BAGUIO CITY April 23 – Some two hundred seventy-seven students formally started their month-long employment with the local government as beneficiaries of the annual Special Employment for the Employment of Students (SPES) this year.
The 277 students will be rendering services in the different local government offices from April 22 to June 3, 2019 under the SPES, a regular employment program of the labor department in close coordination with the local governments and the private sector.
The local government planned to employ some 400 students under the SPES this year but the beneficiaries of the program were divided into two batches with the first batch being these 277 students, while the second batch of 123 will start their services on June 10, 2019.
Under the said program, 60 percent of the compensation of the beneficiaries will be shouldered by the local government while the balance of 40 percent will be shouldered by the labor department.
The successful beneficiaries of the program were selected from the thousands of interested applicants who submitted their intention to be part of the program and who were subjected to a stringent screening process at the start of the year.
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan congratulated the successful beneficiaries of the annual SPES as they will be given a chance to experience working with different offices and earn an income they could use for the payment of their school fees as the counterpart of the labor department in the payment of their salaries will be paid to the education institution where they are enrolled through the so-called education voucher.
He claimed that the first-hand experience of the students under the SPES will definitely motivate and inspire them to complete their studies for fruitful employment that can help their families considering that beneficiaries of the program usually come from indigent families from the city’s barangays.
Personnel of the city’s Public Employment Service Office (PESO) were tasked to closely monitor the regular activities of the students comprising the first batch of SPES workers that were already given office assignments prior to their taking their oath during the regular Monday flag-raising ceremony at the city hall grounds.
The SPES has been going on for over a decade with thousands of students enrolled in the different higher education institutions acquiring work experience with the different offices of concerned government agencies, local governments and the private establishments, and earning part of their education expenses.
Aside from the local government, dozens of establishments in the city signified their intention to hire beneficiaries of SPES as part of their work force even for a limited period of time for them to help in sending poor but deserving students to school.
By Dexter A. See
