Congress asked to restore budget for 63 mobile training labs

FILE: Session hall of House of Representatives (Photo: House of Representatives of the Philippines/Facebook)

MANILA — The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) on Thursday asked the House of Representatives to restore funding for 63 mobile training laboratory trucks that was cut by the Department of Budget and Management in the proposed 2020 National Expenditure Program (NEP).

During the hearing of the agency’s 2020 budget, TESDA Director General Isidro Lapeña said the equipment is crucial to the government’s poverty reduction program especially in “conflicted areas.”

He said TESDA’s original proposed budget for 2020 was PHP19.9 billion but DBM only approved PHP11.851 billion, a 6 percent decrease from their PHP12.555 billion 2019 budget.

Among the items slashed by the DBM was the proposed funding for mobile training laboratory trucks.

Lapeña said that of the agency-proposed PHP563 million for 63 mobile training laboratory trucks, TESDA was only given an allotment of PHP50 million, enough to buy six to 10 mobile training facilities.

“These mobile training laboratory trucks are our response to the needs of our countrymen in far-flung areas because we want them to achieve the present system that our beneficiaries have in the training centers,” he told members of the House appropriations committee.

“Papaano yung mga kababayan natin na nasa barrios at mga bukid na hindi kayang pumunta sa (How about our countrymen in the barrios and the farms who cannot go to the) training centers? Instead, we wanted to reach out to them, so we need these mobile training laboratory trucks,” Lapeña stressed.

He added that mobile training facilities are crucial in its mandate as provided under Executive Order 70.

Signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on December 4, 2018, EO 70 institutionalizes the whole-of-nation approach in attaining inclusive and sustainable peace, and created the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

Lapeña said TESDA, as the lead agency of the Poverty Reduction, Livelihood and Employment Cluster of the NTF-ELCAC, is mandated to provide skills training programs under the community-driven Technical-Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

He said the purpose of the mobile training laboratory trucks is to initially address the problematic provinces in accordance with EO 70.

“These will be dedicated to them. These provinces were identified as conflicted areas. Maraming indigenous peoples (IPs) na kailangan puntahan sa areas nila, as well as former rebels na kailangan maserbisyuhan sila (There are many IPs that we needed to visit in their places, as well as former rebels that need our services),” Lapeña said.

According to him, TESDA has provided technical and vocational training to some 132,441 IPs and 4,636 former rebels from 2018 to July 2019.

With the mobile training facilities, he said TESDA would be able to get more IPs and rebel-returnees into the program.

“We cannot expect them to come to the training centers, we have to go out there,” Lapeña said.

Additionally, the TESDA director-general said the mobile training labs would also be used to teach beneficiaries of the government’s agrarian reform program.

“Farmers who were given Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs) should be taught how to make their lands productive. It’s not enough to give them land, it has to be productive. So we have to teach them and that is our mandate,” Lapeña said.

Aside from mobile training laboratory trucks, Lapeña also requested the restoration of the budget for 63 4×4 pickups that TESDA personnel will use in going to the conflicted or marginalized areas.

“We call these ‘working vehicles’ that provincial and regional directors will use in going to the farms or mountains. Sedans and sport utility vehicles cannot go there,” he said.

Zero budget for Tulong Trabaho Act

The budget for the mobile training laboratories and pickup trucks were not the only items slashed in the TESDA-proposed budget.

Lapeña said DBM also did not approve the PHP1.545 billion funding needed for the implementation of the Tulong Trabaho Act (RA 11230) which was signed by President Duterte last February 22.

The law mandates a fund that finances scholarships of workers for training programs as needed by industries.

This prompted Bagong Henerasyon Party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy to point out that removing funds for RA 11230 “could be a violation of the law.”

“I want to put that on record that the budget for the Tulong Trabaho Act must be put in TESDA so they can implement the law that we just passed and signed by the President,” she said.

Also cut by the DBM are the proposed PHP452.7 million appropriation for the implementation of the Cordillera State Institute of Technical Education Act (RA 11192) which was signed by Duterte last January 18, 2019; and the PHP659.8 million appropriation for the Philippines’ hosting of the ASEAN Skill Competition in 2022.

Herrera-Dy said the ASEAN Skills Competition is very important in the Philippines as many of our gifted students have won in this competition in the past.

“The budget for this must also be appropriated to increase the awareness of technical vocation skills and give importance to it,” Herrera-Dy said as she urged her fellow legislators to augment TESDA’s funding.

“I hope the initial request of TESDA, pagtulungan po natin para maibalik natin ang mga konsiderasyon na yan (let us work together so that these considerations would be restored),” Herrera-Dy said.