Young Filipino students who were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic should take advantage of the benefits under Republic Act No. 10917 or the Expanded Special Program for Employment of Students (SPES) law and get their education back on track, Senator Sonny Angara said on Sunday.

Angara said the law can cater, especially to the Filipino youth, during this time of the pandemic when most families’ income have been affected by the loss of jobs due to the extended lockdowns.

“One significant amendment we introduced in the SPES law was the inclusion of the dependents of displaced workers and would-be displaced workers due to business closures or work stoppages in the program,” said Angara, author of the law.

“With what is being experienced by many Filipino families now, this will help keep their children in school,” Angara said.

The law, he said, extends temporary employment to the qualified individuals for 20 to 78 days. It also raised the age limit of the program’s beneficiaries from the previous 15 to 25 years old to 15 to 30 years old.

Under the Expanded SPES law, an OSY and those enrolled in the tertiary, vocational or technical education may be employed any time of the year.

Students enrolled in the secondary level can be employed only during summer and/or Christmas vacations.

“Ang halagang makukuha ng ating mga kabataan mula sa SPES ay makakatulong sa pagtustos nila sa mga gastusin sa kanilang pagaaral (The amount our youth can earn from SPES can at least help them sustain their needs for their education),” Angara said.

“What is important is that they do not miss any time from school due to financial constraints. For those who were not able to enroll in the current school year, they can save the money they will receive from the SPES and use this for the next semester or school year,” he stressed.

Last year, the Department of Education (DepEd) said it expected the number of out-of-school youth (OSY) to reach four million due to the pandemic.

Angara said the data remains alarming considering the spike in the number of OSYs include students from private schools who opted against enrolling in the previous school year.

Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Angara noted that nine percent of 3.53 million of the estimated 29.1 Filipinos aged six to 24 years old were considered OSYs.

The PSA data indicated that the most common reasons among OSYs for not attending school were marriage or family matters, lack of personal interest, and high cost of education or financial concerns, as around 50 percent of them belong to families whose income falls within the bottom 30 percent of the population.