As un­cer­tain­ty sur­rounds the fate of thou­sands of CEPEP work­ers across the coun­try, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris has tak­en mat­ters in­to his own hands, qui­et­ly re­ab­sorb­ing a few in­to short-term work in his Pleas­antville elec­toral dis­trict.

Par­ris’ move comes as over 10,500 work­ers and 360 con­trac­tors were abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed on June 27, af­ter the Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme Com­pa­ny can­celled all con­tracts. The new­ly elect­ed Gov­ern­ment cit­ed unau­tho­rised pre-elec­tion con­tract re­newals, al­leged po­lit­i­cal abuse, and fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties. While the Min­istries of Pub­lic Util­i­ties and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment have since as­sured that CEPEP would re­turn in some form, many work­ers re­main in lim­bo.

Among those af­fect­ed was De­siree Lopez, who pub­licly shared her strug­gle, say­ing she was down to her last $100 and feared be­com­ing home­less with her three chil­dren dur­ing the Ju­ly-Au­gust school break.