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Thursday, March 13, 2003
Lapu can’t release ex-workers’ wages
By Rose O. Verzosa
LAPU-LAPU City Attorney Vincent Joseph Lim believes the request for the release of salaries of 302 former City Hall employees cannot be favorably granted.
In his letter to the City Council, Lim said that even if the council will pass an ordinance favoring its payment, it will still be “ a clear contemptuous act of disobedience to a lawful order of the competent court.”
Lim said the legality of the appointments of Unity for Neighborhood, Livelihood Assistance for Development (Unlad) members to job-order and casual positions in City Hall has not been resolved by the court.
But the RTC already issued a decision permanently prohibiting the administration of then city mayor Ernest Weigel Jr. from using its reenacted 2000 annual and supplemental budgets to pay the salaries of casual, job-order and honorarium employees.
The City filed a motion for reconsideration, now pending in court, asking for a ruling on the validity of the appointments.
Unlad president Ireneo Pelone, who was also a confidential aide of Weigel, wrote to the City Council requesting them to appropriate P2.4 million to pay two months’ worth of salaries of 302 former City Hall employees.
The City Council referred the letter to the City Attorney’s Office for comment.
Except for Pelone and consultant Marcial Pelario, the workers were job-order employees hired by Weigel during his last term as mayor.
The court prevented Weigel from releasing their salaries for March 16 to May 15, 2001 when some residents who were identified with incumbent Mayor Arturo Radaza questioned their hiring under a reenacted budget.
Pelone argued that they are entitled to receive their salaries because the City Government legally engaged their services.
Based on his computation, the 300 job-order workers are entitled to P7,740 each, while he and Pelario are entitled to P23,324 and P31,000, respectively.
But Lim also pointed out that Pelone’s letter did not attach any proof “that actual service has been rendered to merit, if any, the payment of such amount.”
He added that Unlap did not also provide the City with any proof of its existence either as a legislated body or as an artificial being.
(March 13, 2003 issue)
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