Flight from Korea
set to arrive today
BY CHRYSEE SAMILLANO

Only two Zest Air chartered flights, carrying mostly golfers from Korea, are arriving at the Bacolod-Silay Airport today and on Sunday, Bacolod City Administrator John Orola said yesterday.

Orola said the first flight will land at the Bacolod-Silay Airport at about 2:30 a.m. today after landing in Cebu City for immigration services three hours earlier.

He said the next chartered flight will arrive on Sunday and the Koreans will stay at the L’Fisher Hotel and Sugarland Hotel in Bacolod City for three days.

Termination looms for
hospital workers
BY CARLA GOMEZ

About 100 contractual workers at the 11 hospitals of the Negros Occidental provincial government are faced with notices of termination, with the continued refusal of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan to approve the 2013 budget, Board Member Melvin Ibañez, chairman of the SP Committee on Health, said yesterday.

However, Ibañez said he has asked the Economic Enterprise Development Department of the provincial government to withhold the serving of the notices of termination for 10 working days, while the performances of these 100 hospital workers are being reviewed.

To renew the services of contractual workers a supplemental budget needs to be passed allocating their salaries, he said. And a supplemental budget can only be tackled if the 2013 budget is operational, he added.

Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. yesterday said that if the Negros Occidental Sangguniang Panlalawigan approves the 2013 budget at a later date, the rules no longer allow the provincial government to pay the fourth tranche salary increase of the 2,335 Capitol employees retroactively to January.

A Department of Budget and Management circular states that if the 2013 provincial budget is approved after this month, the payment of the fourth tranche of the salary increases of Capitol employees will not be retroactive to January, he said.

The governor reiterated that, aside from the salaries and bonuses of the Capitol employees, numerous other services to Negrenses, especially to the poor, will be affected by the non-approval of the 2013 budget.