Labella: Public library will resume 24/7 operations soon
The Cebu City Public Library is only operating from 8 a.m. to midnight because of lack of manpower. | CDND FILE PHOTO
CEBU CITY, Philippines—Patrons of the Cebu City Public Library will have to wait for a while before it can go back to its 24/7 operations.
Mayor Edgardo Labella said he wanted to keep the library open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to cater to the needs of the reading and studying public.
But the library still lacks manpower and is only open for 16 hours, from 8 a.m. to midnight.
In previous statements, Mayor Edgardo Labella said he wanted to keep the library operating for 24 hours daily and will address the problem of lack of manpower.
Labella, however, said that he already instructed the City Administrator’s Office to hasten the deployment of additional personnel to the library.
But City Administrator, Lawyer Flores Casas Jr., said the city cannot yet deploy additional staff to the library because they are still ironing out the assignments of the job order employees after the review of their performance records is completed.
Casas did not give a specific date as to when the additional staff will be deployed but noted that it will be in the “next few weeks” when all the positions will be filled.
For now, the library will continue with its limited operation hours from 8 a.m. to 12 midnight.
Casas assured that they will be deploying manpower to the library as soon as they can so the library can continue its operations, which the mayor said is important for the students and workers in the city.
Meanwhile, Casas said that not all job-order employees will be rehired especially the employees who actively participated in the May 2019 electoral campaign.
Casas said that government employees must remain non-partisan during the elections as they are expected to serve the city regardless of who will be elected as officials.
“We have to look into those who campaigned against us. They won’t do. The government employees are supposedly non-partisan,” said Casas in Cebuano.
Casas said he cannot yet determine the actual numbers of retained employees but assured that they will be properly reviewed based on their performance during their period of service.
In previous statements, Labella said he does not want many workers of the city government to loose their jobs and assured a proper and just review.
Labella said it is expected that some people will lose their jobs, but it will not be as drastic as 2016 when 3,000 workers lost their jobs when Tomas Osmeña took office as mayor in 2016. / celr
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