Duterte asked to help on incentive issue

Workers of Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) have raised to President Rodrigo Duterte the issue of their cash incentive, which they believe is low.

In a letter dated January 26, the workers’ association president, Arnold Faunillan, said the hospital management has allegedly been ignoring their request to disclose the actual savings from the hospital’s Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) for 2017.

“The association sent a letter dated December 15, 2017 to VSMMC management to inquire as to the actual amount of savings from the MOOE allotments in order to verify [whether] the P2,400 CNA incentive per employee was indeed sourced from the actual MOOE savings of VSMMC. However, the association has never received any reply from VSMMC management.

Thus, the association comes to your good office for assistance in addressing this matter,” reads part of the two-page letter.

Faunillan said the incentive to employees is among the benefits or privileges stipulated under the Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) forged between the union and the Department of Health, which runs VSMMC.

The CNA incentive comes in a form of a yearly cash incentive derived from the savings of “successfully implemented cost cutting measures.”

Faunillan also cited Budget Circular 2017-3 of the Department of Budget and Management or the “Guidelines on the Grant of CNA Incentive for Fiscal Year 2017.”

The circular provides that “the savings intended for the CNA Incentive shall be sourced solely from the allowable MOOE (Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses) allotments in FY 2017, particularly, (i) travelling, (ii) communication, (iii) repairs and maintenance, (iv) transportation and delivery, (v) supplies and materials, and (vi) utility expenses. The total amount of allowable MOOE allotment should become available as a result of cost-cutting and systems improvement measures through the joint efforts of the management and employees.”

Faunillan said that in January 2018, the VSMMC management allowed only an estimated P2.9 million out of the P5.7 million derived from cost cutting measures from repairs and maintenance expenses.

“This meant that an employee of VSMMC is only expected to receive roughly P2,400 as CNA incentive, while the employees of other government hospitals in Region 7 received P20,000 to P25,000. More so, other government hospitals in Cebu have released the CNA last December 2017. For the record, VSMMC is the biggest national government hospital and health care provider in Region 7,” the letter reads.

Faunillan said the P2,400 CNA incentive came as a “complete surprise” to the association.

He alleged that VSMMC only used the cost cutting activities submitted by the association as the sole basis of determining the total savings for purposes of CNA incentives.

However, both the agreement and the budget circular say that the savings should be derived from joint efforts of the union and the management and not just from the union alone.

RESPONSE

VSMMC chief, Dr. Gerardo Aquino, Jr. questioned Faunillan’s letter to the president.

Aquino said that contrary to what the letter says, they actually responded to Faunillan’s letter to the hospital, which he received on January 4. He then forwarded the same to the Finance Division on January 9.

In a separate letter dated January 16, VSMMC finance officer Maureen Bien replied to Faunillan’s request and asked that the latter state his reason for seeking the hospital’s financial records.

Faunillan reportedly received Bien’s reply through an acknowledgement signature.

Aquino said the hospital’s management has to evaluate whether Faunillan’s reason is valid.

Aquino said there were a series of meetings with the association’s officers to explain how the hospital came up with the P2.9 million, which was the “verified” computation out of the report submitted by the association.

He said the management was only following the guidelines in figuring the CNA incentive subject to cost cutting measures done by the association.