Iloilo City gov’t allots more than half a million pesos for SPES
The Special Program for Employment of Students (SPES), a program jointly implemented by the city government and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), kicked off here Monday, with the deployment of 168 students to City Hall offices.
Public Employment Service Office (PESO) Iloilo City Manager Alan Zaldivar said the local government unit headed by Mayor Jerry P. Treñas allotted P584,000 for the program.
The beneficiaries are students from public high school and colleges in the city, aged 15 to 25 years old, and coming from poor families.
PESO received more than 400 applicants for the SPES, until they selected 168.
“We want to augment the educational expenses (of these youth) so they can continue their studies,” Zaldivar said.
Each student will receive P250 a day from the city government, while DOLE will give them education vouchers upon presenting their registration form as proof of enrolment.
SPES beneficiaries are currently working at the Public Employment Service Office (PESO), City Assessor’s Office, Real Property Tax Division, Budget, Accounting, Local Civil Registrar, City Population Office, City Environment and Natural Resources Office, City Social Welfare and Development Office, and City Treasurer’s Office.
The program will last until May 17 this year.
Zaldivar said the program has done a lot of help to the students, some of whom graduated Cum Laude and others who get hired by companies in Manila because of their work experience courtesy of SPES.
Under Republic Act 7323, SPES helps “poor but deserving students pursue their education by encouraging their employment during summer and/or Christmas vacations, through incentives granted to employers, allowing them to pay only sixty per centum of their salaries or wages and the forty per centum through education vouchers to be paid by the government, prohibiting and penalizing the filing of fraudulent and fictitious claims, and for other purposes.”
Its objective is to develop the intellectual capacities of children of poor families and harness their potentials for the country’s well being. (PIO)
