Regular and casual plantilla employees of the City of Dumaguete have received additional Christmas bonuses, supposedly amounting to P20,000 each.
City Administrator William Ablong, in a telephone interview, said the additional bonus, dubbed the Productivity Enhancement Incentive, is taken from the City government’s savings wherein P21 million has been allocated for it.
However, instead of receiving the total amount, many workers received only P18,000 after they signed a certification allowing P2,000 to be taken from their PEI for Job Order employees, said Ablong.
The city government had earlier appealed to its employees to voluntarily give P2,000 each from the additional incentive for JO employees who are not qualified to receive incentives.
Ablong clarified that an employee will not be forced to shell out the P2,000 against his own will but said that it has been a practice in previous years that regular and casual plantilla workers are encouraged to share their blessings with the JO workers each Christmas.
Some employees, who did not wish to be named, said they can actually share their incentives but not necessarily 10 percent of it because they also have large families in need.
They asked that since it was not their decision to hire JOs, why are the employees now being asked to chip in for the JOs’ incentives?
One suggestion they had offered the administration was for the regular employees to raise some amount only for the JO employees assigned in their particular Department. That way, their giving is more personalized, they said.
Some 1,100 officials and employees are qualified to receive the incentive but with the condition that in the event the Commission on Audit will disallow it, they will have to reimburse the amount.
Some workers though, who claimed they opted not to set aside P2,000 for the JO workers, complained they were allegedly being deducted the same amount anyway.
The city government currently has a little over 1,004 Job Order employees who are to receive their “bonus” depending on how much money can be collected from the regular and casual employees, said Ablong.
The employees expressed apprehension over a certification they were made to sign for a possible reimbursement if the COA disallows the allocation.
They pointed out that if this happens, they will be paying back P20,000 each even if they had only received P18,000.
Earlier, Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria had assured that the additional incentive is being done in accordance with COA rules and regulations, and that there will be no repeat of what had happened in 2009.
In 2009, during the previous administration headed by the late former Mayor Agustin Perdices, employees also received P20,000 less P3,000 for JO workers.
However, the COA later issued a notice of disallowance, stating it was illegal.
To this day, those who had received the additional bonus are still paying P200 a month as reimbursement. (With reports from PNA/Judy F. Partlow)
