Bacolod job order workers feel crunch as city vets positions

BACOLOD, Philippines – Some job order (JOs) workers in the city have experienced delays in salary payments as the local government starts vetting every name in the JO list that runs into the thousands.

“We’re validating and counter-checking, just in case some ghost workers still slip through the vetting process,” City Administrator Pacific Maghari told reporters on Monday, November 14.

Aside from checking for ghost employees, Maghari said the LGU was also ensuring that JOs were assigned to the right positions.

“We know ghost employees are wrong,” Maghari said, adding that a substantial number of those on the list no longer reported for work.

But there are also non-working employees, those who report for work but don’t do anything,” Maghari noted.

Part of the vetting, he stressed, was ensuring that appointment papers properly match workers to positions, especially with their skills set.

JO woes are expected to spike after the new year.

Mayor Albee Benitez has already announced the planned layoff of between 2,700 to 3,000 JO employees in 2003 – around 50% of JO posts.

A city government source who sought anonymity said at least 20% of those marked for layoffs were ghost employees.

Benitez said the JO cuts are necessary because the city’s 2023 national tax allotment share will be P300 million less, from P2 billion in 2022 to just P1.7 billion.

The layoffs are expected to trim the human resource JO allocation by more than half, from P624 million to only P300 million.

Benitez’s predecessor, Evelio “Bing” Leonardia, was consistently criticized for padding the city’s work ranks with patronage hires whose main purpose was to maintain political loyalties at the grassroots. 

But the incumbent’s disclosure that the city had more than 6,000 JO staff surprised even Leonardia’s allies.

Like other cities across the country, Bacolod is recovering from the negative effects of the prolonged COVID-19 lockdown. Business, especially agriculture, has struggled to bounce back due to runaway costs of production inputs, including fertilizer and fuel.

Commerce and service industries have bounced back, however, with Benitez announcing in September that the city had already collected 80% of its P1.1-billion local revenue target.– Rappler.com