For regular, casual workers: Capitol employees set to receive cash incentives

CEBU, Philippines — It's indeed a merry Christmas for Capitol’s regular and casual employees.

Over 1,600 officials and employees of the Cebu provincial government are expected to receive cash incentive through the Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA).

Provincial Budget Officer Danilo Rodas said his office is still calculating the accumulated savings of the Capitol that will be divided “equally” among each employee.

“Gi-compute pa pila ang savings sa tibuok Capitol,” he said, emphasizing that the cash incentive for each employee should not exceed P25,000.

He added the cash incentive is commonly mistaken as the Christmas bonus since the former is set to be given by December.

The CNA incentive is on top of the 14th month pay and the regular cash bonuses of the provincial government.

Earlier, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has released Circular No. 2018-5 on November 14 that supports the grant of CNA incentive to government employees.

The DBM underscored that "the CNA incentive shall not exceed P25,000 per qualified employee."

Also, the cash incentive for this year is only a one-time benefit to be granted not earlier than December 15, 2018.

The cash incentive is granted to both management and rank-and-file employees, including personnel occupying contractual or casual positions, of an office "with approved and successfully implemented CNA's."

Rodas said the provincial government's workforce is comprised of more than 1,000 regular employees and over 600 casual workers.

Stated further under the circular, the CNA incentive is considered as a form of reward to motivate employee efforts toward higher productivity and "in recognition of their efforts in accomplishing performances targets at lesser cost, in attaining more efficient and viable operations through cost-cutting measures and systems improvement.”

Under the DBM-issued policy guidelines, one of the conditions of the grant of the CNA incentive is the accomplishment of targets of a government office.

A local government unit (LGU) should have accomplished by end of September 2018 at least an average of 70 percent of all the targets under their programs, activities, and projects approved in the 2018 budget.

An LGU’s CNA incentive is sourced solely from the allowable maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) allotments in 2018 such as traveling expenses; communication expenses; repairs and maintenance; transportation and delivery expenses; supplies and materials; and utility expenses.

Meanwhile, for the more than 2,000 job order employees of the provincial government, Rodas said they may not be entitled to receive the cash incentive but each will be given one sack or 50 kilograms of rice. — GAN (FREEMAN)