SBMA to honor top employees

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT (PIA) – Preparations are now in full blast for the awarding on March 22 of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority’s Employee of the Year, a prestigious title for which only five contenders remain.

SBMA chairman Feliciano Salonga said the “Final Five” emerged after a group selection panel made a careful selection of competitors from a roster of 43 employees who were chosen as monthly winners last year.

“In 2010, Subic began to make a rebound from the global crisis that affected us in 2009. And these men and women who exuded excellence, passion and malasakit have helped the agency in its task of putting the free port back on track,” Salonga said.

According to the selection panel for the SBMA Employee of the Year award, the five finalists now represent the different strategic business units (SBUs) of the SBMA. These are the Aviation and Maritime Operations Group, Chairman's and Administrator’s Group, Business and Investments Group, Internal Services Group, and Regulatory Group.

For the Aviation and Maritime Operations Group,the finalist is TSg. Jesse Arbitrario, a security officer from the Law Enforcement Department. Arbitrario supervises the armory section of the nine branches of the department, and became instrumental in building huge savings through ammunitions shell reload, firearms repair, and firing range training. He is also the evidence custodian of some P28-million worth of jewelry confiscated at the Subic Bay International Airport (SBIA).

Representing the chairman’s and administrator’s Group is Genaro Gaco, section chief for minor construction of the Maintenance and Transportation Department. He has facilitated salvaging utilizable materials from structures due for demolition. These materials were later used to construct, renovate, or repair other structures as the SBMA worked on projects with limited budget.

A rose among the thorns, Karen Magno of the Business and Investments Group, is a project evaluation officer of the Manufacturing and Maritime Business Development Department. She handles key and “problematic” accounts, which now amount to a total of $3.5 billion in committed investments. She was SBMA’s primary witness in some cases concerning business locators in the Subic Bay Freeport.

Capt. Nardo Alcantara of the Internal Services Group, is a fire marshal in the SBMA Fire Department. His various contributions to his department were vital in bagging the “Gawad Kalasag” that was awarded by the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) in 2010 to the SBMA firefighting unit. Called a “jack of all trades” in his unit, Alcantara also undertakes repair and maintenance of the department’s equipment.

Judson Whiteside Jr. of the Regulatory Group is a senior field inspector at the Ecology Center’s tree nursery. In charge of propagating plants, Whiteside produced high-quality planting materials without having to purchase seed bags and commercial fertilizer. Instead, he collected used plastic cups from fastfood restaurants as containers and horse manure for fertilizer.

From among these five finalists, a winner will be selected on the fifth annual SBMA Employee of the Year Awards, which will be held at the Subic Bay Exhibition and Convention Center (SBECC) on March 22.

The SBMA Employee of the Year (EOY) Awards is a project of the SBMA Human Resources Management Department (HRMD) to recognize and reward exemplary services rendered by employees.

The annual awarding of EOY is in line with the directive of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) to implement a Program on Awards and Incentives for Service Excellence (PRAISE). To facilitate this project, the SBMA PRAISE Committee has named a group selection panel to screen nominees from the different SBMA departments.(AMV/PIA Zambales/SBMA-PRD)