Makati ‘ghost hunt’: Casual workers’ payroll now via ATM

In another move to weed out “ghost” or bogus employees in the local government, Acting Makati City Mayor Romulo “Kid” Peña started placing casual employees under an ATM (automated teller machine) payroll system.

About 2,000 employees from five departments—Office of the Mayor, Makati Social Welfare Department, Department of Engineering and Public Works, Urban Development Department and Public Safety Department—showed up on Thursday to apply for LandBank ATM cards, in a process which the Peña camp believed would end decades of allegedly anomalous payments in their ranks.

Makati Action Center head Arthur Cruto said the ATM registration would serve as a thorough audit of City Hall personnel. “If you’re a legitimate employee, the process will surely be trouble-free. However, if you’re a ghost employee and you attempted to personally receive your salary, you will get caught,” Cruto said.

Warning to proxies

“If you try to use a proxy bearing a so-called special power of attorney to get your undeserved earnings, unless you are down with a severe illness, (there will be) doubts on the legitimacy of your employment status. Worse, your substitute will be severely scrutinized and even penalized if proven to be working for a ghost employee,” he added.

Thursday’s list-up on the 21st floor of the city hall was timed with the casual employees’ payday. They were ordered to register first for their ATM cards before they were handed their salary in the usual brown envelopes—probably their last time to be paid that way.

“We prioritized these five departments because the bulk of the casuals are there,” added Cruto, noting that other departments will soon follow suit.

City information officer Gilbert Delos Reyes said a total of about 4,000 casual employees would have to register for their ATM cards.

2014 COA report

The city government currently has a total of around 9,000 employees, more than half of them regulars who received their ATM cards in July this year. A Commission on Audit report released in 2014 noted that Makati was still paying its government workers in hard cash despite the available technology and being host to the country’s financial center.

But some casual employees interviewed by the Inquirer on Thursday were not exactly happy about the shift.

An MSWD worker who has been reporting to City Hall since 2007 said she and her colleagues still preferred the old method because it was “faster and more convenient.”

Small ATM fees still hurt

“Minimum wage earners like me don’t want to lose even a small portion of our pay to ATM fees and other charges,” she added.

A PSD employee agreed, saying he had no problem getting his money in envelopes. “It’s faster because we receive it right away,” he added.

But another worker under the Office of the Mayor welcomed the change, saying it’s “safer” to have her salary in the bank than walk home with the cash in her pocket on payday.

Vice Mayor Peña took over as acting mayor in July after the Office of the Ombudsman ordered the six-month preventive suspension of Mayor Junjun Binay in connection with its investigation into the allegedly overpriced Makati Science High School Building. Peña then initiated a series of measures as part of his “transparent” leadership, including a purge of ghost employees.

That same month, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad called on Pena to complete the transition to the automated payroll system and ultimately get rid of ghost employees.

In reaction to the ATM list-up for casuals, Binay camp spokesperson Joey Salgado maintained that the automation of the payroll had been planned by Junjun’s administration and it was targeted for completion by the end of the year.

“We hope Peña will not claim credit for this one,” he added.