Pols told not to use apprentices for campaign

TACLOBAN CITY—A ranking labor official in Eastern Visayas has expressed concern over the possible use by politicians of youths enrolling in a government summer apprenticeship program for their campaign, appealing to candidates and local government officials to spare apprentices from politics.

Elias Cayanog, director of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Eastern Visayas, urged local officials to keep apprentices away from election-related activities.

“We would like to appeal to them (politicians) not to expose our young people to any election-related activity,” said Cayanog.

“They (the youth) should rather be introduced to how government offices work,” he said.

This year, at least 10,000 youths aged 15 to 25 would be hired in the provinces of Biliran, Southern Leyte, Leyte, Samar, Northern Samar and Eastern Samar for the DOLE’s Work Appreciation Program (WAP), which offers apprenticeship jobs to the young.

Under the program, youths would work for 20 days and are to be paid P260 a day. The program is set to start next month, shortly after the campaign for local candidates starts on March 25.

Under the payment scheme, 60 percent of the apprentices’ salaries are to be shouldered by the local government units while the remaining 40 percent by the DOLE.

For this year, the DOLE Eastern Visayas office allotted P23 million for WAP.

The city government allotted P1.5 million for salaries of at least 300 youths who would work for the city government as apprentices.