Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella says they are focused on filling up the 2,900 full-time positions at the Cebu City Hall so they can do away with hiring more casual employees. | CDND FILE PHOTO
CEBU CITY, Philippines — There are 3,000 casual employees ‘working’ at the Cebu City Hall and Mayor Edgardo Labella is not happy about it.
Labella said personnel from the Civil Service Commission in Central Visayas (CSC-7) gave them a warning on the overdraft of casual employees at the Cebu City Hall.
The CSC went undercover at the Cebu City Hall in the past days and discovered “employees” who are not doing their jobs.
Instead, they were playing games on their cellphones, getting a massage, spending hours putting on make-up, and even sleeping during office hours.
The CSC urged the city to apprehend these employees and remind them that they should be doing their jobs instead of using government amenities for private conveniences.
“There will be strict enforcement of the wearing of IDs (identification cards) of all our employees. Of course, once we have taken cared of the uniform, we will have all of them (employees) uniformed,” said Labella.
Labella said department heads have been focused on the transition matters and have overlooked the issue involving casual employees.
But the Mayor said that once all the processes in the change of administration are finished, the civil service laws and regulations on determining the regularity of employees and the security of tenure will be fully implemented.
Labella said he will ask for a copy of the videos from CSC to check if the employees caught on camera were, in fact, employees of the city hall.
“Some of them may not even be employees. They may be people who are asking for employment, or those waiting for appointment. It is understandable that people want to work in the city government,” said Labella.
He said the Human Resources Office was instructed to properly screen the applicants based on merits and fitness, and not by political affiliation.
Labella said when he took over as Cebu City Mayor on July 1, 2019, he was informed that there are 2,900 plantilla or full-time positions that they needed to fill up.
He said they focused on these over casual employees.
“We will comply with the civil service eligibility and fill the plantilla positions so that we can do away with many casual employees,” said Labella. / celr