KIANGAN, Ifugao—The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) assured its commitment in providing an institution-based and community-based training for rebel returnees through its Special Skills Training Programs (SSTP).
“The implementation of the SSTP is in line with President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order No. 70 which institutionalizes a ‘whole-of-nation approach’ versus insurgency, said Engr. John Adawey, provincial director of Ifugao.
Adding, this is also the national government’s advocacy in reintegrating rebel returnees back to society.
He explained that SSTP empowers special sectors such as former rebels, Indigenous Peoples (IPs) and cultural communities through the Technical and Vocational Education and Training.
“Through the scholarship program, scholars are entitled to the following benefits if applicable: Free skills training and assessment, free entrepreneurship training, with Training Support Fund (TSF) of PHP 100 per training day attended and with starter tool kits,” he explained.
He added that aside from SSTP, there are also various scholarship programs of TESDA that former rebels can avail of such as Training for Work Scholarship Program (TWSP), Special Training for Employment Program (STEP), Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act (UAQTEA).
Meanwhile, Provincial Training Center–Ifugao administrator Felixberto Matute said that the training center can be one of the venues of the skills trainings to be provided to the rebel returnees.
“PTC-Ifugao can also implement mobile training programs in the different communities where the beneficiaries are located,” he said.
TESDA has launched the Rural Employment Generation for Social Equity (REGSE) projects which is in accordance with the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP), the Executive Order No. 70 also known as the ‘Task Force Balik-Loob’.
Lieutenant Colonel Narciso Nabulneg, commander of the 54th Infantry Battalion (54IB) said that there are more than 100 former rebels and Militia ng Bayan (MB) members from Ifugao, Mountain Province and Nueva Vizcaya who received Enhance-Comprehensive Livelihood Inclusive Program (E-CLIP) benefits from the various government line agencies.
“The government has all the best programs to offer like peace and enjoy progressive lives for the former rebels, we have the localized peace talks and the E-CLIP, which actually offers a complete package of integration, livelihood and education program,” Nabulneg said.
E-CLIP is a national program locally-implemented to address the legal status and security of former rebels, their economic, social, and psychological rehabilitation needs, and provide immediate to long-term interventions that are supported by strengthened institutions to ensure effective implementation of desired outcomes. **Dexter Binwag/TESDA-Ifugao
