Cebu City Hall casuals pained over loss of jobs

MARTHA (not her real name) is one of 300 casual employees of the Cebu City government who were advised not to report for work starting tomorrow.

What’s worse is that the contracts of her traffic enforcer husband and a son-in-law who worked at City Hall, were not renewed due to their support for outgoing south district congressman Tomas Osmeña in last month’s election.

“It pains me because our only fault is we supported the Osmeñas. We did not campaign for them in the election. We are mere supporters,” she said in Cebuano.

Martha said she could not help but feel angry at Mayor Michael Rama for depriving her family of their livelihood without consideration of her 22-year government service.

Martha wonders how she can avail of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) pension when she is still six months short of the required 15 year contribution. Her GSIS membership began in 1997.

GSIS policies require 15 years of sustained contribution to qualify for pension which is 90 percent of her current monthly salary of P17,000.

She would have also been reimbursed of her contributions.

“I am still trying to find means to continue my government service even if I won’t be at City Hall to complete the remaining six months balance of my GSIS contributions,” she said.

Mayor Rama’s core group which evaluated the city’s 3,308 casual workers released late Friday night the list of casual employees who were allowed another two months to six months renewal of their respective contracts.

While Rama didn’t name his core group, he met with several local and City Hall officials including Basak San Nicolas barangay captain George Rama, city administrator Jose Marie Poblete and his secretary Belinda Navasquez

Human Resource Management Office head Dominic Dino said 300 casuals were no longer renewed.

He said the list may still be reduced tomorrow after they reconsider some of the pending appeals.

Martha said the list of casuals for renewal at the government office where she is assigned was released to them at 9 a.m. last Friday.

“Others were crying because there names were not found on the list. It’s such a pity),” she said.

Martha said she is still lucky because her five children are now professionals. She said she sympathizes with her colleagues who lost their jobs while still raising children.

At the Cebu City Integrated Traffic Operations Management (Citom) office, the contracts of 52 out of 554 casuals were not renewed.

One of those cut was a parking aide who was named as most outstanding employee last year.

Going against previous practice, Citom operations chief Rafael Yap said he wasn’t asked to submit a list of deserving employees.

This time, Yap said, the mayor’s core group was responsible for deciding who stays and who goes.

“You don’t hatch enforcers from eggs. You don’t pick them from trees. You train them (for three months),” he said.