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This is going to drag on for at least one or two more weeks.
“Makati City councilor Marie Alethea Casal-Uy revealed over the weekend that she and her colleagues have agreed to pay the salaries of their staff out of their own pockets after Vice Mayor Romulo Peña refused to sign the checks and payroll vouchers,” reports Mike Frialde on Philstar.com.
Casal-Uy explained that “their aides’ salaries for the pay periods of March 16 to 31 and April 1 to 15 remain on hold.” She pointed out that “as vice mayor, Peña is the city council’s presiding officer and is responsible for signing documents authorizing the release of the salaries of the 17 city councilors and their 82 personnel.”
The report noted: “Peña had previously said that since he is acting mayor, the councilors — who chose to side with Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr. — will have choose from among their ranks the person who should talk to the banks for the processing of the checks and vouchers.”
As it is, the councilors’ own salaries remain on hold. Still, according to Casal-Uy said the councilors “will give each of their staff financial aid of ranging from PHP3,000 to PHP5,000 to tide them over.”
The report recalled that “the dispute arose after Binay bucked the six-month preventive suspension order imposed on him by the Office of the Ombudsman and sought relief with the Court of Appeals (CA), which has issued a temporary restraining order.”
Amid the debacle, as the report pointed out, “the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) had Peña sworn in as acting mayor, based on a legal opinion issued by the Department of Justice (DOJ).”
Casal-Uy also disclosed the councilors have not appointed a presiding officer among themselves to sign the checks and payrolls of the city council’s employees, as suggested by Peña.”
Casal-Uy stated, “We remain firm in our stand that the temporary restraining order issued by the court continues to prevail over the legal opinion on which the vice mayor has been basing his actions. Makati has only one mayor, and that is Binay.”
Binay’s petition against the suspension order issued against him by the Ombudsman will be heard at the CA on Mon, Mar 30.
