Newsbriefs

CONTRACTUALS NOT REHIRED

THE contracts of more than a hundred Mandaue City job-order workers were not renewed.

“Most of the regular employees in each department are not performing their job well because they are dependent on the job order employees,” said City Treasurer Regal Oliva.

The job-order employees’ salaries are taken from the city’s budget for Maintenance and Operating Expenses but the government wants to have the funds diverted to social services, he said.

Oliva said the city now has 1,799 job-order and 598 regular employees. They are each allotted P5,600 a month on a no- work, no-pay scheme.

If they hire too many job order workers, the city might run out of money by midyear in 2012, Oliva said.

Starting last June, department heads assessed job-order employees in a performance evaluation, said City Administrator James Abadia./REPORTER JUCELL MARIE P. CUYOS

MONTERRAZAS STILL ON HOLD

CEBU City Mayor Michael Rama said Monterrazas de Cebu’s recent infraction cited by the Environment Management Bureau proved that he did the right thing when he issued the cease-and-desist order against the upland development project.

Rama said Genvi Development Corp., the project’s developer, still has a lot of work to do before they are allowed to continue their 200-hectare project in the uplands of barangays Guadalupe and Tisa.

“You just don’t look at them but also the people below (their development site),” he said.

“The cease-and-desist order will be lifted when flooding is no longer a thing for them to experience.”

Genvi Development already started ground work for 55 hectares of their development site.

They also established at least seven desiltation ponds around their work areas.

However, city engineering personnel said poor pond maintenance led to floodwater spillover to low-lying residential areas.

Heavy rains last July 21 flooded eight sitios each in barangays Guadalupe and Tisa./CHIEF OF REPORTERS DORIS C. BONGCAC

‘DWELLERS MAY STAY’

A CEBU City court affirmed its ruling prohibiting the Cebu provincial government from evicting occupants of a lot formerly occupied by the Department of Agriculture in Central Visayas (DA -7).

However, Regional Trial Court Judge Douglas Marigomen of Branch 5 barred settlers from introducing “improvements to their dwellings” pending the court’s resolution of the case.

“This court would also like to add that since it is the general welfare it is attempting to protect, it is only proper that the injunctive relief be granted,” the judge said.

The six-hectare lot houses various offices of the DA-7, its laboratories and around 80 families.

The DA-7 earlier moved to its new location in barangay Subangdaku, Mandaue City, after being served a notice to vacate. But its laboratories could not be accommodated at their new location.

Last year, the Cebu City government filed a petition for judicial review and annulment of the province’s title in a bid to stop the Capitol from recovering the six-hectare lot on M. Velez Street in Cebu City./REPORTER ADOR VINCENT S. MAYOL

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN MANDAUE

MANDAUE City is ready to train mothers to discipline children without resorting to corporal punishment if the bill to ban such punishment becomes law, an official said.

The training would be required since most mothers who inflict corporal punishment on their children lack education, said lawyer Nenita Ceniza-Layese, chairperson of the city’s committee for the protection of women and children.

Five-year-old Kate Arianne Chu Flores from Mandaue City last month died allegedly due to abuse by her stepmother.

Layese said two mothers who underwent training in Manila organized by Lihok Filipina and Philippine Women’s Commission can share their knowledge on the pros and cons and dos and don’ts of corporal punishment.

She said they are on the watch for violent mothers especially in remote barangays./REPORTER JUCELL MARIE P. CUYOS