San Miguel Corporation (SMC) is teaming up with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority for a skills training program that will enable a greater number of Filipinos to participate in opportunities at its New Manila International Airport (NMIA) project, as well as its various strategic initiatives across the country.
SMC President and CEO Ramon Ang and TESDA Secretary and Director General Suharto Mangudadatu recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) that will expand their existing partnership to more provinces to maximize job and livelihood creation.
“This is a great opportunity for many of our countrymen. The airport project and all our other projects, will not just generate jobs; more significantly, they will provide knowledge, skills, and technology transfer in construction, engineering, the operation of equipment and technologies, ground handling, aircraft maintenance, and many other fields,” Ang said in a recent press statement.
Learning from Foreign Experts
Ang cited that at the moment, the company is already working with over a hundred foreign experts in various fields at the NMIA project in Bulacan, Bulacan, now in its first phase of construction.
Filipinos working at the site are already learning from these foreign experts, and may then be tapped to teach and pass on skills and knowledge to the next batches of workers to be trained by TESDA, and hired by SMC.
The SMC-TESDA partnership, which started in 2020, is now expanded to include Pangasinan, Laguna and Palawan.
Initially, the partnership covered residents of Bulacan, Bataan, Batangas, Quezon Province, General Santos City, South Cotabato, and Davao del Sur.
Livelihood opportunities as well
In most of the pilot areas, graduates of the SMC-TESDA program also benefited from housing assistance, that allowed families to build or buy new homes, or in the case of Sariaya, Quezon, resettle in an SMC-built free housing community.
The program, which began in Bulacan and extended to different provinces, initially offered courses in heavy equipment operations, shielded metal arc welding, entrepreneurship training, electrical installation and maintenance, dressmaking, baking, and cookery.
“As we are expanding our businesses around the country, a fully-capable workforce is an essential ingredient to our success. We thank TESDA for their sincere support and tireless efforts in helping us equip more Filipinos to improve their lives and help the country in the process,” Ang added.
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