MANILA Mayor and Aksyon Demokratiko standard bearer Isko Moreno announced that the city government’s “Washable Face Mask-Making Project” is now being reactivated.

The project, which is being relaunched under the auspices of Moreno and Vice Mayor Honey Lacuna, is meant to create job opportunities and provide residents with free face masks.

Moreno directed Public Employment Service Office (PESO) chief Fernan Bermejo to look for 100 qualified sewers to undertake the project, which aims to mass produce an initial of 200,000 face masks like the first time it was launched last year while providing protection to the residents of Manila who cannot afford to buy face masks.

According to Bermejo, those interested may apply by registering with https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSfZSG2RcgheJW…/viewform, adding that the applicants should wait for a call from PESO-Manila for their interview and that the processing would be on a first-come, first-served basis.

Moreno said that to qualify, one has to be a resident of Manila who knows how to cut and saw and with two years experience.

The project was launched in June last year, with the intention of providing free face masks for the some 670,000 residents who have been issued quarantine passes. The said number represents the number of families in Manila.

While the fight against COVID-19 continues non-stop, Moreno said the city government will continue to create opportunities for residents to earn money. The payment will be production-based, meaning each worker will be paid per mask made.

Moreno said that once a certain worker has earned the average monthly wage of ordinary employes, his slot will be given to another in line and so on.

According to Moreno, his idea is patterned after a study which effectively stemmed the number of coronavirus cases in Czechoslovakia where the citizens manufactured face masks to make them available to everyone, thus lowering the infection rate there.

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Itchie G. Cabayan