LINGAYEN—Gov. Amado Espino III has approved 150 more slots in the Special Program for Employment of Students (Spes) project, increasing the number of grants to 300 next year.
This was disclosed by Espino when he distributed the 60-percent wage counterpart of the provincial government to the second batch of 75 Spes workers at the Provincial Employment Services Office (Peso) in Lingayen on August 5.
Earlier, 75 members of the first batch of SPES grantees received their wage counterpart from the province.
The Pangasinan Peso released P730,000 for the 60-percent counterpart of the province for the 150 SPES workers. Each Spes grantee worked for 20 days for a daily wage rate of P409.09.
The 40-percent counterpart from the Department of Labor and Employment will be distributed separately.
During the paying of wages to the Capitol Spes workers, Espino asked the beneficiaries to study harder since their parents have to work hard to put them through school.
Meanwhile, Peso manager Alex Ferrer noted that the DoLE Spes program implemented under the term of former governor Amado Espino, Jr., now fifth district representative, started with 100 grantees and later on added 50 additional slots.
“The Spes program specifically helps students who come from less-privileged families, but are competitive and deserving,” Ferrer pointed out.
The Spes workers were deployed in offices and hospitals run by the province.
Expressing gratitude for the support of the provincial government to the Spes program, “The Spes opportunity molded me to become a productive student and citizen,” said Vanessa Rosana, a second year elementary school student at the PSU Urdaneta campus.
Rina May Visperas, a fisheries student of PSU Binmaley, on the other hand, lauded the Spes grant as a big help to her parents.
DoLE representative, Labor Employment Officer III Rhodora Dingle from Western Pangasinan field office was present during the distribution.