Filling in the financing gap

A large chunk of business enterprises in the Philippines is comprised of micro, small and medium enterprises (mSMEs); one percent (1.0%) of the whole business organizations being large companies. The bulk of mSME sector, however, are micro-businesses.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have commercial banks as their source of funds but micro-enterprises are left to scuttle for business funds and end up being exploited by loan sharks.

The financial need of this sector, may be small per organization, is cumulatively large considering its number. It’s no wonder we see Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) sprouting around our communities, competing with loan sharks and bombays, who charge them with higher interest rate of up to 240.0% per annum. MFIs usually charge 24.0%-40.0% interest per annum or even less.

Mostly, microfinance loans are extended to fund working capital needs of micro-businesses and/or livelihood projects, up to P150 thousand amortized daily, weekly, or monthly for the period of one month to one year.

Microfinance program stimulates micro-entrepreneurs not only to settle with livelihood projects but to expand its business. As they graduate, their need change and can no longer be served by MFIs. However, they are not yet eligible for rural and commercial bank’s clients. Commercial bank financing products are more tailored-fit for SMEs. Hence, the financing gap.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Small Business Corporation (SBC) call them Graduating Micro-entrepreneurs; others coined them as Micro-no-More.

By definition of the law, micro-enterprises are those with asset size of less than P3.0 million; small enterprises have P3.0 million-P15.0 million in asset and businesses with P15.0million-P100.0 million assets are considered medium.

Graduating micro-entrepreneurs are those with asset size of at least P500 thousand up to the threshold of P3.0 million, whose funding need ranges from P100 thousand to half a million pesos, as defined by SBC. These loans can be amortized up to four (4) years.

SBC pioneered this program, a Graduating Micro Wholesale Program that bridges this financing gap and afforded bank and non-bank MFIs with a fund source to finance the needs of their micro-enterprise graduates. SEEDFINANCE Corporation, too, has wholesale lending programs of this kind.

MFIs, having no other source of funds, traditionally finance the needs of their graduates from their internal funds, which can only serve a few. As a result, these graduates turn back to loan sharks, sacrifice their profits and their growth stunted due to their unserved financial needs.

With this financing product in place, there is no doubt that the social pyramid will be converted into a social diamond, as was envisioned by the late President Corazon Aquino, the chairperson emeritus of PinoyME Foundation, an organization whose work is to bring microfinance programs to the poorest of the poor. A number of middle class families will emerge through the many employment opportunities the graduating micro-entrepreneurs will create.

Note:

I submitted this article to Sunstar - Cagayan de Oro for publication but was not printed. The editor, however, had offered the author to be a, as in the words of Editor Dan, “Maybe you can be a regular business column contributor? Or a business correspondent perhaps?”

Shinampoo ko lang ‘yan (A Pacman History-making Win)

Do you know the correct way to shampoo your hair?

Kon yakakita kaw nan ayaw nan min-agi na Sabado, November 14, 2009 sa Sin City (Dominggo, November 15, 2009, sa ato) na an taytol “Firepower”, amo yadto an sakto na pag-shampoo nan buhok para mawa an kuto. An away nila ni Miguel Cotto ug Manny Pacquiao sa welterweight division nan boksing an ako buot pasabot.

Laong pa ni Pacman sa iya Head & Shoulder commercial sa radyo na wara siya mahadlok sa Cotto, an kahadlukan niya an falling hair hastan kaspa (dandruff), iapil pa kuno an kuto. May iya sab taglaong sa iya interbyu sa una na an sikreto niya pagpilde kan kuto, shampoo. Wara gayud agaw siya masayop kay nan min-agi na away nila sa ring, wara siya mahadlok magpasumbag kan Cotto. Tinuod na tag-shampoo-han da gyud niya nan damo na kinumo an opaw na o ni Cotto.

Sin-o sab agaw an dili modakan kon ikaw an sunod-sunodan pagsumbag. Amo da nan uwan na tagbubo nan Bagyo Ondoy sa Metro Manila an tagapauwan na kinumo ni Pacman sa kalaban. Gawas pa nan yaon amo da sab nan hangin ni Bagyo Pepeng an kakusogon sa sumbag ni Pacman. Dili kaw kaha modagan nan yaon?! Sigurado mokabad kaw gayod. Matulini pa kaw siguro kaysa kabayo.

