AFTER giving cash benefits to some 10,000 regular employees of the city, Mayor Isko Moreno signed Ordinance 8718 which, this time around, will give P3,000 gratuity pay to each of the some 8,000 non-regular employees or those who are employed on contractual basis.
The ordinance, Moreno said, was passed swiftly by the Manila City Council through the efforts of Vice Mayor and Presiding Officer Honey Lacuna and majority floorleader Atty. Joel Chua and allots a total of P29,883,000 for the purpose.
The mayor added that the grant of one-time gratuity pay covers city personnel under contracts of service and job order workers is pursuant to Administrative Order No. 38 issued by President Rodrigo Duterte.
“As mentioned in AO No. 38, Contract of Service (COS) and Job Order (JO) workers in the government are paid salaries or wages equivalent to the daily salaries/wages of comparable positions in government and a premium of up to 20 percent of such salary/wage. However, they do not enjoy benefits accorded to government employees such as the Personnel Economic Relief Allowance, Mid-Year and Year-End Bonuses and Performance-Based Bonus among others, considering that they have no employer-employee relationship with the government,” the ordinance noted.
AO No. 38 also states that “LGUs are encouraged to adopt in their respective offices the grant of Gratuity Pay to workers whose services are engaged through COS and JO, utilizing appropriate and available funding sources from their respective local government funds.”
Moreno noted that in the midst of a global pandemic, the grant of a year-end Gratuity Pay to COS and JO workers “is a well-deserved recognition of their hard work and dedication to the city.”
Earlier on, the Manila City Council approved Resolution No. 36, Series of 2020, amending the annual investment program and the issuance of a supplemental investment program for 2020, for the grant of the said gratuity pay to COS an JO workers in Manila.
Before the yearend, on December 29, 2020, Moreno signed an ordinance allocating over P92.8 million for the grant of Service Recognition Incentive (SRI) of P10,000 to each of the city’s 9,282 regular personnel, pursuant to Administrative Order No. 37 issued on December 18, 2020 by President Rodrigo Duterte.
Moreno said the grant of cash benefits to the city personnel is one way of recognizing their efforts, support and dedication to duty, thus ensuring the success of the programs that he and Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna as well as the other city officials have set forth for the residents’ welfare.
He also acknowledged that no project of the city will be implemented properly without the hard work being put out by the employees themselves.
“All Manilans also owe it to the city employes who work long hours and hard just to deliver basic services to them despite the pandemic,” Moreno stressed.
