TWO weeks before the 87th Cebu City Charter day, the charter day bonus that Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama promised to the employees is still in limbo.
In a phone interview on Friday, February 9, 2024, Cebu City Councilor Noel Eleuterio Wenceslao, chairman of the committee on budget and finance, said the executive department gave them the discretion on how much bonus they could give to the employees.
Wenceslao said that in practice, the executive department should be the one to give a proposal, saying the legislative department would only approve the proposal, whether by decreasing or increasing the amount.
The executive department has not submitted a proposal yet.
“Wala pa silay supplemental nga na propose (They have not proposed a supplemental yet). We are still waiting for that,” Wenceslao said.
Regarding the decision of the executive department of letting the council decide for the amount, Wenceslao said they would meet in order to know how they would go about it.
“Tan-aw nato kun pila atong ma propose, if we are really given the authority to propose kun pila ang bonus,” he said.
He said once they could have their meeting, they could already project how much they could give for the bonus, provided with the data for the sources of funds.
Wenceslao said he would sponsor an ordinance for the supplemental budget, but as to the amount, he said the council should decide.
The supplemental budget ordinance may be filed next week, according to Wenceslao.
On February 7, 2024, SunStar Cebu reported that Rama wanted to avoid the same issues as last Christmas in 2023 when he promised to give P35,000 to employees and P10,000 gratuity pay for job order personnel, but only P20,000 and P5,000 were approved by the Council.
In 2023, each employee received P15,000 after the Council approved Supplemental Budget 1 for 2023, amounting to P79 million, for the Charter Day bonus for around 5,000 City employees. (AML)