Osmeña cuts village workers’ stipends

Except for garbage loaders, barangay workers from the city’s 80 villages will no longer receive their honorarium from the Cebu City Government.

In his news conference yesterday, Mayor Tomas Osmeña announced that he will cut the honorarium of all barangay workers because of their “hostility” to the City Government.

These barangay workers include tanods, barangay health workers (BHW) and Lupong Tagapamayapa.

“Effective immediately, all the allowances of tanods are cut, all the subsidies for the barangays from the City are cut off includ- ing Lupon and BHW, among others. I’m going to exercise all my legal options,” said Osmeña.

Asked if it is allowed, Osmeña said he can do it because its discretionary on the part of the mayor. “It’s not obligatory,” he said. Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) President Philip Zafra said that close to 3,000 barangay workers will be affected.

“That’s unfair. From the start, workers from the barangays like tanods have been the partners of the City and the police in peace and order,” he said.

At present, Zafra said that each of the 80 barangays has around 20 tanods and at least 10 lupon members who are are getting P4,000 monthly allowance from the City. Zafra said there are other barangays, mostly those small ones, that rely only on the honorarium from the City.

For the 500 BHWs, Zafra said they have not been receiving honorarium from the City since August last year.

Zafra hopes that Osmeña would validate the report regarding the performance of barangay workers.

“It’s really unfortunate that they weren’t able to see the contributions of our barangay workers,” he added.

During yesterday’s regular session of the City Council, Zafra moved to appeal to the mayor to rethink his decision to cancel the honorarium of the barangay workers.

Zafra also moved to request Cebu City Office for Substance Abuse and Prevention (Cosap) Chief Garry Lao for a meeting to thresh out the standard of reporting as basis on how barangays can avail themselves of assistance from the City.

Councilor Pastor Alcover Jr., also delivered a privilege speech where he pointed out the importance of the allowance to the barangay workers, particularly tanods.