Vicsal lawyer: Workers’ needs will be taken care of

THE more than 500 employees of the Gaisano Metro Ayala store were assured that their needs would be taken care of.

As of 9 p.m. on Saturday, firefighters were still battling the fire that hit the department store at the Ayala Center Mall.

Lawyer Vincent Tomaneng, legal officer and spokesperson of Vicsal Development Corp., promised to attend to the needs of the over 500 employees as soon as the fire would be completely put out.

In the meantime, Tomaneng advised the employees to wait for further advisories from their human resource department.

“We’re still handling and assessing the situation but rest assured, we will take care of them. We will make the necessary actions in due time. But as of now, we will just wait for instructions from the management. There will be a meeting with the management about this,” Tomaneng told Cebu Daily News during a phone interview on Saturday.

Vicsal is a private family corporation of the Gaisanos who own and operate a chain of department stores and supermarkets, including Metro Ayala which opened in 1994.

The store workers like Anabelle (not her real name), a 34-year-old saleslady who had worked for nearly 2 decades at the store, and Rhea Jane Laluna were worried about what would happen to them.

Anabelle said that she hoped that the store workers would be given other jobs by the Vicsal Development Corp.

“We are sad but we are relieved that there were no casualties from the fire,” she said in Cebuano.

Laluna was crying as she looked at the Metro Ayala being destroyed by the fire.

“Nahugno gyud mi. Diha gud mi nagtrabaho. (We felt devastated because that is where we work),” she said.

Several employees of the department store waited in an open space across from the burning building on Saturday morning while their attendance was checked.

“Naghuwat lang mi og instructions gikan sa among management. (We will just wait for further instructions from the management),” said Laluna who worked as a saleslady at Metro Ayala for the past seven months.

“Nanghinaut lang mi nga matagaan mi og trabaho. Wala gyud mi nagexpect nga maingon ani. Okay man unta ang tanan pero mao ni nisugat namo sa bag-ong tuig. (We hope that we will be given other jobs. We did not expect this to happen. Everything was fine until this greeted us for the new year),” she added.