Pia Cayetano to market vendors, housewives: Use AI, technology

But she said that for one to utilize and maximize the features of these social media platforms, women should be upskilled through available training.

She added that it will also be beneficial that a Tesda program will be widely available to women who want to seek a future in business process outsourcing (BPO) companies or the call center industry.

“I would like to see, whether you are a market vendor or mother who has been working for a decade since you are raising your child… and you want to see if you have the prospect to work for a BPO or company,” she said.

For Maria Pino, chairman of CCUVA, having training for mothers and women vendors will open doors of opportunities for them, particularly in boosting their sales.

She said that during the pandemic, many of them opted to sell online the goods they are selling at Carbon Market to optimize sales since there were restrictions set up due to the pandemic.

“It will help us, since even those who are not educated or did not go to school, own and know how to use a cellphone. Slowly, they learned how to open the phone, text, call, and read… So with it, we can sell online,” she said.

Pino said that currently, there are around 5,000 members of CCUVA, of which approximately 70 percent or around 3,500 are women.

CCUVA was the association beneficiary of the Presyo, Trabaho, Kita/Kaayusan program of sibling senators Pia and Alan Cayetano, where they were given a total of P350,000 in 2014, which members can lend the money and use to set up a business. She said the money now grew over P1 million.

Meanwhile, during her visit, Cayetano also introduced the sports padel in a sports clinic in Barangay Pardo on Thursday afternoon.

She promoted the sport by bringing in a coach from the Padel Pilipinas Federation, the country’s authority in the field. She said that since there is no padel court in Cebu yet, they utilized a tennis court to introduce participants to the sport.

Padel is a racket sport that combines elements of tennis and squash. It is typically played in doubles on an enclosed court about a third of the size of a tennis court. The sport is growing in popularity worldwide, including in countries like Spain and Argentina.

Cayetano also visited Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, along with Lawyer Mae Elaine Bathan, undersecretary for legal and special concerns at the Department of Tourism, at the Cebu Provincial Capitol. (KJF)