Students hit by ‘Yolanda’ sweep streets to raise money for school

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines—For eight hours a day, Mary Rose Diaz, 16, sweeps the streets of this city, which she says she doesn’t mind doing in spite of the heat and dust because the money it brings  helps her buy her school needs.

Diaz is among 400 students, ages 16 to 25, who are employed by the city government under its summer job program.

The students were thrust into menial jobs as street sweepers or utility workers for the city government and were paid P220 per day for  work that starts at 8 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m. five days a week.

The program started on April 1 and would end in the last week of June in time for the opening of classes.

Emilia Cruz, chief of the city’s Public Employment Service Office, said students who had been given jobs through the program were victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” that pummeled the city on Nov. 8 last year.

Cruz said the city government waived several requirements for employment under the program, including tests to determine qualified applicants.

She said city officials implementing the program “just adopted a policy of first come, first served.”

Diaz, a resident of Barangay 103, said the P4,400 she would receive for working as a street sweeper for 20 days would be a great help to her.

Diaz’s family is among the hundreds suffering from the effects of Yolanda. Her father’s farm has suffered extensive damage and her family’s house is in  disrepair for lack of funds.

The city government has allotted P2 million for the job program, the money coming from donations from private entities and local government units.

Many business establishments in the city have yet to resume operations following the devastation left by Yolanda.

Out of 13,000 business establishments that operated before Yolanda, only 1,820 had renewed their licenses to operate as of April.

The city generated more than P40.5 million from business licenses following Yolanda, less than half of the P86 million that it had collected in the first quarter of 2013.