By Leonardo Micua

 

THE changing of the guards in some local governments in Pangasinan will happen soon. Of course, there will be some changes and some new faces coming to work with the new officials. That is understandable, as clear as the blue sky. Those holding co-terminus positions, including consultants, are considered out.

If the job order employees were accommodated merely through political consideration, their heads could roll. But even if they were, if they performed their tasks well and their services are needed by the offices as certified to by their superiors, and not used to advance someone’s political interests, the new chief executive may have a change of heart and they can be spared from the chopping block.

Those holding permanent plantilla positions and are civil service eligible will have no worry—they can be removed only for a cause. But those in their rank who could be proven to have allowed themselves to be used by outgoing local executives despite prohibition to take sides in the last elections, they ought to be ashamed of what they did and should resign without waiting to be told.

We heard that an incoming provincial official is keenly evaluating each of the employees that will soon be under him . He wants to find out if any of them used their positions to woo voters to the side of the outgoing incumbent. But this is not unusual because other incoming local government chief executives are doing the same before they begin their terms on July 1.

Mind you, this act of fire and hire which, of course, must be done with due diligence, is to be expected whenever there is a changing of the guards, may it be in the local scene or the national scene.

But if the bureaucracy is bloated like the observation of the Commission on Audit in Dagupan, incoming Mayor Belen Fernandez will have no other alternative but to pick up the broom and sweep away the redundant positions in the overstaffed city hall. Consider this data from COA: Dagupan has of today 609 permanent employees, 15 co-terminus employees, eight temporary/casual, contractual employees, 14 elective officials, 1,020 job order employees and 59 consultants. Whew!

Dagupan’s bureaucracy needs to be downsized under Belen Fernandez. Dagupan City Hall can’t possibly have enough seats for all of these workers at one time.

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Personally, I cannot believe that the fuel allocation for all government vehicles in Dagupan have been fully consumed when it is still June, and there are six more months to go before the year ends. 

But the report of Councilor Lino Fernandez that drivers of garbage trucks can no longer withdraw diesel fuel allocation is quite disturbing. As I was writing this column, PUNCH photographer Butch Uka reported that the garbage trucks have all been grounded at the premises of the dumpsite.

This means there are no more garbage trucks from the Waste Management Division that will pick up the mounting garbage from the garbage impoundment area, seriously polluting the air, unless the barangay kapitans agree to pay for the fuel for these garbage trucks. 

Since gasoline or diesel fuel is one of the essentials ought to be funded even by a reenacted budget, it is simply not possible that gasoline in the city has already gone dry with six months more to go before the end of the year, and only few days before incoming Mayor Belen Fernandez assumes office. 

Who used and finished all the fuel allocation?

Hopefully, the final passage of the 2022 annual city budget of Dagupan by the Sangguniang Panlungsod will not only resolve the fuel impasse but allay fears of employees that there will be no year-end bonus, no increment in their pay. 

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