City Hall staff caught in mayor, council row

Do you see any political color here?

Even Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 49 Judge Daniel Villanueva ended up asking this question, as the staff of Manila Vice Mayor “Isko Moreno” Domagoso and employees of Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim faced off on Thursday on the issue of unpaid wages.

The hearing was the first for the mandamus petition filed by 16 city council employees against the officers-in-charge of the city treasurer’s office and the city budget office, demanding the release of salaries they said   were not given to them since April.

Around 789 casual and 408 contractual employees who had worked  for a year under the city councilors and council presiding officer Domagoso, have stopped receiving their salaries after Mayor Alfredo Lim issued an executive order in March ordering a 30 percent reduction in the number of nonregular city hall employees from both the legislative and executive departments.

The issue had been cited by Domagoso in May as one of the reason why he and the majority of the councilors moved over to the camp of formerPresident  Joseph “Erap” Estrada, Lim’s rival in the 2013 mayoralty race.

“Do you see any political color in the actuation of the executive?” Villanueva asked the petitioners.

The petitioners’ counsel, Veronica Lladoc answered: “Maybe.” But councilor Marlon Lacson, who was in the court along with at least four other councilors, answered point-blank: “Yes, your honor, there is.”

Lacson pointed out that since 1998, the number of contractual and casual employees have remained the same, and that this was the first time a massive layoff had occurred.

His statement was met with side comments from the city council staff who filled up the court room: “Kaya kay Erap na kami! (That’s why we are for Erap!)” or “Kung kelan pasukan na! (And it had to come when classes are to start!)”

In a previous interview, respondent Marissa de Guzman, officer in charge of the city treasurer’s office, explained that Lim issued the executive order following a Commission on Audit report in March which sought action from  the city government on the  P1.1 billion overpayment of personal services in 2011.

City legal officer Renato de la Cruz, representing De Guzman and fellow respondent Heidi Rosero of the city budget office, explained after the hearing that the payrolls of the casual and contractual staff were  not processed after the council refused to follow Lim’s executive order and continued to retain all its nonregular employees.

“They have not submitted a payroll that has been reduced. Their payroll last year was so big: P500 million, whereas we only had P90 million. Yet we reduced 717 personnel,” De la Cruz said.

He added that they then decided to adapt an “alphabetic” formula: They would only process the payroll of 50 percent of the nonregular city council staff, in alphabetical order.

De la Cruz said 14 of the 16 petitioners were thus eligible to have their payrolls processed.

But in an interview, secretary to the council Luch Gempis said the majority of the councilors will stand their ground against the reduction of nonregular staff.

He expressed the council and Domagoso’s opinion that Lim’s executive order was too “drastic” and his alphabetic formula “arbitrary.”

“The legislative is separate from the executive. They can’t just issue an order covering the council. It is up to the vice mayor’s discretion if he will remove or retain the council staff,” Gempis added.

For this reason, he said most of the councilors refuse to let their eligible nonregular staff process their salaries unless all of them are allowed to do so by the executive department, adding that they would rather wait for the court’s decision on the mandamus petition.

“If the mayor is really sincere, the prudent thing to do is to call the vice mayor and the council to explain his actions. But there was never any effort to discuss this. There was no consultation, no dialogue on the financial status of Manila,” Gempis lamented.

The next hearing on the petition has been scheduled on Tuesday where Domagoso is expected to testify for the petitioners.