Provincial government employees will soon receive a mandatory half-day off to spend with their families under a proposed ordinance establishing an annual “Provincial Family Week” every September.
The measure, proposed by Board Member Romeo Salda, institutionalizes a weeklong celebration across the province during the final week of September.
Supported by a ₱300,000 annual provincial appropriation, the policy aims to combat workplace burnout and strengthen local households.
Section 4 of the ordinance extends legal recognition and institutional support to diverse household structures.
Under the proposed ordinance, a family includes traditional setups, childless married couples, unmarried siblings living together, solo parents or widowed individuals with custody, and unmarried legal guardians acting as surrogate parents.
To ensure a tangible impact on public servants, Section 7 mandates the observance of a “Family Bonding Day” during the designated week.
If passed, the Governor is mandated to issue an executive order mandating all provincial government offices to implement an early release or work suspension during this day.
During legislative consultations, officials expressed a strong preference for a Friday afternoon half-day release to give employees a continuous block of quality time through the weekend.
When asked how the provincial government plans to address potential reluctance from department heads regarding the new policy, Salda encouraged full participation across all offices.
“We encourage all the employees, the department heads to participate in this family bonding, in the family week,” Salda said. “In the IRR [implementing rules and regulations], if we are looking to declare a half-day… any day of the last week of September, we will be declaring it one day for each family to have family bonding. We can declare it a half-day, so maybe Friday, so that they are going to have a family bonding until Saturday, Sunday.”NLMonitor
