On Nov. 5, I was invited by the National Capital Region offices of DepEd, CHED and TESDA to speak for the labor sector at the One NCR Education Summit. The organizers asked me two questions: as automation and artificial intelligence change jobs, which workers are most at risk, and what should government guarantee them?
At this summit, the three agencies sat down as one and set out to build seamless pathways from basic education to college, technical training and work. That is the most important step, and it has been taken. Kudos to Secretary Sonny Angara, Secretary Kiko Benitez and Chairperson Shirley Agrupis for turning convergence from a slogan into an agenda.
The data presented by DepEd Assistant Secretary Delfin Villafuerte showed where that agenda must aim. Most senior high school learners in Metro Manila still read at an emerging level. TESDA’s own mapping found the largest shortages of skilled workers in health care, ICT and tourism, with electricians, welders and caregivers among the most needed. Yet 82 percent of the region’s technical-vocational trainers teach only entry-level NC I and NC II courses. We must now steer the pathway, with laser-like focus, toward the jobs actually waiting.
Nationally, unemployment reached six percent in July, the highest in four years. The International Labor Organization estimates that more than a quarter of Filipino jobs are exposed to generative AI.
Early in my career, my mentor, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, taught me a lesson I carried through the 2008 global food crisis as secretary of agriculture, and through COVID and Super Typhoon Odette as governor of Bohol: in every crisis and downturn, we always have tools to use. What is critical is to act quickly and decisively, and to avoid analysis paralysis.
So I proposed four guarantees, all within the funds we already have. First, a free assessment of what a worker already knows, before any course, with every LGU’s Public Employment Service Office as the front door. Second, one Skills Passport that employers here and abroad can verify. Third, training only for confirmed demand, steering our people into the sectors that build the nation. Fourth, a door that always stays open, so the displaced agent and the returning OFW can come back to retrain.
One of those sectors deserves priority. I have long advocated training more electricians, energy auditors, renewable energy installers and engineers, and the case is simple: power sits at the base of every other sector. Affordable, reliable electricity makes farms, hospitals, factories, hotels and digital work more competitive. Every certified installer lowers the cost of many other jobs. The President has already asked Congress to pass the Sariling Kuryente Act. If, as we hope, it becomes law early next year and government financial institutions expand loans for solar systems in homes and businesses, demand for these skills will explode. We will miss that opportunity unless we sharpen our preparation and cooperation now. I therefore recommend that TESDA, CHED and DOLE make power-sector skills a priority track, from NC II electricians to licensed engineers, and that government lenders require certified installers for the solar systems they finance. These are jobs that build jobs.
One partner is still missing from the table: DOLE and its emergency employment program, TUPAD. The proposed 2027 budget sets aside P11 billion for TUPAD, and the Department of Budget and Management calls it a bridge toward a worker’s next, more sustainable source of income. I challenge DOLE to bring TUPAD into this convergence. Let a share of TUPAD days double as supervised training under TESDA-registered programs. Let every beneficiary be tracked in one list, with an outcome recorded, so support moves on instead of the same names returning. The Commission on Audit has flagged repeat beneficiaries year after year. Let us take TUPAD out of politics by putting it into data.
Finally, let us measure: one shared record of who was trained, certified and placed, so the results decide the 2028 budget.
The pathway has been built. We cannot control developments in AI, nor fuel prices driven by wars. But we can control how fast we respond, and whether our agencies cooperate. The challenge is not the funds or the programs, but coming together – now.
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Arthur Yap represents Murang Kuryente party-list and is vice chair of the House committee on energy.