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[av_heading heading=’City dad slams delay in teachers’ Ecola release’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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Monday, January 30, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Just when you thought the issue had been settled.
After a Sangguniang Panlungsod inquiry into the delayed release of the emergency cost of living allowance (Ecola) of some public school teachers, Councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr. gave his two cents’ worth on the matter.
He criticized the argument for the non-release of the Ecola — that some teachers were not entitled to a portion of the allowance taken from the Special Education Fund (SEF) — and called it “flimsy.”
During the inquiry on Jan. 26, Fiscal Clerk II Mario Española of the Office of the City Accountant’s Management and Audit Services Division explained that only teachers hired in 1997 and earlier may receive the full P2,000 monthly Ecola.
Those hired in 1998 and later may not be given the P700 from the SEF, only the P1,300 from the general fund, Española said, citing three Audit Observation Memorandums (2013, 2014 and 2015) from the Commission on Audit (COA).
If Gamboa were to be believed, the COA memos were “a piece of observation with no legal effect, therefore a flimsy reason for the non-release of the much-needed and long-overdue Ecola.”
“Granting without admitting that the COA will disallow the release of the Ecola, it is still appealable,” said the councilor.
All former mayors — Oscar Verdeflor, Luzviminda Valdez, Monico Puentevella — and even Mayor Evelio Leonardia have received such COA memos but had to countermand them, recognizing that the Ecola is “mandatory with attached statutes or law, precedence, jurisprudence, and decided cases by the Supreme Court favoring its release,” Gamboa said.
Previously Española said public school teachers need to be classified based on the years they were hired vis-à-vis the Ecola amount they are entitled to.
Gamboa found this argument “irrelevant by virtue of the Principle or Doctrine of Generality.”
“The law must apply to all of the same class,” he said. “All public school teachers of Bacolod City must receive their Ecola as mandated by the Magna Carta of Public School Teachers.”
Councilor Renecito Novero, chairman of the committee on education that held the inquiry, said the city council may pass an ordinance lifting the limit set by the years the teachers were hired./PN
(Previous stories on this subject have misspelled the name of Mario Española and misidentified his designation. This story and “Ordinance mulled on teachers’ allowance,” which came out on Jan. 28, reflect the corrections.—Ed.)
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