P8.7M BEO Honorarium Still Pending

The 362 barangay environmental officers (BEO) whose task is to apprehend those who indiscriminately throw garbage in public places are complaining because City Hall failed to release their honorarium amounting to P8.7 million since last July.

They are asking the help of the Cebu City Council to facilitate the release of their honorarium. “Gutom na g’yud kaayo nga wala mi hatagi sa among honorarium lima ka buwan na,” a BEO member in Barangay Lorega-San Miguel said.

Cebu City Councilor Margarita Osmeña is wondering on why until now the city still failed to release the honorarium for the BEO when in fact it was already appropriated under the supplemental budget (SB)-2 for the current year.

Each of the BEOs is receiving P4,000 a month from the city government. They were assigned to different barangays to help implement the provisions of City Ordinance 1361.

According to Mayor Michael Rama he is trying his best to work for the immediate release of the honoraria. But some of the BEO’s observed that the mayor is so quick to release the honorarium of the barangay officials, particularly while the elections were approaching, but failed to attend to their problem.

Some of the BEOs are placed under the supervision of the City Environmental Sanitation Enforcement Team (CESET), an enforcement arm of the city government to implement punitive measures against violators of the ordinance.

Councilor Nida Cabrera, head of the City Council’s committee on environment, said the BEOs are deputized to perform the powers and functions of CESET in order to fully implement and enforce the city’s ecological solid waste management system.