ACPC taps rural banks to collect P5.5B in loans released via DA credit program

The Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) is tapping rural banks to collect P5.5 billion in loans released nationwide through the agricultural credit programs of the Department of Agriculture (DA) since 1998.

The ACPC recently signed agreements with the Bataan Development Bank (BDB), Producers Rural Banking Corp. (PRBC) and the regional field unit III of the DA (DA) for the collection of P80 million agricultural loans released in Nueva Ecija and Bataan.

Under the agreement, both the PRBC and BDB will serve as collection agents of ACPC in collecting an estimated P64 million uncollected loans in Nueva Ecija and another P16 million in Bataan.

The loans are part of agri-credit receivables that have accumulated over the years under the various DA-implemented directed credit programs.

The ACPC estimated the total amount of outstanding loans nationwide from all the agricultural credit programs of the DA at around P5.5 billion of which P3 billion are past due loans and P2 billion are current loans.

ACPC executive director Jovita M. Corpuz said the collection of agri loan receivables is being carried out by ACPC pursuant to Republic Act (RA) 8435 or the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA).

Under Section 21 of the AFMA, all funds of government agri-credit programs, including receivables, are to be collected and consolidated into an umbrella financing program for the agriculture and fisheries sector called the Agro-Industry Modernization Credit and Financing Program (AMCFP).

To date, a total of six private institutions have been engaged by the ACPC as loan collection agents – including one each for Regions I and II, and another two for Region VI.

For Region I, ACPC is tapping the Rural Bank of Central Pangasinan Inc. to collect P40 million loans in nine municipalities. For Region II, the DA-Regional Office II Multi-Purpose Cooperative will collect P535 million loans released in five provinces, namely, Batanes, Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino.

In Region VI, Rural Bank of (Antique) Sibalom, Inc. will collect close to P11 million loans in seven municipalities of Antique, while Bangko Buena, Inc. Guimaras will collect around P5 million loans in the province of Guimaras.

The collection performance of the banks will be evaluated by ACPC after six months based on the collection plan of each institution. A collection agreement will be extended for the rest of the year if the agent is found to be performing well.