A practice started during the previous administrations, and which has become part of the Christmas tradition for local government units, is starting to become a burden for some regular employees.
Employees from both the City of Dumaguete and the Province of Negros Oriental are complaining about their “voluntary” deductions amounting to around P2,000 from their Christmas bonuses, which is given to Job Order employees.
The employees, who requested not to be named for obvious reasons, said they were made to sign a document authorizing the deduction of P2000 from their Christmas bonus.
Still, some people claim that the deduction was made even though they did not expressly agree to making the donation.
Citing reasons for their refusal to part with 10 percent of their bonus, the employees said they, too, are having a difficult time making ends meet. Receiving the full bonus amount would have made a big difference.
A second reason is because in a likely event that the bonus is disallowed by the COA, they will pay back not just P18,000–the amount they actually received–but the entire amount of P20,000 because that is the amount they signed for.
The third reason they cited was that many of these Job Order employees actually do nothing most of the time. Some of them just sit around and count the hours or simply just disappear, probably out of embarrassment about their non-performance.
Truth be told, most Job Order employees are only hired to pay political debts. They either helped make the incumbent appointing authority win the election, or are relatives of those who did.
Whether you agree with the move to ask regular employees to give to Job Order employees, the allegation that the regular employees are forced to say “yes” deserves some checking.
But for as long as the complainants are unwilling to come out in the open, they may as well give from the heart.
A heavy heart takes the joy away from giving. As Christmas is the season for giving, let’s give cheerfully and joyfully.
And lastly, as the Good Book tells us, “Let everything you do be done in love.”
Merry Christmas!
