By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

SOME employees of the governor’s office are simply being transferred to other agencies but no actual streamlining is taking place, Sen. Ben Pangelinan, D-Barrigada, alleged yesterday.
The employee transfers, Pangelinan said, was a ploy “to portray an appearance of reducing staff and costs, when the reality is actually being hidden.”
“In the midst of all the financial challenges to our government, we must not try to fool the people with such tactics.  If this is in fact the case, we are only furthering the systemic problems and continually digging ourselves in a deeper hole,” Pangelinan stated in a letter to Gov. Felix P. Camacho. 
“It is even more disturbing when merit service employees are threatened that they may be furloughed, while political patrons are first taken care of,” he added.
Pangelinan asked the governor to furnish him information on all employees at the Governor’s Office who have been moved to other agencies and getting paid out of the budget of other agencies and departments and are now working in the front office.