City grants hazard pay to employees, volunteers

April 5, 2020 Metro BLISTT

BAGUIO CITY – The City Council passed a resolution granting hazard pay to qualified city government officials and employees and barangay officials and volunteers pursuant to the provisions of Department of Budget and Management Circular No. 2020-1 entitled ‘Guidelines on the Grant of COVID-19 Hazard Pay’ issued on March 26, 2020, and DBM-COA Joint Circular No. 1, series of 2020.
The resolution states the necessary fund for the aforesaid purpose from any available sources of the general fund shall be appropriated subject to the same joint circular.
The resolution points out that services in offices classified to be frontline cannot be suspended and were required to provide skeleton force and that there are non-frontline offices that had to maintain a skeleton force in their offices on certain dates due to exigency of service.
Further, the resolution notes there were non-frontline offices which do not deliver frontline services but their employees were asked to report and to assist other departments of the city in the preparation and delivery of food packs and relief goods, preparation and issuance of transportation passes, dis-infection and cleaning of city streets and markets and other related works, to combat the deadly virus in the city.
Earlier, Proclamation No. 929 issued by President Rodrigo Duterte placed the country under a state of calamity due to the threat of the Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 and that work in all government offices, including the local government, was suspended on March 17, 2020 to April 13, 2020 pursuant to a presidential directive by Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea in relation to the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine.
Aside from assessing who among the employees and officials of the city government will be granted the aforesaid hazard pay, the city government is also looking into the possibility of providing financial grants to the different barangays to augment their meager resources for the grant the hazard pay for barangay officials and volunteers.
Under the prescribed guidelines for the grant of hazard pay to qualified local government officials and employees, only those who were physically present and have underwent the biometric will be entitled to be recipients of the aforesaid additional compensation for the services they rendered at the height of the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine.
However, the city government is trying to authorize the grant of the hazard pay to all officials and employees provided that the hazard pay of those who reported for work during the quarantine period will be higher compared to those that rendered work at home.
The resolution authorized the city’s local finance committee to source out the funds for this hazard pay for the qualified city government officials and employees while ascertaining the source of funds of the grant that the city can provide the city’s 128 barangays for the latter to appropriate as hazard pay for barangay officials and volunteers.
Moreover, the city’s local finance committee was directed by the City Council to provide the amount for appropriation as hazard pay to qualified city officials and employees.
Dexter A. See/ABN