Cebu City Mayor Assures Payment Of Php1,500 Honorarium For Teachers Serving In May 9 Polls

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama has assured the payment of the PHP1,500 honorarium for 3,047 public school teachers who will serve in the May 9 elections.

“Let them serve and then we will solve it. This is a call for volunteerism in the meantime,” he said.

Earlier, Cebu City Treasurer Diwa Cuevas said there is no budget appropriation yet for the PHP1,500 honorarium that each teacher, who will serve as board of election inspectors, will get.

The city would have to shell out PHP4.5 million for it.

The election expenses, including the honorarium for teachers, would have been charged to the PHP40-million election reserve this year but the Department of Budget and Management 7 had declared the city’s entire PHP6.4-billion annual budget as inoperative due to some deficiencies.

The city is currently operating on a reenacted 2015 budget, which has no item for election expenses considering that last year was not an election year.

The revised PHP9.8-billion annual budget, on the other hand, is still being deliberated upon by the legislative body and committee on budget and finance and cannot be approved before the elections since they are still asking for supporting documents from the local finance committee.

Cuevas said the city can’t appropriate funds yet because they are still waiting for the budget proposal from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) Cebu City and the list of the teachers who will serve in the elections.

Teachers serving in the elections will receive from Comelec an honorarium of PHP4,000 each, a PHP500 transportation allowance and a one-time honorarium of PHP500 for the testing and sealing of the vote counting machines. (PNA) FFC/EB/EDS