Cebu City Hall workers to get P30T each: Council OKs P201M supplemental budget

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Council has approved a P201 million Supplemental Budget-2 that contains the P30,000 cash incentives for each of the City Hall officials and employees and garbage tipping fee.

The approved SB-2 was P16 million less than the P217 million asked by Mayor Michael Rama. The approval was also observed to have been very quick, with only less than a day of deliberation, contrary to the controversial SB-1 which has been shelved by the majority of the members of the City Council.

Bulk of the amount under SB-2 goes to the cash incentives of the 4,800 regular and casual employees, including city officials. A total of P127.1 million has been allocated for the cash incentives of the officials and employees at P30,000 each.

The garbage tipping fee was given P40 million allocation, P3 million for the interest payment of the South Road Properties loan, and P1.5 million for bank charges, among others.

City Councilor Margarita Osmeña, chairperson of the committee on budget and finance, declared the City Council as committee of the whole to discuss the additional budget and immediately proceed with the approval.

The council started the budget deliberation at 10:30 a.m. and finished the discussion at 3:30 p.m.

Councilors Alvin Dizon and Mary Ann de los Santos abstained from voting for the approval of the SB-2 because of their objection to the P30,000 cash incentives.

The two want to reduce the amount to P10,000.

 “It is not fair for our taxpayers to shoulder at least P120 million representing the cash incentives for our employees. I also submit that the city government should be sensitive and should be prudent in spending money, public funds, because the money that we spend is not money from the city but money of the people of the city of Cebu,” Dizon said.

“The money will be sourced from the taxpayers where many of whom are wallowing in poverty. Though I fully recognize and appreciate the efforts of our employees, giving such big amount at the expense of taxpayers simply does not make sense to me,” de los Santos said.

Osmeña and City Councilor Lea Japson voted for the passage of the budget ordinance, but also asked for P10,000 incentive and not P30,000. The four councilors believe that P10,000 is the appropriate incentive to be given for the employees and not P30,000, saying it is “too much.”

“Corruption does not only include pocketing of public funds. I just want to remind that the misuse of public funds is also a form of corruption,” Dizon said.

City Administrator Lucelle Mercado justified the amount, saying it was based on the recommendation of the city’s Program on Awards and Incentives of Service Excellence (PRAISE), which she is also a member.

Mercado said the city can afford to grant the incentive because it has enough savings.

“We can give P30,000 because we were able to get the savings and we want to give merry Christmas to our employees,” she said.

 “I don’t think it would be unfair because we have been rendering our services,” she added.  The executive department was asked to release the incentives not later than December 11.—/FPL (FREEMAN)