By John Vincent B. Toribio

Higit sa lahat, tao.

This mantra of the Mariano Marcos State University has led the institution to be conferred by the Civil Service Commission with the PRIME-HRM Bronze Award, attaining Maturity Level II. PRIME HRM stands for Program to Institutionalize Meritocracy and Excellence in Human Resource Management. MMSU has met the standards of the four PRIME-HRM core systems: performance management; recruitment, selection, and placement; learning and development; and rewards and recognition. 

MMSU President Shirley C. Agrupis received the award from CSC Regional Director Hedy Jose Lardizabal, together with Ms. Liwayway Navalta, chief of policies and systems evaluation division, and Atty. Rex Ami, CSC Field Office – Ilocos Norte Director II, yesterday at the university Teatro Ilocandia. 

Mr. Ami congratulated the university for being one of the few learning institutions in the country which have attained such level, saying “[MMSU becomes] an inspiration for other institutions to always strive for continual development.” 

Witnessing the awarding ceremony, Dr. J. Prospero De Vera III, chairperson of the Commission on Higher Education and the MMSU Board of Regents, said the recognition is a product of “a well-driven community stirred by an inspiring, innovative, vision-focused leadership that saw the very important link between people-excellence and public service excellence.”

Dr. Agrupis would always beam that the university’s human capital is at the center of development and accorded with utmost priority. MMSU has institutionalized its inclusive individual manpower development plan, revised the personnel scholarship guidelines, aggressively pursued partnerships with international universities to expand avenues for advanced studies and training, institutionalized its equal opportunity policy and revised its merit system for faculty and non-teaching personnel to align them with the recent issuances from CSC.

PRIME-HRM is a mechanism that empowers government agencies by developing their human resource management competencies, systems, and practices toward HR excellence. It entails greater engagement not just of the human resource management officer (HRMO) but also of the officials and the rank-and-file employees of the agency. (HLY, StratCom)