Bonus included: Council OKs P287 million supplemental budget

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu City Council has finally approved the P287 million Supplemental Budget 3, which includes the P25,000 bonus for each regular and casual employees of the city government.

A huge chunk of the budget, P216 million, was earmarked for personal services where the bonuses and the first tranche of salary increases will be charged from. A P70 million was also allocated for maintenance and other operating expenses. These will be sourced from the general funds proper and special accounts.

The SB 3 will help defray the city government’s expenses for the implementation of the first tranche of salary increase for the 2,646 regular employees and 3,783 casual workers as mandated by Executive Order 64.

Qualified employees will also receive P25,000 each as year-end cash incentive. City Hall’s 4,681 job order employees will also receive P5,000 each as service premium. The budget also includes the “one-time cash assistance” for 6,692 barangay workers at P5,000 each.

Following the approval of SB 3, two corollary motions were also passed—one is to require the Human Resource Development Office to submit a list of employees entitled to receive the whole amount of the bonus and those who are only entitled “pro rata” and the other is for the committee on laws and the committee on budget and finance to make a report on the ordinance to support the granting of one-time financial assistance to the barangay workers.

Earlier, the council deferred the approval of the budget for a week after questions were raised on whether job order employees can receive the same amount of cash incentives as the other employees.

Councilor Noel Wenceslao, chairman of the committee on budget and finance, explained that based on the Gratuity Pay ordinance that serves as legal basis to grant bonuses to job order workers, the amount is determined based on the length of service. A JO must have rendered at least six months to be entitled to receive the P5,000 service premium. Those who are employed six months below will not be able to receive such a bonus.

The same also applies to casual employees, according to Wenceslao. In order to receive the full amount, a casual employee must be at least six months in service. Those who are six months below are only entitled half of the amount. (CEBU NEWS)