THE Baguio City Council will conduct a public hearing on three proposed ordinances dealing on employees and persons with disability welfare on Nov. 24, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Multipurpose Hall in City Hall.
Proposed Ordinance No. PO 010-18 seeks to establish a community-based training and diagnostic center for PWDs and adopting a comprehensive program for said purpose.
Councilors Arthur Alad-iw, Maria Mylen Victoria Yaranon and Francisco Roberto A. Ortega VI, said the center would serve as a city level community-based rehabilitation center of training and resources, both human and technical and will monitor, supervise and provide support to the technical needs of its satellite rehabilitation programs and initiatives in the city’s 128 barangays.
The different centers will also provide direct diagnostic and rehabilitation services to walk-in PWD clients and residents of the city who are in need of special health care.
It will train, capacitate and provide specialists and trainers who specialize in each kind of disability such as psychological and behavioral disability, chronic illnesses with disability, learning, cognitive or intellectual, disability, mental, including dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease, visual or seeing disability, orthopedic moving, communications deficits and other disabilities.
Also to be discussed will be the consolidated amendatory ordinance entitled “The Baguio Residents First Policy Ordinance” proposed by Councilors Leandro Yangot Jr., Edgar Avila, Joel Alangsab and the committee on employment, livelihood, cooperatives and PWDs.
The measure seeks to make it mandatory for all employers in the city to observe the Baguio first policy in the hiring of applicants for available jobs in their respective fields of expertise.
Under the proposed ordinance, all employers through their respective human resource officers, shall submit to the Permits and Licensing Division of the City Mayor’s Office a semestral report on the employment status of their business or firm.
Further, the Permits and Licensing Division shall monitor the compliance of employers to the pertinent provisions of the legislative measure.
Any employer operating in the city found violating the pertinent provisions of the ordinance shall be meted a fine of P5,000 or one-year imprisonment or both upon the discretion of the court plus revocation of their business permits.
The third measure aims to prohibit the practice of employers in keeping or retaining possession of the original copies of their employees’ personal documents.
The ordinance authored by Councilor Elaine Sembrano seeks to make it unlawful for employers to keep their employees’ original documents during the existence of an employee-employer relationship, such as, but not limited to, mayor’s working permit, health certificate, transcript of school records including diploma, barangay clearance, police clearance, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) clearance, community tax certificate, birth certificate, certificate of employment, training certificates, among others.
The ordinance stipulated photo copies of the employees original documents shall be sufficient to be retained by the employer and the original documents must be returned immediately to the concerned employees after their validation.
Under the proposed ordinance, employers found violating pertinent provisions shall be penalized by a fine of P3,000 for the first offense, a fine of P4,000 for the second offense and a fine of P5,000 for the third and subsequent offenses. (PR)