DAVAO ORIENTAL—A total of 293 individuals who are now full-fledged security guards, have received their certificate of completion in a graduation ceremony held on October 31, 2019 at the Capitol Covered Court.
Funded under the Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development Office (DSWD), the program was allocated a total P4.395 million which covered the beneficiaries’ expenses on the pre-licensing training course, acquisition of security license, two sets of uniforms, and allowances in getting employment requirements.
SLP Provincial Coordinator Julius Duterte said each beneficiary was allotted with P15,000 to cover those mentioned requirements.
SLP is a capability building program to improve the socio-economic aspect of the lives of the poor. “So, it has two tracks—the micro-enterprise and employment facilitation. The training for security guards is under the employment facilitation track. So, all in all, the training was conducted for free,” Mr. Duterte said.
He added that participants were identified through general assemblies organized in each municipality. Participants, whose age range from 21-45 years, include 4Ps beneficiaries and those that are considered poor and are willing to brave the rigid 21-day training conducted in partnership with Bagwis Security Training Academy, Inc. (BSTA Inc.).
BSTA President Sandrex Centillas said that the training, which was conducted in each respective municipality, was equivalent to basic military training.
“We taught them the basic functions of a security guard like self defense, martial arts, discipline, at the same time emergency preparedness on first aid and fire prevention. Also, the training was supervised by the Philippine National Police,” Centillas said, adding that they will continue to teach the graduates even when they are already employed.
Congratulating the graduates, at the same time wishing for them to get employed right away, is Provincial Chief of Staff Ednar Dayanghirang who represented Governor Nelson Dayanghirang. He lauded the department for the successful program implementation which, he said is a big contribution to the Governor’s vision of a peaceful and developed province of Davao Oriental in line with President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order 70 or the “Whole-of-Nation Approach to Attain Sustainable Peace and End Insurgency.”
“There are many business establishments who will hire security guards. And the police cannot watch for over 100 million Filipinos to keep the public peace and order. So, this program of the DSWD is timely to create job opportunities and to provide security to the community and to the business establishments. Hopefully, this program will continue so that the employment rate and the income of the province will rise. So, congratulations to all of you in behalf of our governor. Let us help Governor Dayanghirang in achieving progress in the province as well as in his efforts in attaining sustainable peace. Most importantly, let us help President Rodrigo Duterte’s vision for all of us,” he said.
As the security guards are now ready to take on their new employment role, Julius Duterte said they will keep track of the graduates’ employment records. During the graduation ceremony, security agencies were also present for the on-the-spot hiring.
“We will conduct monitoring after this wherein we will really track which agency they were employed and we really prioritized those agencies that offer above minimum wage. Also, since their security licenses will expire in 3 years, we introduced to them the savings generation component of the SLP,” he added.
Mr. Duterte is encouraging those who wanted to avail of the DSWD’s livelihood program to go to their Municipal Offices in their respective towns or to the Provincial Operations Office at the Capitol Hill for those who live in Mati City as they will be warmly accommodated by the assigned Project Development Officers. By Riza M. Golez
