The Arroyo administration's 10-point development agenda has created close to 10 million new jobs for poor and underprivileged Filipinos over the past four years, the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) announced recently.

Speaking before high-ranking delegates from various countries at the Poverty Reduction and Development Forum held recently in Beijing , China, NAPC Secretary Domingo F. Panganiban said President Arroyo's 10-point agenda had generated an estimated 9.7 million new jobs for the poor between 2004 and 2008 alone.

The NAPC chief said the new jobs were created by increasing microfinance services and loans to small and medium enterprises, developing new lands for agribusiness, building infrastructure to spur investments, and promoting the growth of key industries and special economic zones to boost investments nationwide.

"Microfinance services and loans to small and medium enterprises had generated more than 2 million new jobs for Filipino workers even as the development of some 800,000 hectares of land for agriculture had created another 1.5 million new jobs for poor rural folk," he said.

He said President Arroyo's 10-point agenda also helped to create nearly 3 million new jobs through housing projects; an estimated one million new jobs in tourism; and some 918,600 new jobs for Filipino laborers in the construction and maintenance of public works.

"In addition, nearly 600,000 Filipino workers found jobs in special economic zones; some 235,329 more underprivileged folk found work through government registered apprenticeship programs; some 62,736 more found jobs in mining projects; while another 306,750 workers found jobs through the growth of the Filipino communications and information technology industry" he said.

Panganiban said the figures do not make any reference to jobs that were lost or job contracts that were terminated during the four-year period, and that an employed person may have one or more jobs at any one time.

"While some of these new jobs were temporary in nature, they allowed poor and underprivileged Filipinos much needed opportunities to earn and put more cash into their pockets," he added.