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Bohol Capitol employees get P10K Christmas bonus
By Leonor S. Albino

Published December 9, 2001 by Bohol Sunday Post - Provincial government employees have a reason to be merry this Christmas.

Despite the meager finances of the province, regular personnel are assured of P10,000 as extra Christmas bonus. Consultants and contractuals who have served the provincial government since July this year are likewise entitled to receive the same amount as Christmas incentives.

The P10,000 extra bonus for regular employees is on top of the 13th month pay and P5,000 cash gift.

The move makes the present administration the first to give its regular employees, consultants and contractual personnel extra Christmas bonus and incentives.

In a letter to Vice Governor and Sangguniang Panlalawigan presiding officer Julius Caesar Herrera, Gov. Erico B. Aumentado ordered the august body to appropriate P15.31 million for the Christmas bonus for qualified personnel pursuant to Budget Circular No. 2001-02.

The Governor also requested the appropriation of P600,000 as Christmas incentives for consultants and contractual employees who have served the provincial government since July. This would put the total appropriations requested at P15.91 million.

In a meeting with SP members and the local budget committee last Tuesday, the Governor said they have agreed to source the funding needed for the bonus from savings generated by the province amounting to P39.86 million, as well as from the unappropriated Internal Revenue Allotments (IRA) received amounting to P20.58 million.

The unappropriated IRA represents the unreleased allotment for 1998 and 2000.

Cost-saving measures implemented by the province from July to December this year from unfilled positions and other personnel services; and maintenance, operating and other expenses (MOOE), yielded savings of P20.9 million and P18.9 million, respectively.

The province faces a budgetary deficit of P78.35 million for the fiscal year. It has also incurred P65.52 million as unpaid obligations, and accounts payable amounting to P42.67 million, or a total of P108.19 million.

Unpaid obligations include, among others, the P28 million loan for the rehabilitation of the old Capitol building.

The Governor, however, insisted that qualified government personnel should be granted benefits "to cushion the impact of the present economic recession and difficulties."

"The extra Christmas bonus for qualified personnel and the Christmas incentives for consultants and contractuals are palliative measures to assist our personnel force to meet their family requirements during the Yuletide Season and tide them over the present economic hardships," the Governor told Herrera.

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