CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Council approved the budget increasing the Christmas bonuses for job-order (JO) employees and those getting honorarium from the city but are not regular or casual employees to P6,000.
Councilor Raymond Garcia, the majority floor leader, moved for such in the regular session of the City Council on Thursday, December 9, 2021.
“The mayor has signified his intention to increase the gratuity pay for the job order employees, with that we will also include who are receiving only honorarium from our city, nga mahatagan sad silag gratuity pay. This includes the tanods, lupon, barangay health workers,” said Garcia.
Garcia has been asked by Mayor Michael Rama to increase the Christmas bonuses of the JOs in all barangays and those working directly in the City Hall because of their contributions to the pandemic response.
Aside from the P6,000 bonus, they will also receive a pack of rice. The council sourced the P36 million budget from the economic-financial grant in the 2021 annual budget.
The budget was passed en masse and will be distributed to the barangay workers and JOs in the City Hall before Christmas.
Christmas bonus, hazard pay
Meanwhile, the P541 million supplemental budget has also been passed in the City Council on the same night.
Supplemental Budget No. 2 (SB2) contains the appropriation for the P20,000 bonus for all casual and regular employees as well as hazard pay for barangay and City Hall employees.
This means that all employees are now entitled to a bonus, but the distribution of such will still depend on the Office of the Mayor.
Mayor Rama already said in previous statements that the City Hall employees must be fully or partially vaccinated in order to get the bonus.
It is not yet clear how the distribution will be done since in the last data released by the Human Resource Department, only 85 percent of the 9,999 casual and regular employees of the City Hall are currently vaccinated.
The mayor is set to announce the guidelines on Friday, December 10, 2021.
/bmjo
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