Bonus bidding

Something good finally came out of the bickering between Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama and the Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kagawasan (BO-PK) dominated City Council.

City Hall employees – about 4,800 souls and their families – are no doubt happy.

Last month, Mayor Rama submitted to the City Council a proposed supplemental budget 1, which was mainly for the 76th Charter Day bonus of city employees. The original proposal was for an amount of P7,000 each.

As usual, the council said no to Rama’s proposal. But the ‘no’ was not the same as the ‘no’ they said to supplemental budgets 2 and 3 in 2012. The City Council found P7,000 not enough and set the bonus at P10,000.

This decision, of course, endeared them to City Hall employees. Mayor Rama was unhappy.After boasting in his last State of the City Address in 2012 that Cebu City was rich, he must have looked forward to the gratitutde of city goverment workers he intended to gift with a generous bonus.

Last Tuesday, employees were grinning from ear to ear when they left City Hall P12,000 richer.

A similar game of one upmanship took place just last December at the Capitol, after Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia was suspended but still held sway in her east wing office. She had hoped to announce a big increase in the Christmas bonus of provincial workers.

The new acting Gov. Agnes Magpale beat her to the punch by having the treasurer announce a P30,000 bonus for employees, a sharp increase from P20,000 the previous year.

We hope dueling camps in City Hall arrive at a similar happy compromise on the senior citizen’s assistance.

Originally scheduled for release twice a year as provided by the 2013 Budget Ordinance, Mayor Rama wanted a quarterly release of the P10,000 annual aid for senior citizens. If he had his way, the first release of cash would be in April – well within the campaign period for the May 13 election.

As expected, the City Council, said ‘no’ and counterproposed a monthly release of the aid.

In this kind of competition for generosity, we hope elderly residents of the city come out winners.

Outside City Hall, we wonder where the bitter rivalry of former friends Mayor Rama and Congressman Tomas Osmeña, will end up when both compete in generosity as well.

We hope it doesn’t result in a bidding war for votes of the ‘kabus’. Cebu City voters enjoy the reputation of having firm choices that don’t get swayed with cash on election day. Let the next mayor be chosen based on the merits and track record of the candidate, his vision for a better Cebu City and his ability to deliver that vision.