Sports budget slashed for Yolanda

THE Cebu City government has decided to slash its budget for its sportsfest next month in order to help victims of supertyphoon Yolanda.

Human Resource and Development Office (HRDO) head Dominic Diño said the P250 per employee budget will be reduced to P150.

“We had a meeting with sports coordinators yesterday. It was agreed that instead of the entire amount, P100 will be donated considering the activity shirts have already been ordered,” Diño said.

Around 2,000 employees joining the annual inter-department sports festival in December which means they can raise more than P200,000 for relief and rehabilitation efforts.

However, employees and department heads still have to meet again to finalize whether or not to give up the budget for the City Hall Christmas Party to be used in helping the typhoon victims.

“We will set a follow up meeting to decide on how to go about the Christmas party. If we are going to give up the entire P250 per employee, we can raise approximately P1 million since we have about 4,000 employees,” Diño said.

He assured that the donation will not be mandatory and will depend on the individual discretion of each employee.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama agreed that the decision will be left to the employees themselves.

Rama earlier announce giving up his entire salary for the month of November which is around P50,000./ Correspondent Jose Santino S. Bunachita