BACOLOD CITY - A total of 29,042 vulnerable workers here and in Negros Occidental received emergency employment assistance from the Tulong Pangkabuhayan sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) program of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) from January to June this year. The aid, amounting to PHP115.892 million, included wages, personal protective equipment, and insurance coverage. The beneficiaries from Negros Occidental and Bacolod City were among the 95,261 displaced and informal workers from various local government units in Western Visayas (Region 6) in the first six months of 2022. In a statement on Thursday, DOLE-6 Regional Director Sixto Rodriguez Jr. said they maximize efforts to reach the most number of informal workers across the region and continuously push to fast-track the processing of assistance to those in the marginalized sector. "Reaching the far-flung barangays is our way of bringing government services closer to the people and carrying out our mandate to look after the welfare of marginalized and the vulnerable workers," he added. A flagship employment program of the DOLE, the TUPAD provides a minimum of 10 to a maximum of 15-day emergency employment for vulnerable workers. The beneficiaries render community services such as repair, maintenance, and/or improvement of common public facilities and infrastructure like schools and health centers as well as declogging of canals, debris clearing, segregation and materials recovery, stockpiling, and other clearing work. Some workers also helped in the repair, maintenance, and/or rehabilitation of farm-to-market roads, bridges, post-harvest facilities, public markets, and common service facilities such as production and display centers and fish ports. (PNA) }