Training center for workers up soon at Hda. Luisita

HACIENDA LUISITA, Tarlac — A skills training center for the province’s workforce will soon open in this 6,000-hectare sugar estate owned by the family of former President Corazon Aquino.

According to the Presidential Commission for the Central Luzon Growth Corridor, the Tarlac Training Center "aims to produce a technically equipped and highly skilled workforce by providing them with basic skills, proper work values and attitudes and other desirable characteristics."

The facility, which began construction late last year, is located on a 1,000-square meter site inside the Luisita Business Park (LBP) here.

The project is a joint undertaking of the Jose and Demetria Cojuangco Foundation Inc. (JDCFI), which is owned by Mrs. Aquino’s family, the Hanns Seidei Foundation of Germany, the Madrid-based Cooperación al Desarrollo y Promoción de Actividades Asistenciales (Codespa) Fundacion and the European Commission.

The center will have equipment in machining, industrial control and automation, among others, the commission said.

The JDCFI was established in 1996 with the primary objective of providing education and work skills to less fortunate but deserving out-of-school youths in Tarlac.

The commission, which oversees Central Luzon’s investment and economic activities, said the center started out as a training unit of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac in 1994 "to address the technical competency development for potential employment" at the Luisita Industrial Park (LIP).

The LIP hosts a number of semiconductor, automotive parts and manufacturing companies, among them the Japanese-owned firms International Wiring Systems and its subsidiary, the International Electric Wires Phils., Sanyo Capacitor Phils. and Sanyo Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.