Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto addressed the following during the weekly flag-raising ceremony:

00:01-00:14: Acknowledgment of City officials, departments, personnel, and representatives from national government agencies who attended the flag-raising ceremony, as well as the host offices from the Infrastructure Sector – City Transportation Development and Management Office and Office of the Building Official.

00:15-01:45: Special Program for Employment of Students - Out-of-School Youth (SPES-OSY)

- Mayor Vico also acknowledged the 236 SPES-OSY Batch 2 beneficiaries. He then shared that 40% of the salaries of the beneficiaries will be from the national government agency through the Department of Labor and Employment and the remaining 60% will be from the City Government of Pasig.

- He then reminded everyone (City Hall employees, Government Internship Program (GIP) beneficiaries, and SPES beneficiaries) that the salaries of the City Government of Pasig come from the taxpayers; that is why the level of responsibility is higher. He also wished that SPES-OSY beneficiaries would learn a lot from working in the City Government of Pasig, even though they will work for the institution for a short period of time only.

- Mayor Vico then informed everyone that the hiring process for GIP or SPES is on a “first come, first served” basis or depending on the requirements that will be released by the Public Employment Service Office.

01:46-03:53: Modified Work Schedule

- He also acknowledged that one week has passed since the new work schedule started following the directives of the Malacaňang.

- He shared that not all local government units (LGUs) have followed the new work schedule as some LGUs are still observing how the modified work schedule will be implemented. Nevertheless, Mayor Vico recognizes that the change has been fruitful and expressed his hopes that it will be of help to address the traffic situation and to the City Hall employees — especially to those who live farther from the City Hall since they will be able to head home before traffic builds up.

- Mayor Vico then shared that implementation of the new work schedule will be further observed for a few months and feedback from the City Hall employees will always be considered. He also informed everyone that the temporary City Hall is nearing its completion so the City Government of Pasig will also observe the new work schedule’s effects on the change of location, so there is no definite decision yet, because the implementation of the modified work schedule will still have to be observed and studied further, with the assistance of the Office of the City Administrator and the Human Resource Development Office.

03:54-06:48: Annual Investment Program (AIP)

- Mayor Vico talked about the AIP planning where he expressed his joy that while the actual planning process has been difficult, he can see the improvements rolled out in the planning process in the City Government of Pasig. He then reiterated the vision of his administration: to make the City Government’s processes, systems, and services, better than how these were before.

He also reminisced about the time, during the start of the rollout of reforms in the AIP formulation in 2019 and 2020, and admitted that it was a bit hard because everyone in the City Government of Pasig was not yet used to the process.

- Mayor Vico then explained that the AIP is the LGU’s “menu” where the list of programs, projects, and activities of the City Government are listed with the proposed budget.

- Mayor Vico also said that back then, the AIP planning in 2019-2020 is still unrefined, and while we still have a lot to improve up to now, the AIP formulation process is 300% smoother than it was previously.

- He acknowledged the efforts of the city department/office heads and all the other City Hall employees who are involved in the planning process. He then congratulated them for a job well done.

- Mayor Vico also acknowledged that while a lot more needs to be done, it can be seen that there has been a huge improvement in the city’s processes.

- He mentioned that it’s completely normal that the budget utilization is low during the start of the rollout of reforms. This is because the City Government of Pasig is creating a new system to ensure that everything is smooth and clean such as in the procurement and planning process.

- Mayor Vico then said that now, everyone can see the fruits of the hard work rendered in the past few years. He congratulated everyone again for the job well done.

06:49-06:57: To end his speech, Mayor Vico thanked everyone who attended the flag-raising ceremony.

To watch the full video of the flag-raising ceremony, click this link: https://bit.ly/2024_FlagCeremonyMay6