Contractual and job order workers of Bacolod City, and JOs of Negros Occidental, will receive P3,000 in gratuity pay, as ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia has requested the Sangguniang Panlungsod, headed by Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran, to pass an Appropriation Ordinance amounting to P21 million for the P3,000 gratuity pay of City Hall contractual and job order workers for 2020.
“This is the best year ever for our employees, in terms of bonus and incentive package. We were able to give all, including the rare performance-based bonus for the first time. And it is timely because there is a pandemic,” Leonardia added in a press release from City Hall.
Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said yesterday that only job order workers of the provincial government, numbering to more than 600, are getting the P3,000 bonus. He also distributed gift packs to all JOs at the Capitol in Bacolod City yesterday, and thanked them for a job well done.
Duterte has issued Administrative Order No. 38 authorizing the grant of gratuity pay for 2020 to contract of service and job order workers in the government.
Local government units are encouraged to adopt the grant of gratuity pay to workers, whose services are engaged through COS and JO, utilizing appropriate and available funding resources from their respective local government funds, the order read.
PRESIDENT’S ORDER
“All workers whose services are engaged through COS and JO who have rendered a total or an aggregate of at least four months of actual satisfactory performance of services as stipulated in their respective contracts as December 15, 2020, and whose contracts are still effective as of same date, may be granted a one-time gratuity pay not exceeding P3,000 each,” Duterte’s order read.
Those who have rendered less than four months may also be granted the same incentive on a pro-rata basis: for three months or more but less than four months, not exceeding P2,000, two months or more but less than three months, not exceeding P1,500, and those with less than two months in service will receive not more than P1,000.
The Bacolod City government has already granted five types of cash incentives to employees occupying regular, contractual, and casual positions, from November to December this year.
These are the year-end bonus, performance-based bonus, cash gift of P5,000, Collective Negotiation Agreement incentive of P25,000, and Productivity Enhancement Incentive of P5,000.
They are also set to receive P10,000 in Service Recognition Incentive (SRI) next month, as allowed by Duterte recently.
Meanwhile, Lacson confirmed that regular and casual employees of the provincial government will not receive the full amount of SRI since its computation is being counted as part of the Personal Services (PS).
The granting of P10,000 each may exceed the Capitol’s PS cap by P27 million, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said earlier.
Lacson said the province can give as much as P1,700 to each Capitol employee, and, “Hopefully, the employees will not be offended,” he said.
“We are not giving them a problem of having to return the money in the future,” he added. Regular and casual employees of the provincial government already received additional bonuses of P40,000 each, on top of their 13th and 14th month pay, and P5,000 cash gift.*
