Personnel of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) at the Central Office witness the ribbon cutting and blessing for the agency’s newly-renovated canteen on Wednesday (December 6) with Secretary Rex Gatchalian leading the simple ceremony.

The renovation of the canteen is the Department’s way of recognizing the value of the employees who use this every day as they take a break from their work.

In his first flag raising ceremony upon his assumption as DSWD secretary, Secretary Gatchalian committed to improve the canteen using his personal funds which was well-applauded by the employees, especially that no public funds will be used.

In his inauguration message, the DSWD Secretary noted that “happy employees lead to better results and better service delivery.”

Sec. Gatchalian then gave a directive to look for a new building in order to have two canteens that will serve the more than 2000 employees at the Central Office.

“With this, the Social Welfare Employees Multipurpose Cooperative (SWEMC) which manages the operations of the canteen would have multiple income stream to grow and can help more employee-members,” Secretary Gatchalian said.

Also attending the new canteen inauguration were Undersecretary Edward Justine Orden; Asst. Secretary Ulysses Aguilar and 4Ps- National Program Management Office Manager Director Gemma Gabuya, who is also the Chairperson of SWEMC, and Rolly Laganga, SWEMC Board of Director.