MANILA, 5 January 2003 — Returning Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) can now avail of a P100 million micro-credit finance facility for their livelihood and entrepreneurial ventures.
Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas said this is possible through the Workers Microfinance Program (WMP) created in a memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed with the People’s Credit and Finance Corporation (PCFC).
“We have further widened the access of the Filipino working man to much-needed financial resources for productive micro-entrepreneurship activities,” Sto. Tomas said when she signed the MOA with PCFC President and chief executive officer Iluminada Cabigas.
“This is President Gloria Arroyo’s New Year gift to the Filipino worker,” Sto. Tomas said. “This is the Arroyo administration’s thrust to alleviate poverty through micro-entrepreneurial activity.”
Aside from being available to returning OFWs, the financing program is also open to the displaced laborers, informal sector entrepreneurs, and low-salaried workers from the public and private sectors.
The WMP, also known as the Kabuhayang Lingkod Alalay Para sa Manggagawa or KALINGA sa Manggagawa, was designed to boost the productivity and incomes of formal, informal and public sector workers.
It is aimed to help fund livelihood projects for workers and their organizations.
The program was an offshoot of an earlier Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Social Security System (SSS), the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the Employees Compensation Commission (ECC) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
The MOU called for a partnership between these parties to create income and employment opportunities for workers and workers organizations through the development of worker enterprises among other things.
The SSS, GSIS, ECC and the DBM allocated P25 million each for the program so that a total of P100 million financing is now available to these workers.
The PCFC will implement the WMP or Kalinga sa Manggagawa through micro-finance institutions (MFIs).
As a wholesale lending institution, it will lend to accredited rural banks, cooperative banks, thrift banks, commercial banks, non-stock savings and loan associations, non-government organizations (NGOs), credit unions, cooperatives and people’s organizations (POs).
These MFIs will in turn re-lend to displaced workers in the formal, informal and public sectors, workers engaged in micro-enterprises, and workers with no existing micro-enterprise but are willing to engage in such endeavor provided they participate in appropriate livelihood entrepreneurial trainings.
