BANGUED, Abra– Human resource development is given special attention by the new administration with more scholarship grants being awarded to people in the bureaucracy to level up in their performances. The Commission on Elections this time had opened the two-year master’s program of the Japanese Grant Aid for Human Resource Development Scholarship for the academic year 2017-2018 to their personnel nationwide. Following a series of rigid selection process for the JDS Fellowship program, lawyer Mae Richelle Belmes-Beronilla, the Provincial Election Supervisor of Abra, emerged as one of the only two qualifiers among the 50 applicants from all over the COMELEC offices nationwide. The selection of Beronilla together with lawyer Grace M. Faustino, the election officer of Bontoc, Mountain Province, to the said Japanese Scholarship Grant was unanimously approved in the COMELEC en banc meeting on April 4, 2017. Beronilla will take up Masters in International Relations major in Politics and International Studies at the International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan. The academic year in Japan starts in September. But the scholars will be given a formal send-off ceremony in Manila in July to give them time to prepare for their travel The JDS Fellowship was established by the Philippine Government with the assistance of the Government of Japan in 2002. The scholarship program aims to support human resource development through masters programs that would enhance learning areas that develop the skills and competencies of the people in government to ensure optimum performance of work and the achievement of their full potential. Thus, the program supports the promotion of the mandates of the government agencies. In Beronilla’s absence for two years, Comelec –Cordillera Assistant Director Vanessa M. Roncal will oversee the operation of Comelec -Abra. (JDP/MTBB – PIA CAR, Abra)