More staff lobbied for Cebu City EOC

CEBU, Philippines —  Cebu City Councilor Joel Garganera has proposed an amendment to City Ordinance No. 2624, which seeks to establish a public health emergency response in the city.

The proposed amendment includes additional plantilla positions for the Emergency Operations Center and their respective salary grades and specifications.

This was referred to the Committee on Laws, Ordinances, and Styling for review.

“To be more effective and efficient, there is a need to amend Sections 8, 93, and 100, and adding thereto Sections 11 and 12 of City Ordinance No. 2624 creating the Public Health Emergency Response of the City of Cebu that sought to generate 13 clusters and a total of 156 plantilla positions to assure easy workflow and well delineated duties and functions of personnel under the EOC,” read the proposed amendment.

Section 8 will be amended to read as, “The EOC shall be headed by the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office Head as the Commander-in-Chief and he may appoint an Overall Deputy Commander as his duly authorized representative to oversee and supervise the emergency, pandemic, and public health crisis response and management.”

Section 93 provides that the CDRRMO head or his Deputy Overall Commander may establish additional clusters necessary for the effective public health emergency response.

While, Section 100 states that there shall be an initial budget allocation of the amount of P50 million for the initial year of the implementation of the ordinance for the purpose intended to sustain the operations of the EOC.

Thereafter, the city government shall appropriate annually, based on the budget presented by the Board, for the continued implementation of the provisions of the ordinance subject to the usual government accounting and auditing rules.

“The Organizational Structure of the EOC shall be provided under Annex ‘A’ of this Ordinance,” read Section 11.

Section 12 provides that the EOC shall include and adopt a staffing pattern classified as casual employees with its corresponding qualification in reference to Civil Service Law.

These include a division head, medical specialist II, admin officer IV, administrative assistant III, chief nurse, medical technologist III, among others.

The Cebu City EOC was created by virtue of CO 2624 on October 5, 2021 to prescribe the rules, procedure, and guidelines for emergency and pandemic response and other public health crises in the city. — KQD (FREEMAN)