DOLE-Bicol allocates P13M for livelihood program

LEGAZPI CITY, Feb. 28 (PIA) -- The regional office of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) here has been allotted P13 million this year to implement livelihood projects to create employment in the region.

The amount will be disbursed in the form of livelihood grants under the DOLE’s Kabuhayan-Starter Kit (DK-SK) “Trabaho sa Bag” program for impoverished Bicolano families, according to DOLE regional director Nathaniel Lacambra on Monday.

As of February 23, the DOLE has already distributed P854,436.95, said Lacambra. This represents first quarter allocation for the first batch of the DK-SK beneficiaries in the region.

The beneficiaries were identified by four (4) local government units (LGUs), Lacambra added.

Allocation per area are as follows: Naga City, P213,602.54 ; Sorsogon City, P64,056.10; municipality of Polangui, Albay, P333,025.64; and Daet, Camarines Norte, P243,252.67.

The DOLE DK-SK project is aimed at engaging beneficiaries in sustainable self-employment by providing livelihood starter KITS (Knowledge Sharing, Inputs Acquisition, Training on Skills acquisition) consisting of package of services such as trainings, self-instructional learning materials and business advisories.

Lacambra said the grant also includes livelihood tools and equipment that can be used for easy to learn livelihood undertakings.

Its priority livelihood projects are simple house-to-house service-oriented skills like massage, plumbing, cosmetology, electrical servicing, welding, native snack preparation, car wash and motorcycle, cellular phone, appliance and upholstery repair, among others.

For displaced overseas workers, the training-cum-production scheme of the National Reintegration Center for OFWs (NRCO) is adopted.

The program primarily targets the unemployed out-of-school youths, women, parents of child laborers, Indigenous People (IPs), physically or occupationally disabled, urban poor, elderly persons, landless farmers and fisherfolk and other workers in the informal economy and displaced wage-workers, OFW returnees and their dependents, either individually or as groups.

The package of benefits contains short period training on production skills with entrepreneurship and business management; learning reference materials on production, entrepreneurship and business management skills; livelihood tools, equipment, material and inputs and; continuing business advisory and consultancy,

The beneficiaries are required to enrol in social protection service like Social Security System (SSS) and and Philhealth, Lacambra added. (MAL/DOC, LGU Legazpi City)

OPAPP-DILG peace and development initiatives in Gubat and Barcelona towns inaugurated

By Irma A. Guhit

SORSOGON CITY , Feb. 28 (PIA) -- Several infrastructure projects under the Sorsogon Peace Initiatives (SPI) to bring peace and development program in the countryside were inaugurated last Friday, February 24, here in two separate venues in the province of Sorsogon.

Undertaken under the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (PaMaNa) , a convergence initiatives of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) the project was undertaken under the funding complementation of government and non-governmental organization through the Agencia de Espanola Cooperacion National para del Desarollo (AECID) under the core program of government , Strengthening Local Government in the Philippines (SLGP).

In Gubat, the projects were the construction of the 1.5 km Sta Ana Access Road to Barangay Beriran to Carriedo; rehabilitation and expansion of the 1.5 km Sitio Puro Communal Irrigation System; and the repair of the Sta Ana Elementary School Building and the widening of the 1.5 km Apgo Barangay Road with a total cost of P4 million.

Meanwhile, the projects in Barcelona town, also amounting to P4 million, included the Community-based Training for the Youth in Masonry and Engine Trouble Shooting; Support to the Banana Production Sustainable Agriculture -Based Enterprise Program of the local government unit; Capacity Building Program with Catalystic Project for Fisherfolk Groups; Construction of the Operation and Construction of the Coordinating Center Peace Alliance of the Barcelona Development Cooperative (BADECO) and Rehabilitation of the Layog-Penaric Communal Irrigation System.

OPAPP ASec. Howard B. Cafugauan , Representative Deogracias B. Ramos of Sorsogon second congresswional district , Norberto Gomez de Liano of AECID, and Director Maria Eileen Jose of OPAPP led the inaguration and turn-over ceremony of these projects.

The SPI aims to empower local communities through enhancing their participation in local governance, and involving different agencies and the local communities in the preparation and implementation of peace and development projects in the local communities as a way to bring development and achieve lasting peace. (MAL/IAG, PIA Sorsogon)

23 fishers arrested in Masbate fish sanctuary

MASBATE CITY, Feb. 28 (PIA) -- Authorities have stepped up the crackdown on destructive methods of fishing and declared fish sanctuaries in several parts of the island in an apparent serious conservation effort.

A total of 23 fishermen from the town of Milagros, Masbate were arrested late last week in the waters off the neighboring town of Cawayan for allegedly fishing inside a breeding area where they were not allowed to fish.

The 23 were manning eight small motorized boats that encroached the area which police said had been declared by a municipal ordinance as off limits to fishers.

Chief Insp. Romeo Lupango Jr., spokesperson of the police provincial headquarters, said the fishermen were seen casting their nets inside the fish sanctuary.

He said the boats were also impounded.

Lupango said formal charges were filed before the Masbate City Prosecution Service against the boat owners and crewmembers.

They were being held at the jail in Camp Bonny Serrano in this city pending their appearance in the prosecutor’s office which conducted the inquest proceedings on the cases against them.

Crackdown on illegal fishers and methods of fishing in this island province remains relentless to ensure sustainable livelihood and source of income for majority of the residents that mostly depends on the resources from the sea. (MAL/EAD, PIA Masbate)