Sa kuman kibale sigurado na Hall of Famer na gayod si Pacman sa boksing. Hain kaw nan yaon syete ka championship na sinturon  an imo yakuha sa syete ka division sa boksing. Kasagaran unom da gyud yaon sa history. Kuman pa kibali ya-break an record, tapos Pinoy pa gayod an yakakuha. An record ni Pacman amo ini, champion sa Flyweight (112 lbs), Super Bantamweight (122 lbs), Featherweiht (126 lbs), Super Featherweight (130 lbs), Lightweight (135 lbs), Light Welterweight (140 lbs), hastan Welterweight (145 lbs).

Sin-o or kinun-o pa kaha ma-break ini na record? Tana Filipino da sab an makakuha nan ini. Basin mada da ini ni Nonito Donaire, the Filipino Flash.

Ang babaeng hinugot sa aking tadyang

There are times I thought I was shortchanged in my personal relationship with my fiancée. I am sometimes comfortable in saying that I already have done everything in my capacity my responsibilities to her. That I have made umpteen sacrifices in our relationship and she had done less. Sometimes or oftentimes we have this way of thinking as our pretexts to what really is going on. We tend to rationalize things. She deserves a sincere apology on this from me.

I already have attained realization on this subject. My realization came as a sudden surprise to me. I was blinded and underrated the sacrifices my fiancée had done for our relationship. There are no more questions on how much she loves me. I know for a fact, I feel it and I see it in my jaundice eyes the love and respect she has for me.

I know there are more beautiful and sexier ladies out there, but there could no other be more beautiful and sexier than her. Her face can grace many portraits that millions would adore. Always, I love to touch and see her face not adorn with make-up. I know her friendster and facebook account had been flooded with admirers who continually send her messages of endearment and are asking for her mobile number. I get jealous sometimes but I have accepted the fact that she really is an attractive lady.

Who knows her inner beauty? Her family and specially me. I had a first-hand experience on how she would take good care of special people in her life. I’m so fortunate I’m her special someone. I could never forget how she attended to me the time I got sick in Cebu. She’s the best nurse in the whole world. Literally she is not a nurse.

She fuels me to do good things everyday. I know she would not bite on this immediately but it’s true. I am really fortunate I met her at the right time. The time I was looking for someone who I would spend the remaining of my entire life. I am grateful that she proves to be a challenge because it persistently re-affirms my love and respect for her day by day. I never had felt a boring life with her. Reason, perhaps, that we are more than six years in relationship now.

I could no longer wait to marry her. This is not a buzz. This is for real. Hope to see you on our wedding day.

2010: Who to push to climb the presidential ladder?

Scenario: May 2010 and it’s a national election day, the historic election in the Philippine archipelago. Historic in a sense that it’s the first-held automated election conducted nationwide. And we all have a good reason to participate. Many people had even wanted the election done years back due to dismay to the performance of our then president.

You are now inside the election precinct and given a long, three pages, COMELEC security paper, a new election ballot, where you have to shade the names of the candidates you are going to vote from the national level down to the local level. Then you are confronted with the dilemma of searching on the fine prints the name of choice candidate since a lot of trapos are still enlisted in it.

Who then would you vote for the next president, a president whom we hope to change the corrupt image of our government and move our nation forward?

Are you thinking of the action movie superstar, convicted of plunder, thrown by people out of the palace in 2001 as your next president? Our Filipino action movie has long been gone. It’s no longer popular today. We are now in the age of telenobelas. And we don’t need action hero to put resolution to the problem in Mindanao much more to solve the problems of our macro economy. He still wants to run for the highest post and please don’t waste time to file petition to bar him from running. Let the Filipino people decide, he always said that. The electorates especially the young voters would not allow him again to play king in the palace. Let him run so he would wake up from his dream. I would never vote for Erap Ejercito-Estrada, our movie star. It’s enough to have him once as our president. He should enjoy his retirement and focus on helping the next president dispatch pro-poor programs instead.

