Premium pay for Cebu City Hall’s JOs proposed

CEBU, Philippines — An ordinance has been filed before the Cebu City Council that establishes granting service premium pay to job order (JO) employees of the city hall.

The said ordinance is authored by Cebu City Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia and was tackled during the regular city council session last Wednesday, April 3, 2024.

Entitled “an Ordinance establishing and instituting the grant of Job Service Premium to job order personnel in Cebu City”, it was then referred to the Committee on Laws and the Human Resource Department Office (HRDO).

Garcia’s proposed ordinance aims to promote the welfare of the workers through the grant of awards and incentives as sanctioned by existing laws.

Under the civil service code, JO personnel are not entitled to mid-year and year-end bonuses, awards, and performance incentives with no security of tenure.

It was, however, stated that JO employees may be allowed a premium of up to 20 percent of their salary.

With this, Garcia highlighted that local government units are “granted fiscal autonomy that empowers each local government unit the right means to provide better services for the community and to properly allocate the funds based on the citizens' needs.”

“Cebu City engages the services of personnel under job order schemes to support the implementation of programs, projects and activities of the City of Cebu, fulfilling their duties diligently and passionately comparable to permanent employees,” his proposed ordinance cited.

He added that it is only fitting for the JO employees to receive grants of premium, adding that they have immensely contributed to the efficiency and improvement of government operations that reportedly lead to the progress and success of the City of Cebu being branded as the top performing City of the Visayas.

The said ordinance shall cover all JO personnel of the Cebu City government. Should it be approved, JOs will be entitled P5,000 service premium pay in the months of May and November, annually.

Conditions of the grant include JO personnel who have rendered three months of satisfactory service as certified by their respective department heads. (CEBU NEWS)