OLONGAPO CITY — The Department of Trade and Industry–Zambales extended livelihood assistance to micro, small and medium enterprises adversely affected by the coronavirus disease pandemic.
This, in line with the DTI’s Pangkabuhayan sa Pagbangon at Ginhawa, a livelihood seeding and entrepreneurship development program that aims to help micro enterprises affected by calamities, including health disasters, such as the pandemic, to restart their businesses.
DTI–Zambales, through its business development division, awarded on Thursday livelihood package to Merly’s Beaded Bags in Barangay Inhobol, Masinloc that could help boost its business.
Marilou Arcega, chief of the DTI-Zambales BDB, said the livelihood package will give the micro-enterprises some relief especially in this time of pandemic.
She said that last Nov. 27 the DTI also provided livelihood kits to Marilyn’s Kakanin and Reymel’s Ice Cream Manufacturing at the Negosyo Center in San Marcelino town.
Other beneficiaries of the program were members of the Aeta tribe in Palauig town who received livelihood kits for bamboo furniture and souvenir-making and those micro-enterprises engaged in making pastillas.
DTI Region 3 assistant director Leonila Baluyut said some 373 micro-entrepreneurs in the region have benefited from the program as of October 2020.
Baluyut said the micro-entrepreneurs are the most affected during the pandemic where some of them closed or reduced their workforce.
