SP EMPLOYEES IN HOT WATER. Those involved in the questionable overtime pay issue in Dagupan may be in trouble.

We read an item in the PDI that the Office of the Ombudsman has approved the indictment for graft of Leonardo Leria, vice mayor of Mac Arthur, Leyte and three other employees of his town over the unlawful payment of P335,000 in overtime pay of municipal employees from 2002 to 2007.

In that case, it was found out during the audit that there was no existing appropriation for overtime services and that no supporting documents were submitted.

The Ombudsman said COA had issued a notice of disallowance directing Leria to return the amount to the state coffers but he did not comply.

That case is no different from the one we have today in Dagupan in which P1.2 million was spent for overtime pay in 2014 and another P400,000 in 2015 by just one office, and yet that office is again asking for payment of supposedly already rendered overtime services in the amount of P270,000 after exhausting the P400,000.

It doesn’t matter if the amount of overtime pay collected by the Mac Arthur, Leyte employees was less (P335,000) as compared to the hefty P1.2 million already collected in Dagupan for supposed overtime services rendered in the codification of ordinances that has no time frame when it is going to be finished nor an ordinance to legally back it up.

Incidentally, this issue came to light when two councilors sought the inclusion of P270,000 additional overtime pay in the supplemental budget and set that as a condition to approve the supplemental budget No.2

Tsk-tsk, if the Ombudsman adopts the same principle used in the Leyte case, the SP employees who received the P1.6 million overtime pay, including the official who authorized their overtime services, now face possible jail term if they cannot show proof of their work for the overtime they charged the city. – Leonardo Micua

 

WORTH EMULATING. In this school, students, faculty and employees, even the lowly janitors, give due respect to their visitors, and to anyone they meet along the school grounds, regardless of their status in life.

They have their ready greeting of “Good Morning” or “Good Afternoon.” I was taken by their courtesy because I find this conduct to be very rare nowadays.

I’ve been to many schools, visited and roamed around their campuses and my recent experience in WCCV Aeronautical and Technical College in Binalonan, Pangasinan is yet the most unforgettable.

When I started to wonder why students and employees are so courteous n this school, I was told by Mayor Mon-mon Guico, the president and CEO, that character formation is one of their primordial concerns. Students and employees are taught and expected to be courteous to anyone.

If this is the kind of environment we live in anywhere we go to, you just know you have a lovely and wonderful feeling about people.

Schools aim to make students excel in academics but teaching them the right attitude and conduct is what mold them into better persons that they should be.

WCC’s style is worth emulating.—Tita Roces

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