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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Thursday, February 23, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Councilor Wilson Gamboa Jr. stressed that the city government has “no moral and legal basis” to delay the release of the emergency cost of living allowance (Ecola) of public school teachers.
The allowance must be released “with dispatch and without delay,” Gamboa wrote the Sangguniang Panlungsod on Feb. 14.
Gamboa was reacting to a May 16, 2016 letter of Fiscal Clerk II Jose Mario Española addressed to then mayor Monico Puentevella.
Española, who works under the Management and Audit Services Division of the City Accountant’s Office, advised Puentevella to refund the Ecola released during his incumbency.
According to Gamboa, the fiscal clerk cited the implementing rules and regulation of the Local Government Code and Section 4 of the DECS-DBM-DILG Joint Circular No. 01, series of 1998 dated April 14, 1998.
Whatever Española cited amounted to “nothing,” said the councilor.
“Your letter to Puentevella, which cited certain provisions of the law, does not in any way form the legal opinion of the City Legal Office, which should have been the right office to give legal advice to the mayor,” Gamboa said.
He said the Ecola for teachers was provided for in a Supreme Court decision relative to teachers’ benefits subject to Special Education Fund (SEF) availability — “Commission on Audit of the Province of Cebu versus Province of Cebu (G.R. No. 141386, Nov. 29, 2001).”
“The SEF (Republic Act, or RA, 5447) may be expended for the payment of benefits in favor of public school teachers, as provided by the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers (RA 4670),” Gamboa quoted the decision.
What Española cited had been superseded by the high court jurisprudence, said Gamboa.
“By virtue of the Supreme Court decision, there should be no reason to hold the allowances, especially the Ecola, of public school teachers coming from the SEF,” he said.
Meanwhile Española urged the city government to stop discussing the problem in public and just help the teachers instead.
“It is quite degrading on their part … magpahuya-huya sa ahaw P700 kada bulan,” the fiscal clerk said./PN
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