (Leyte).
The DPWH started its campus recruitment program last Wednesday by holding a job fair at Mapua University.
“This is a golden opportunity for you, young engineers, to come in and be part of the solution. Because that’s what we need. We need more people to join us and try to solve all these problems. There are so many problems,” said Dizon at the start of the job fair at Mapua University, which was attended by more than 300 student applicants.
Dizon said the DPWH is also strengthening its transparency portal by making all its files machine-readable.
“We are doing it so that the public would be able to see all the files of the DPWH. We have nothing to hide, contrary to claims by some critics. All these are public documents,” he said.
