ILOILO City – Mayor Jerry Treñas is ready to fire anyone at city hall taking advantage of employees, especially job hires, through money lending with illegal conditions.
He instructed Atty. Joseph Areño of the City Legal Office (CLO) to investigate a report that job hires were being coerced to borrow money from an executive assistant (EA) or risk losing their jobs.
“One city hall official may report na may pautang. Pati grocery sang tawo dapat sa iya,” Treñas said.
While the city mayor did not name the EA, he said he won’t hesitate to fire this official if found guilty.
“I have learned to rely on certain individuals in the city government. It will be difficult for me to fire someone I have worked with for a long time. But I will not hesitate to fire someone if he or she has been found to tinker with the salaries of the job hires,” said Treñas.
Delayed salaries of job hires
The city mayor also ordered an investigation on the alleged delay in the payroll of job hire employees.
He stressed those responsible for the payroll, particularly department and office heads, will have to explain to him in writing the reasons for the delay.
“Ang sweldo sang tawo indi gid pag-entrahan. I will not hesitate to fire anyone if found guilty of any anomaly here,” he added.
On Thursday, Feb. 23, Treñas opened his door and asked all job hires who have unpaid salaries to visit his office.
He cancelled all his appointments for the day to listen to job hires’ problems, saying, “It is only impossible for us to solve your problems if these are not brought to my attention.”
However, the day ended with not one job hire showing up to complain to him.
On the same day, City Administrator Melchor Tan issued Office Order No. 062 addressed to all city hall departments regarding the implementation of guidelines for the preparation and processing of payroll, both for the regular employees and job hire and contract of service (CoS) employees.
The city hall has more than 4,000 job hires and CoS workers./PN
