Only job orders with 3-month appointment will get paid – mayor

By Dolly Yasa

BACOLOD City – Mayor Alfredo Benitez said Friday that only job order (JO) employees of the city government who have 3-month appointments will get paid.

Benitez issued this statement in a press conference amid complaints from JO order employees who claimed they have not received their salaries for several months.

Benitez said those who do not have a 3-month appointment are considered volunteers.

When asked how many JO employees, Benitez said about a thousand.

Some job order employees took to social media to air their concerns about their unpaid salaries.

Benitez stressed that JO appointments are subject to renewal every three months.

The mayor also reaffirmed cutting the number of job order employees in the city by half.

He reiterated that this is to address the P302-million cut in the city’s National Tax Allotment (NTA) for 2023.

The Department of Budget and Finance (DBM) has announced a 14.47 percent cut in the NTA shares of all local government units in 2023.

That means Bacolod’s share of P2 billion this year will drop to P1.7 billion in 2023, or a cut of P302.6 million, the DBM said.

Benitez said they are compensating for the budget cut by reducing the number of JO workers in the city to 2,700 in 2023, or by more than 50 percent.

This will enable the city government to reduce the number of job order salaries to P300 million in 2023, from the P625 million allotted by the previous administration.

“We will only hire what is needed,” he said.