Parents of child laborers in Ayungon town, Negros Oriental province are among the 226 informal sector workers who helped in the reforestation efforts of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) under the TUPAD program of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
TUPAD stands for Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers, which provides emergency and seasonal employment for this sector, said Maria Theresa Tanquiamco, officer-in-charge of the DOLE-Negros Oriental field office.
“About 100 of the TUPAD beneficiaries who worked last month with the DENR in Barangay Banban, Ayungon are parents of child laborers, and this is our intervention to help this particular sector,” Tanquiamco told the Philippine News Agency on Tuesday.
Tanquiamco said beneficiaries of the 10-day project in December, who are all from Barangay Banban, were paid PHP450 a day for a total of PHP4,500 each and also received a one-year group personal accident insurance from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).
The TUPAD beneficiaries in Ayungon assisted in the maintenance of seedlings; rehabilitated the unpaved road connecting the national highway and the Modern Mechanized Forest Nursery of DENR; and de-clogged the canals to preserve the road and provide safe and efficient passage, a media release from the DOLE-Region 7 office said.
They also cleared vegetation in the massive area of 94,000 square meters surrounding the nursery.
The DENR’s modern Mechanized Forest Nursery in Banban has produced millions of tree seedlings to revive forests.
“Over the years, hundreds of workers have been hired to work in the 9.4-hectare mechanized nursery, the biggest in the country, nurturing to life sprouts of forest trees such as acacia, mangium, mahogany, narra and balkan, among others,” Tanquiamco said.
However, due to budget cuts, the number of workers at the facility declined, but now that the DOLE and DENR are collaborating, reforestation efforts are revived and barangay constituents are provided temporary employment, she added.
Maricris Limaco, 35, thanked the DOLE and DENR for bringing the TUPAD program to their barangay as it provided her the means to buy their most basic needs such as rice and other household necessities, the media release said.
“We are also thankful that we were able to work at the nursery for the good of the environment. We hope that this program will continue between the DOLE and DENR as this is a big help to all,” she added in the Cebuano dialect.
DOLE-7 OIC-Regional Director, Lilia A. Estillore, lauded the concerted efforts made, saying “This joint endeavor has made it possible for DOLE to promote employment generation and for DENR to effectively continue with its greening program”, the media release said.
“This is a very meaningful initiative that hits more than one target. Our TUPAD workers gained income by rendering work that is beneficial to the environment and to all of us. This is an activity worth replicating by all other provinces in the region”.
Tanquiamco said that for this year, they are still awaiting funding from the DOLE head office but “definitely, we will pursue this collaboration with DENR and other agencies according to their requirements”.
Usually, the requesting agency identifies the beneficiaries in a particular barangay for the TUPAD program, but in this case, the DOLE-NegOr field office provided the names of the parents of child laborers to the DENR for inclusion as part of their intervention efforts to discourage the employment of children, she said. (PNA)
