Council plays hardball, warns Rama on advisers

The now opposition Cebu City Council won’t take Mayor Michael Rama’s sacking of 15 contractual employees in the Department of Welfare for the Urban Poor (DWUP) sitting down.

Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young warned that the council can also reject Rama’s consultants.

The non-renewal of the contracts of the 15 employees, some of whom served the DWUP for a decade, was part of the mayor’s announced revamp of City Hall.

“What if we question him on his consultants? He cannot get his consultants if we don’t approve them. Of course we don’t intend to punish him for that. But he created another issue and he’s become a problem,” Young said.

The mayor’s office currently has 40 consultants whose contracts are renewed annually.

Young said the council has authority to reject the renewal of their contracts, though Rama can argue his case all the way to the Supreme Court.

“Rama can cite the Supreme Court and say I can appoint and sign the contracts of our consultants but his consultants have to go through us. What will happen if he doesn’t have any consultants? Whats he going to do?,” Young said.

The revamp is reportedly a loyalty check done on the rank and file after Rama broke off his ties with the administration Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BO-PK).

The 15 DWUP employees received their notice of termination last Friday.

Young called DWUP chief Collin Rossell “incompetent” and “heartless” for not reconsidering the plight of the workers when he recommended the non-renewal of the contracts of the 15 workers.

“That job requires an aptitude. Do you love your job? It requires patience to deal with squatters and poor people. It takes a long time to do that (to ask people to relocate). You have to have a heart for the poor,” Young said.

Rossel, a former president of the Mahayahay A. Lopez Homeowners Association, became a lawyer to help his neighborhood from having their homes demolished years back.

Despite this, Young said the fact that Rossell recommended the non-renewal of the contracts of the 15 employees showed that he was heartless.

Rossell earlier said the recommendation was based on an evaluation of their performance.

He denied accusations by the employees that they were not renewed due to their ties to BO-PK.

“(He has a) very touching story but its not enough. Ever since he assumed the post, he didn’t show that he has the heart for the poor,” Young said.

Young compared Rossell to former city administrator Francisco Fernandez and City Councilor Alvin Dizon, who worked with urban poor groups. Fernandez’s Pagtambayayong Foundation held a press conference last Saturday for the 15 former DWUP employees.

Fernandez appealed to the city government to consider the needs of these employees, a plea Young said should be considered.

The vice mayor said if the contracts of the workers aren’t reconsidered, then the council can give them jobs outside City Hall.

However, Young said this may affect to some extent the projects for DWUP.

“It would certainly affect. But it’s okay we’ll study it,” he said in jest. /Reporter Marian Z. Codilla