300 casuals casualty of politics in Cebu City

CEBU CITY—At least 300 casual employees of the Cebu City government lost their jobs for supporting defeated mayoral candidate Tomas Osmeña in his fight against Michael Rama, who won reelection.

One of the employees, who asked that she not be identified, said she and many others were advised to stop reporting for work starting on Monday.

“It pains me because our only fault is the support that we gave the Osmeñas. We did not campaign for them in the election. We are mere supporters,” said the employee.

The employee said she could not help but feel anger toward Rama. When told that she could plead for reconsideration, the employee said she won’t go begging for her job with the mayor.

Rama said the decision to remove casual employees was one made by his so-called core group. “I did not have a hand in looking at the list one by one,” said the mayor.

The core group, he said, evaluated the performance of the city’s more than 3,000 casual employees.

Dominic Dino, head of the city’s human resource office, said in a text message that some of the employees whose job contracts were not renewed may yet be rehired.

Of 300 casual employees who were advised to stop working, at least 52 are from the Cebu City Traffic Management Board (Citom), according to Citom head Rafael Yap.

Ironically, among those who lost their jobs is a parking aide who was named most outstanding employee in 2012.

Yap said he was not consulted about the firing of Citom employees. He said it would take at least three months to train new traffic enforcers.

Osmeña refused requests for interviews with media. But during last Saturday’s oath-taking ceremonies for his allies who won in the election, Osmeña said his supporters have sacrificed so much and continue to sacrifice after losing their jobs.