MANILA – Some 50,000 individuals from conflict-cleared barangays nationwide benefitted from the government’s free livelihood and skills training programs through the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), to date.

Under the NTF-ELCAC’s Poverty Reduction, Livelihood and Employment Cluster (PRLEC), chaired by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), the government has already conducted more than 4,500 livelihood and skills training nationwide.

The PRLEC has so far reached 822 villages, higher than its targeted 802 priority conflict-affected barangays and geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAs).

Among these skills training and livelihood projects include the establishment of organic farms, production sites, and trading centers for agricultural products; setting up community poultry, vegetable production, and processing centers; as well as the implementation of Tubig Kalikasan para sa Barangay (TUKABA), Project iPEACE for the indigenous communities, and Photovoltaic Systems Installation NC II (Project TALA) –wherein communities also benefitted from installations of solar lighting and charging systems.

TESDA deputy director-general Gabriel Quisumbing said the efforts also became essential to the agricultural sector as it has helped in promoting food security amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Apart from lifting the lives of former rebels and their communities, Quisumbing said the government’s livelihood and skills training programs have also helped individuals hit hard by the global health crisis, particularly those returning overseas Filipino workers and those that have returned to their respective home provinces.

The PRLEC targets to push “self-reliant, productive, resilient and sustainable communities” in the countryside through a whole-of-nation convergence and good governance approach.

The NTF-ELCAC was created through Executive Order 70 signed by President Rodrigo Duterte in 2018, institutionalizing the whole-of-nation approach to address the long-standing local communist armed conflict.

“We hope that the legacy that the President has created with the creation of EO 70 and the NTF-ECLAC is one that will be felt for generations upon generations. And we are sure that with the increased economic impact that these programs have brought into these areas, we are sure that we will feel the prosperity in these areas for years to come,” Quisumbing said in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon.

“So again, on behalf of the PRLE Cluster and TESDA which is the chair of the PRLE Cluster, we are at full step with the NTF-ELCAC and the President in his vision of delivering a lasting peace for our country,” he added. (PNA)