4,817 students in Region 1 to bene t from SPES

DAGUPAN CITY — Some 4,817 poor but deserving students in Region 1 will benefit from this year’s Special Program for the Employment of Students ( SPES), the Department of Labor and Employment -Regional Office I (DOLE-RO1) said.

Regional Director Grace Ursua said a corresponding budgetary allocation of P17,568,386 has been earmarked for the labor agency’s 40 percent share in the student-workers’ salaries, DOLE said.

The 60 percent will be shouldered by the participating employers, namely, local government units, educational institutions and private companies.

Six field offices of the DOLE-RO I have recorded significant numbers of beneficiaries: Ilocos Norte, 1,060; Ilocos Sur, 771; La Union, 578; Eastern Pangasinan, 771; Central Pangasinan, 674 and Western Pangasinan, 963.

“Through the SPES, we continue to expose beneficiaries to actual work to help them develop and improve both hard and soft skills, the right attitude and values while they earn for their school needs,” Ursua said.

Ultimately, the student- workers become more ready for future employment, Ursua added.

Meanwhile, 22 -year-old June Ramon Bagaoisan, a former SPES beneficiary from Piddig, Ilocos Norte, ascribed his successes in life largely to the program.

Bagaoisan is now working as information technologist and assistant school registrar at the St. Mary’s Seminary in Laoag City.

From 2011 to 2013, he served as student-worker at the Office of the vice-president of religious affairs of the Divine Word College of Laoag where he completed a degree on Bachelor of Computer Science.

Every SPES period, he worked as office clerk and learned encoding, filing, recording of documents and other skills.