Chairman, operations group finalists bag SBMA Employee of the Year 2023 awards

Subic Bay Freeport—The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA)’s Chairman and Administrator’s group bagged both Employee of the Year (EOY) 2023 awards for Category 2 and Category 1 respectively, tying with the Operations group finalist in Category 1. 

Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Employee of the Year (EOY) 2023 Category 1 Ryan Joseph Garcia of the Planning and Development Office (PDO).

Chairman and Administrator Group finalists Lex Byron Magrata of the Public Relations Office (PRO) and Ryan Joseph Garcia of the Planning and Development Office (PDO) were named EOY 2023 for Category 2 and 1 respectively; the latter tied with Operations Group’s Domar Reolizo of the Seaport Department.

“This special occasion allows us to honor and celebrate the unwavering dedication, commitment, and excellence as demonstrated by our extraordinary team members,” SBMA Chairman and Administrator Eduardo Jose L. Aliño said in his welcome remarks.

According to Aliño, the EOY is primarily selected by the Group Selection Panel (GSP) of their respective Strategic Business Units (SBUs), namely, Chairman & Administrator Group (ChAd), Business & Investment Group (BIG), Operations Group, Public Services Group (PSG), Regulatory Group (REG), and the Support Services Group (SSG).

Aliño explained that at the very start of the nomination process, employees will be nominated according to their innovation &/or productivity, quality customer service, and malasakit and honesty. At the end of the year, their respective GSPs will come up with a finalist for Category 1 and Category 2 who will represent their SBUs.

He also said that the finalists will undergo an interview by the Program on Awards and Incentives for Service Excellence (PRAISE) Committee which will decide who the EOY would be.

Reolizo, hired by the agency as a clerk at the Port Management Division of the Seaport Department in 2018, made his mark with his proficiency in Google functions after barely six years in the government service.

He automated the Trade Facilitation and Compliance Department’s and Seaport Department’s current system—the online overtime request, the seaport employee leave monitoring system, the Google scan image for seaport manual documents, and the online admission system–by maximizing the use of the G-Suite tools.

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In his acceptance speech, he thanked his family and the Operations group for the opportunity to be where he is now.

Tying with Reolizo in Category 1 is Garcia, who initially was a driver-slash-messenger for the PDO in 2019. Still, he performed above and beyond his duties which made him one of the most reliable and integral parts of the department.

He authored the guidelines for the procurement and distribution of the agency’s tokens to centralize the procurement of various kinds of tokens upon the request of the Accounting Department, Financial Planning and Budget Department (FPBD), and Procurement and Property Management Department (PPMD) to the PDO, being the expense account manager for tokens.

Likewise, he expressed gratitude to everyone behind his success—his family, his superiors, and the agency.

Meanwhile, Magrata, the EOY 2023 for Category 2, expressed his deep gratitude to OIC-DeputyAdministrator for Corporate Communications Armina Llamas for the trust and confidence accorded to him and his division’s staff.

Magrata and his staff in the SDD were transferred to the PRO in November 2022 from the Ecology Center.

In less than two years of his stint with the PRO, Magrata has been instrumental in securing a land area of more than four hectares at Sitio Kinabuksan worth P2.4 million in annual rental revenue when he worked promptly with the Office of the Solicitor-General (OSG) in drafting judicial affidavits that resulted to the court’s favorable decision to SBMA.

He also assisted the court’s sheriff in delivering notices of Writ of Execution to informal settler respondents. Because of his engagement in a dialogue with respondents, 20 out of 38 have vacated the SBMA property.

Other finalists were Frankie Ebidag (Business and Investment Group), Reynaldo Casimero (Public Services Group), and Rolando Cabrera (Support Services Group) for Category 1; and Jojit Catungal (Business and Investment Group), Capt. John Dulnuan (Operations Group), Rolando Lomboy (Public Services Group), and Raquel Bautista (Support Services Group) for Category 2.

No representatives from the Regulatory Group were presented in both Category 1 and Category 2.

The SBMA’s EOY awards program started in 2006. Initially, finalists were selected from an array of Employees of the Month of the SBUs, which in 2011 became Employee of the Quarter; and in 2019, Category 1 and Category 2 were launched to allow competition on their respective levels.