INCUMBENT Angeles City Vice Mayor Bryan Nepomuceno, who is running for mayor in the May 2019 elections, vowed to work for more job opportunities for his constituents in the next three years.

“Part of our priority program is job and livelihood generation, and one of the best ways to do this is to make the city government’s Public Employment Services Office (Peso) an accredited recruitment arm of business process outsourcing (BPO) companies in the city and inside Clark Freeport Zone,” Nepomuceno, the official candidate for mayor of the Partido Abe Kampampangan, said.

The mayoral candidate said they will forge agreements with BPO companies.

Peso will assist the BPOs in screening and processing qualified applicants, Nepomuceno said.

"Peso will also provide additional training if necessary to give our residents better chances of being hired,” he added.

Nepomuceno said numerous BPO firms are expected to locate in Angeles and Clark as more office spaces are being prepared in both areas.

At present, more than 120,000 square meters of total office space are available in the Metro Clark area making it the second largest destination for office-based companies next to Metro Manila, according to Leechiu Property Consultants, one of the top professional real estate services company in Philippines.

Under his priority agenda dubbed “Abanteng Ekonomiya, Kaunlarang Dama ng Bawat Pamilya,” Nepomuceno said he plans to extend additional business incentives in order to encourage BPO and other labor-intensive companies to prioritize the hiring of Angeles residents.

“Based on a minimum number of workers, we will extend additional fiscal and non-fiscal incentives if 60 percent of a company’s employees come from Angeles,” Nepomuceno said.

Records reveal that as of February 2019, there are 122,973 workers inside Clark Freeport where 1,038 business locators currently operate.

Earlier, Nepomuceno also vowed to spend P1 billion for the City College of Angeles (CCA) for poor students to finish college and find good paying jobs.

“We will build new classrooms, offer more college courses, get more professors and educational equipment so that we can increase the number of students at the city college from 2,000 to 4,000 students,” Nepomuceno said.

Nepomuceno’s free college education program received strong support from leading reelectionist Senator Sonny Angara who endorsed Nepomuceno’s candidacy for mayor and promised to provide additional funds for the CCA.

“Alam ko na unang-unang sa kaniyang plataporma ang quality at saka accessible education, at magtutulungan kami ni Mayor Bryan na mapondohan ang lahat ng pangangailangan ng City College of Angeles (I know that his first priority in his platform is accessible education so we will work together to fund all the needs of the City College of Angeles),” Angara said.

Another leading senatorial candidate, Christopher “Bong” Go of PDP-Laban, also assured funding support for Nepomuceno’s pro-poor programs in the city.

Go, the former Special Assistant to President Rodrigo Duterte, ranked number 6 to number 12 among senatoriables in the latest Pulse Asia survey conducted from January 26 t0 3, 2019.