Council to discuss extra pay for tanods, lupons barangay fire volunteers will also receive financial assistance from the city

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Council will tackle today whether or not to grant the request for additional P2,000 honorarium to barangay tanods and members of the Lupong Tagapamayapa.

The amount serves as the city’s counterpart to what the tanods and the lupon members are getting from their respective barangays.

Cebu City Councilor Eduardo Rama Jr. said he already convinced Mayor Michael Rama about it and the latter agreed to give the additional honorarium to each of the 1,600 tanods from the 80 barangays of the city.

The additional honorarium would cost the city a total of P61.1 million. Councilor Rama recommended the additional honorarium for tanods and lupon members after learning that most of them, especially those in the mountain barangays, are only receiving a very minimal amount from the barangay.

The councilor explained that the proposed additional amount is on top of the city’s counterpart that was previously granted to the tanods from the barangays whose honorarium did not reach P1,000.

Rama said the honorarium of the tanods should be increased because they exposed themselves to danger of physical harm by fighting threats to the safety and security of the barangay constituents.

“In recognition of their unselfish efforts to curb these criminal activities, the city will give an additional honorarium to each of the tanods as a counterpart of the city government,” the councilor said.

The City Hall records show that there are some barangays who could not afford to give a decent honorarium for their tanods. Barangay Pamutan for example only gives P100 honorarium to its tanod.

Barangays Paril and Mabini, both mountain barangays, only give P150 monthly honorarium to their tanods.

Rama also proposed to grant additional honorarium to each of the Lupon members for their role in promoting peace and harmony in their respective barangays.

“With due admiration to their valuable involvement in discharging their duties and responsibilities in promoting justice, peace and order and harmony in barangay level, they deserve to receive an additional honoraria from the city,” Rama said.

Meanwhile, legitimate fire volunteers in the barangays of Cebu City will soon have financial assistance from the city government.

This was relayed yesterday by Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young during the Barangay Participatory Planning Assembly held at the Family Choice Restaurant.

A total of 62 barangay captains out of the80 barangays joined the quarterly assembly wherein the creation of barangay fire brigade was among the agenda.

Young said he has no objection to the proposed financial aid to barangay fire volunteers. However, as to how much, the City Council will have to discuss about it.

Cebu City Councilor Nida Cabrera, chairperson of Committee on Environment, said she will sponsor a resolution seeking for a financial counterpart from the city government.

“Ang kadtong mahatagan kadto rang legitimate fire volunteer nga recognized sa Cebu City Fire Department nga makita nimo nga mo responde gyud sa mga sunog. Kinahanglan duna gyud financial counterpart,” Cabrera said.

To those barangays which do not have a fire truck, Young urged them to organize a fire brigade as the city government is willing to give them fire extinguishers.Over 6,000 fire extinguishers are due for distribution to the different barangays. (FREEMAN)