Requesting Entity: Department of Budget and management Regional Office XI

Issues Concern: Job Order and Contract of Service

Details

Applicability of RA 9184 and its revised IRR in the engagement of individuals under Job Order or Contract of Service.

Section 5(r) of the IRR of RA 9184 expressly defines goods to include General Support Services, which involves “non-personal or contractual services, such as, the repair and maintenance of equipment and furniture, as well as trucking, hauling, janitorial, security, and related or analogous services.” The term “related” or “analogous services” includes, but is not limited to, lease or purchase of office space, media advertisements, health maintenance services, and other services essential to the operation of the procuring entity.

[F]rom the definition and the enumeration of what involves General Support Services and analogous services, engagement of personal services under a Job Order or Contract of Service scenario is not contemplated under the procurement law and its associated rules. If at all, the rules on the procurement of General Support Services under RA 9184 and its IRR applies to the engagement of an individual or a company that will provide non-personal service, and not those in the nature of a personal service.

Distinction between Job Order or Contract of Service involving non-personal and personal services.

In the case of engagement of individuals to perform services under a Job Order or Contract of Service, where the selection and evaluation process considers the individual’s qualifications for the purpose of performing personal services, i.e., where the individual carries out work on a regular or routinary basis that is necessary, desirable, and essential to the conduct of business of the agency concerned; or those being performed by a regular personnel of the agency, the ensuing arrangement partakes the nature of hiring personnel rather than procurement of services.

On the other hand, if the engagement of individuals or a firm is for the purpose of providing non-personal services, i.e., those which may be needed in the transaction of public businesses or in the pursuit of any government undertaking, project, or activity, there exists no employer-employee relationship between the procuring entity and the individual workers. If at all, the employer-employee linkage is with the contracting firm and the individual workers, because the power of selection, power of control, power to dismiss, and payment of wages rest in the hands of the firm or company with whom the procuring entity contracted with. Under this situation RA 9184 and its IRR apply in the procurement of the non-personal services provided by the firm or company.

Distinction between the selection and engagement of services of individual personnel under Job Order or Contract of Service and the procurement of Consulting Services.

[T]he determining factor will depend on the particular or specific service/s that the procuring entity concerned needs.

[I]f the desired service would require adequate external technical and professional capability and expertise that are beyond the existing capacity of the procuring entity, then the rules and regulations on the procurement of consulting services under RA 9184 and its IRR shall be applicable. Conversely, RA 9184 and its IRR will not apply in the hiring of individual personnel under Job Order or Contract of Service because the engagement does not require that level of expertise as primary consideration for its selection, but merely pertains to the engagement of ordinary piece of work or intermittent job of short duration.