Cebu City to rehire casuals, assures no service disruption

Metro aide Eduardo Opinio, 50, has been a city street sweeper for 16 years as a casual employee of Cebu City and hopes he will still have a job after June 30. (CDN PHOTO/ JUNJIE MENDOZA)

Cebu City Hall offices and public services departments will continue to function even after the lapse of employment contracts of the city’s casual workers on June 30, assured Cebu City Acting Mayor Margarita “Margot” Osmeña yesterday.

She said that a still undetermined number of the city’s 3,413 casual employees will be rehired to allow the continuous delivery of basic services in the city.

Last Friday, Acting City Administrator Veronica Morelos released a memorandum advising the casual employees to stop reporting for work after the expiration of their contacts at the end of the month.

However, Osmeña said the department heads could determine who among the casual workers in their departments they would want to remain, to be submitted to the transition team of Mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña and to be approved by the incoming mayor.

In the case of the Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO), for example, most of its casual employees would be retained. About 350 traffic enforcers and parking attendants are all casual employees under CCTO, headed by Rafael Yap.

Ms. Osmeña said her husband would also like to retain most of the enforcers, as they had been gone through training to manage traffic in the city.

“You cannot replaced them also (because) they have to be trained. I mean it will create a major problem if (their contracts will not be renewed),” she said.

Department of Public Services (DPS) Officer-in-Charge John Paul Gelasque, on the other hand, said he would still need to discuss with Morelos how many of his department’s casual workers, including 213 metro aides, he could retain.

If he has a choice, Gelasque said it would be better if all of them would be rehired. But if that would not be possible, he said he hoped there would be immediate replacement for those whose contracts would not be renewed.

DPS has five divisions – street lighting, garbage collection, environmental sanitation, tubig project and maintenance. It has 598 employees composed of regular, casual and job order workers.

Even with the number, Gelasque said it was not enough manpower.

“We need more. Because of that 500, 200 are metro aides and in that area alone, we already need more (people),” he said.

Acting Human Resources Head Marie Velle Abella said Osmeña’s transition team was still finalizing the personnel inventory to determine who would be recommended for rehiring after June 30.