Benguet Corp. gives summer pay to studes

ITOGON, Benguet – Some 40 College students from host and neighboring communities can now attend their classes with extra money following the timely release of their compensation from the Benguet Corporation (BC) after having worked for the mining company for almost two months during the summer under the government’s Special Program for the Employment of Students (SPES).

          

For many years, Benguet Corp. has offered summer jobs for tertiary students, in a tie-up with the Department of Labor and Employment, as support to its Special Program for the Employment of Students (SPES) in order to provide deserving beneficiaries from host and neighboring communities temporary sources of income to allow them to become productive during the summer vacation.

            

Engr. Randolph Afidchao, BC general manager, said the company increased their quota for this year to 40 from last year’s 26 beneficiaries so that more deserving beneficiaries could be accommodated in the government’s noble employment program.

            

According to him, 15 students each from barangays Virac and Poblacion and 10 from barangay ucab were employed under the program.

The BC manager explained majority of the hired students were deployed in their respective barangays performing various office and other outdoor works as assigned by their barangay officials while some of them were absorbed by the company and assigned to different

            

Afidchao disclosed the students have already received from the Company their 60% share of the honorarium, while the remaining 40% will be released by the DOLE to their respective schools in the form of education vouchers to partially pay their schools fees for the coming schoolyear 2012-2013.

           

As a treat, they underwent the Balatoc Mines Underground Tour at the end of their employment for them to experience the company’s tourist attraction whereby they will have a chance to personally see for themselves actually mining activities and the situation underground.

           

 “The company commits to make this a yearly endeavor to give college students an additional source of income to help fund their education,” Afidchao stressed, citing that they value today’s youth, thus, they are supportive of any noble endeavor to allow them to achieve a descent education so that they could use it for productive purposes and uplift the living condition of their respective families.

“The experience they gain while working could even serve them in good stead when they finally look for and land in a good paying job after graduation,” he added, underscoring that education is the most important inheritance that parents and guardians could given their children since it could not be easily taken away from them.

            

The BC official cited the employment of college students under the SPES complements the ongoing high school scholarship program of the Company whereby hundreds of high school students from the mine firm’s host and neighboring communities are being given free high school education in various high schools in the town while enjoying the benefits of stipends to help them sustain their daily expenses. -- Dexter A. See