IF SHE WINS: Nerry to introduce "24/7 Service"

CEBU, Philippines - Sixth district Rep. Nerissa Soon Ruiz has assured a “24-7,” or round-the-clock, service once she is elected as the new mayor of Mandaue City.

Ruiz, who is on her last term as representative, is running against incumbent Mayor Jonas Cortes.

Soon Ruiz during the round the roundtable talk with The FREEMAN editors and reporters this week said she will be pushing for a round-the-clock delivery of basic services in the city which she will call “24-7 Service” to ensure that these are delivered continuously.

She said one of her top priorities is to hire more nurses for the 27 health centers of the city who will work by shifts.

Soon Ruiz said that instead of hiring 2,000 job orders whose only job is to clean city streets, she would rather hire more professionals to work in the different health centers and at the Mandaue City Hospital.

It would only take around 83 nurses or a hundred of them to work in the 27 barangays health centers, she said.

Soon Ruiz, who is a doctor by profession, said she pities the nurses who remain jobless despite passing the board exams.

As to traffic management, she would push for the deployment of a leaner traffic staff on weekends and in night time but enough to respond to the needs of motorists.

The present 200 traffic personnel in the city can be doubled or tripled to meet the requirements of the 24/7 services, she said.

She also said garbage collection can be done 24 hours a day, seven days a week, lamenting the uncollected garbage on major streets during the Christmas holidays due to the absence of garbage collectors.

Soon Ruiz said the increase in personnel under the 24/7 service concept is doable as she alleged that the present administration is at present employs more than what is necessary.

She is questioning the present 2,000 job orders hired by the administration of re-electionist Mayor Jonas Cortes whose wages are taken from the P200 million budget of the city while the city’s residents are deprived of basic services.

However, lawyer Francisco Amit of the Mayor’s Management team defended the mayor by saying that the hiring of job order employees and barangay health workers are based on the appropriations in the approved 2010 annual budget of P894 million.

He said Cortes had proposed to the opposition-dominated city council a P71-million budget for job order employees but the council reduced it to P64 million.

Amit said the number of employees to be hired always depends on the appropriated budget. He said Ruiz’s accusation is black propaganda.

He said it is at the discretion of the chief executive when to hire these employees who are needed in the daily operations of the city.

The mayor has even increased the wages of these employees from P230 to P265 per day effective last July 2009, he said.