56 casuals fail to get renewal of contract

CEBU, Philippines - Over 50 casual employees of Cebu City Hall who have been undergoing performance evaluation are facing uncertainty of getting their contracts renewed after these expire tomorrow.

Sonny Gimenea of the Human Resource Development Office said 56 out of the 144 casual employees whose performance were subjected to reassessment and evaluation are yet to be renewed.

Gimenea said the rest were already granted either three or six months renewal of contract. According to Gimenea, some of those who have yet to secure a contract renewal have already resigned.

Gimenea said these 56 casual employees were earlier given one month to undergo performance evaluation. Gimenea said they still have to wait for the decision of Mayor Michael Rama whether or not these 56 employees will have to leave the city government for good.

He said their assessment and evaluation are in progress and they still have a chance to be renewed for a longer period of time.

“The mayor is a person who will give a chance to everybody,” Gimenea said.

Rama is scheduled to arrive on February 2 from a study tour in India.

Gimenea said the 56 are those with heavier offenses like absenteeism, tardiness and other improper practices as complained by their superiors.

Those who have slight offenses however were given the chance for more months to prove that they have already changed.

“As much as possible, we want to keep them. So those whom we think still have a chance to improve, we tell the department heads to introduce reform,” Gimenea said.

Of the 56 casual employees whose contracts will end tomorrow, 20 are assigned at the City Treasurer’s Office, 13 are from the Department of Social Welfare Services while the rest are distributed to different departments.

Gimenea reiterated that politics was never the significant factor on the renewal and non-renewal of casual employees. — (FREEMAN)