Are you thinking of the American Boy (Amboy)? Many Filipinos particularly our lolas and the bebots love Amboy. It is perhaps because we were under American Occupation and had been exposed to American culture. There is nothing I am against Mang Amboy or Secretary Teodoro. Mang Amboy or Mang Gibo is my potential candidate. I saw one of his interviews in ANC and he is a good study. What makes me hesitant to vote for him as my president is his alliance with the administration. The administration bloc is dominated by traditional politicians and political dynasties.

Are you lured by the ST? (I mean, I mean) are you convinced of the sipag at tiyaga slogan? Honestly, I was and I even voted for him as senator. But as president? Let me rationalize in this. Mr. Camella Homes has a strong background as a businessman and politician. As a businessman, he, perhaps, is the unique example of modern haciendero owning a vast of land across the archipelago. Would he be covered by the CARP Law? It’s only my wild thought. As a politician, he became our House Speaker and Senate President, qualified enough to become our next country president. I got no doubt in his capability. The C-5 Road Scandal, with meat or no truth to it, gives us an idea to think again. His pronouncement that only those who have P2.0 Billion as campaign fund can run for the highest office disgusted me. He is becoming humbug. Plus with all his political ads, coined infomercials, it had me asking, how would he gained back this millions of pesos he spent on infomercials? He is not known as a philanthropist. Philanthropist works behind the limelight. And as businessman, you will always think of gain in your investment, if it’s unrealizable, at least you’ll break-even. So you finish then my would-be question. Wowowee’s Money Villar is my option for president but not likely my president.

We all love cheese! Are you cheesy enough to vote for Chiz Escudero as your next president? The palace perhaps needs more cheese so the many poverty-stricken Filipinos will have food in their table; that the Philippines can attain food security. He is full of idealism and I believe he would effect more changes in the government once elected president. But why the rush, he just turned 40? He will still be a president in six years. Chiz should give chance and support to other presidentiable who has imbibed his idealism, philosophies and principles. Let that person provide the momentum for change and have him (Escudero) sustained them in 2016.

How a about another general for the president? Secretary Ebdane of DPWH, a retired military general is not in my list of prospects. Newspaper ads may blazon that he is right for the presidency but he was not even strong enough to shun away from posting his picture in the many DPWH projects around the country. I roamed around Northern Mindanao and saw his face plastered on billboards of DPWH. If he has delicadesa and is aiming for presidency, he should not have done that. Even a few meters of road repair, it has billboards with his face glued in them. What a shame! I wonder before why all these billboards, then the answer came from the newspaper ads.

A hero would be a good president. And I am talking about a literal hero, Mr. Bayani Fernando. Residence of Metro Manila may hate him for executing and enforcing the laws around the metro but on the other side I see a quality we needed for a president. A president who has the will power to enforce the law even he would be met with many oppositions and lawsuits. He had transformed Marikina City into a bustling city and restore order in the sidewalks and major thoroughfares among others. He is likely my president.

The Ganito Kami sa Makati boy Binay is also likely my president but he has decided to run under Erap as vice president. He and Mr. Bayani is a good tandem. I could see swift progress in the country with the two action men, Binay and Bayani, running our country together.

With the Cory magic, you would likely bet for Noynoy Aquino. He is the most ideal person to be the next president. I don’t hear much negative comments about him except that he has no strong performance as a public servant to boost for. But why the need for performance in the past when what we need is a leader who can push us together to progress and honest government service in the future? He is the only person who will unlikely betray the good image and the legacy his parents had left to the Filipino people. He will likely not disappoint his parents and the nation. Plus the ever candid sister Kris, there is no doubt that those people with selfish intentions would be known to public. Kris had even disclosed the most intimate details of her life.

Who tops my list of presidentiables?

1. Noynoy Aquino
2. Bayani Fernando
3. Jejomar Binay (if he runs for president)
4. Chiz Escudero (but if he waits for 2016, he will be my no. 1 choice)
5. Gilbert Teodoro
6. Eddie Villanueva
7. Manny Villar
8. Joseph Ejercito-Estrada