The Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program (CLEEP) is the administration's nationwide effort intended to protect the country's most vulnerable sectors --- such as the poor, returning expatriates, workers in the export industry, and out-of-school youths, from threats and consequences of reduced or lost income as a consequence of the global economic crisis --- by providing emergency employment and funding and supervising livelihood projects.

It is aimed at achieving two crucial objectives:

a) To build the capacities of Filipino workers and afford them the skills they need to compete in tougher job markets; and
b) To create as many jobs as possible in the least possible amount of time for the poor through investments in public works and enterprise development.

President Arroyo has assigned each member of her Cabinet to act as steward to a specific region in order to ensure and oversee the implementation of identified CLEEP programs in that specific region.

Funding for the CLEEP has been increased to P10 billion pesos in 2009 and is being administered by the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) as the lead agency for the implementation of this program.

Jobs generation being the main thrust of the CLEEP, the Department of Labor and Employment will be the lead agency in the fulfillment of this endeavor. Nonetheless, other line departments and agencies have the jobs generation event in their agenda. The government has set aside a P1-billion package for the CLEEP that targets the creation of more than 220,000 jobs. These jobs created under the CLEEP will help improve the country’s infrastructure, push the growth of rural enterprise, improve public health care and food security, and stimulate private investments.

The government had already started the initial phases of implementation of a number of projects under CLEEP in various parts of the country.