By ERWIN ‘AMBO’ DELILAN
CELEBBRATING the new year with unpaid salary was, perhaps, the saddest-cum-appalling moment for job order (JO) workers in Bacolod City.
They’re the woebegone, indeed, who have no choice but to welcome the year 2024 with “busted feelings”.
Woebegone, per Oxford Languages, means sad or miserable in appearance.
Mayor Albee Benitez has yet to issue an official statement regarding this saddest plight of unpaid JO workers for the last hurrah of 2023. But Ma. Fe Tresfuentes, acting chief of the Department of Public Services (DPS), volunteered saying, “We understand the sentiments of our job order casuals – tanan naka-ATM (automated teller machine) ni sila. May mga government accounting rules nga dapat i-observe. It so happened that December 30 falls on Saturday na wala na bangko.”
“Ang status sang ila payroll gina-process. Offices concerned nag-over time today (December 30).
“But rest assured this experience has given us lessons on how to go about it. Our (street) cleaners were informed of the situation,” added Tresfuentes.
But she quipped, “Naka-kuha man sila P5,000 gratuity bonus.”
Gratuity bonus, however, was released on Dec. 16.
Tresfuentes’ DPS is one of the departments in the city government of Bacolod with the most number of JO workers at 500.
‘SHALLOW REASON’
Correct me if I am wrong but, for me, Tresfuentes simply employed a “shallow reason” with regards to the JO brouhaha that uglified Bacolod once more.
Gratuity bonus is different from a monthly salary, and Tresfuentes must be sensitive about these two different things.
Yes, it’s normal for JO workers not to say something (bad) about their situation. They’re under the mercy of the appointing authority. Anything bad they say might be used against them. Worse, they’ll be kicked out.
But feel them. Celebrating the new year without a salary was quite distressing. Did they have money to a buy a loaf of bread and a canister/tube of peanut butter?
This is a “heart-wrenching” question that Tresfuntes should have considered.
On the other hand, the city government led by the mayor (fresh from abroad), ushered the new year with a “bonggang-bonggang” countdown with comedians from Manila, concert, and fireworks display at the Bacolod City Government Center (BGCG) grounds, public plaza and old airport on Dec. 31
So, c’mon! Let’s find the best equation between the two scenarios.
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WHERE’S THE P15M?
Another woebegone in 2023 were the parents of about 72,000 kids in all public elementary schools in Bacolod City. They screeched because of the non-delivery of free school supplies from the city government.
Classes started in August but until Dec. 31, they “waited for nothing”.
The giving of free school supplies to public elementary students has been a “tradition” in Bacolod since 2017 after then councilor Caesar Distrito’s City Ordinance (CO) Number 09-16-787 was passed on September 28,2016.
Under this local statute also known as “Free School Supplies to All Public Elementary School Students in Bacolod City”, it’s clear that the city government must earmark the amount of P15 million every year for the purchase of school supplies.
But Councilor Al Victor Espino, chairman of the committee on education at the Sangguniang Panlungsod, earlier said the P15-M budget wasn’t enough for the current proposal of the Department of Education (DepEd)-Division of Bacolod City, which summed up to P21-M in order to purchase the needed school supplies for 72,000 elementary enrollees.
Thus, he said they need to pass a supplemental budget of P6-M to realize what’s stipulated under CO No. 09-16-787.
Alas, the year 2023 concluded with “nothingness”.
What went wrong?
‘BLUNDERS’ OF THE YEAR
The unpaid JO workers and the failure to implement CO No. 09-16-787 were city government “blunders” in 2023.
Having unpaid the JO workers in the very last stretch of 2023 ain’t a good publicity for Bacolod, which is positioning itself to be a “Super City”. It’s bad to hear people whining and squawking behind the ambitious tag.
Distrito, too, “must be crying” for the “indirect desecration” of his “noblest ordinance” meant to help the poor kids in the city through free school supplies before classes start every year.
Mayor Albee has no choice but to weather the angst of the woebegone in Bacolod directly affected./PN
