REGARDLESS of their position, all employees of the Cebu Provincial Government must have a “sense of obligation” to the Cebuanos and show it by working hard to deliver services efficiently.

So said Gov. Gwen Garcia, who emphasized there is a need to reorganize the Capitol’s workforce to improve its departments and offices.

“There should be a sense of obligation to the Cebuanos paying for our salaries. Those taxpayers coming all the way from the farthest barangays, those are the people paying for our salaries. That is why we are indebted to the Cebuanos. We have to work hard here at the Capitol. We have to look for ways to deliver basic services to them, even by just simply improving their roads,” Garcia told reporters in Cebuano Tuesday, July 2, 2019.

After being elected governor in the May 13 elections, she announced that a performance review of all Capitol workers will be conducted.

As of Saturday, June 29, the services of half of the close to 3,000 temporary workers have been retained by the Garcia administration.

The performance review is still ongoing.

According to Garcia, some departments will need to be downgraded, especially those that could operate under the Office of the Governor.

“Making them into full-blown departments is not necessary... Having a full-blown department requires a head, divisions and subordinates. It entails a huge expense when we could just make it into an office under the Office of the Governor as what some of these departments were until these were created by ordinance. There is no law that requires that these offices should become departments,” she added.

The Cebu Provincial Investment and Promotions Office, Provincial Tourism Office, Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Office and Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office were made into departments through ordinances under the administration of the former governor, now Vice Gov. Hilario Davide III.

Through a reorganization of workforce, Garcia said redundancy will be reduced, there will be increased efficiency and resources will be spent “well and wisely.”

To help realize this, Garcia appointed former Provincial Human Resource Management head Noli Valencia as provincial administrator effective July 2.

Valencia had retired from public office in 2015 but Garcia asked him to return to the Capitol, given his expertise in human resource management.

Valencia is working with Garcia’s transition team in their ongoing performance evaluation of all Capitol employees.

Meanwhile, although her administration will not implement the P1.3 billion Provincial Resource Center, Garcia said the area where the facility was supposed to rise will not be left in its current state.

Garcia, though, stressed that the Province will not be paying for any improvements or for backfilling the excavated project site.

“It can’t remain as an excavated site but it’s also not possible for the Province to pay for it. Those responsible should pay because I did not order the excavation,” she said.

Right after assuming office, Garcia issued Executive Order 1 to immediately stop and permanently discontinue all works related to the 20-story facility. (RTF)