Sunday, August 31, 2008 City Hall grants P52 wage hike
THOUGH they may have bickered a lot over issues like the hiring of employees, Mayor Jonas Cortes and Vice Mayor Carlo Pontico Fortuna have finally agreed on one thing—to give Mandaue City Hall’s job-order workers a raise.
They revealed the news during the closing of yesterday’s Charter Day celebration, with Cortes announcing the increase and Fortuna specifying the daily wage adjustment from P215 to P267.
The City is finalizing the guidelines for the P52-increase.
“I thank the City Council for partially approving the supplemental budget number one,” Cortes said during his speech.
He had proposed a P205.53-million supplemental budget, but the council slashed it to P126.50 million, which includes P28 million for the job-order employees.
The amount will cover the honoraria of 1,775 job-order workers, at P215 a day, for July to September.
In the same speech, Cortes mentioned that the employees, gathered at the Mandaue City Sports Complex, have not yet received their pay for the last two months.
‘Rider’
When the opposition-dominated council approved the budget last Friday, they included a “rider” that required the mayor to secure an enabling ordinance before disbursing the P28 million.
In his speech yesterday, Fortuna said his staff worked late Friday night just to finalize the supplemental budget ordinance and then have Cortes sign it.
“We did it just to finish the payroll of the job-orders,” he said amid clapping and cheers.
He also challenged the City Government employees to double their effort and improve their commitment toward work.
Yesterday’s celebration started with a parade going to the sports complex, followed by a mass and awarding of outstanding city workers, employees and officials.
Cortes and Fortuna sat on the stage with other City officials, the mayor’s wife Sara, and Schools Superintendent Arden Monisit.
Cortes said the celebration, themed “Accelerating Growth Through Unity and Cooperation,” was very successful.
Benefit
“We’re now back to square one. (But) as we have witnessed, if we are united, we expect something good,” he told reporters after the celebration.
In the Charter Day art contest last Thursday, two drawings caught the public’s attention, both showing Cortes and Fortuna shaking hands.
One was entry number 4 while the other was entry number 9 drawn by 16-year old Leonido Piñas from Tabok National High School.
“Bisan sa drawing lang naa unta silay kooperasyon (At least in the drawing, they are cooperating with each other),” Piñas told Sun.Star Cebu.
His entry did not make it to the top three winners, though.
Raquel Ouano, 15, of the Mandaue City Science High School bagged first prize; 16-year-old Jessryl Albarico of Don Gerardo Ouano National High School, second prize; and Jayvee Ontong of Jagobiao National High school, third. (OCP)
