Top microenterprise borrowers named

The Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) recently named the top two awardees of its 2008 Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year (MOTY) awards, which covers the small business borrowers of the country’s rural banks.

MABS is a United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported effort jointly implemented with the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP), with oversight provided by the Office of the President through the Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCo).

MABS works with rural banks to assist them in developing their capability to profitably provide financial services to microentrepreneurs.

Estela Lagunzad of Tacloban City was declared the “Masikap” national awardee. A loan client of Rural Bank of Dulag in Leyte, this former Avon-Natasha-Tupperware peddler is a successful owner of a retail store, an eatery and of a nursing cap manufacturing business.

Lagunzad currently employs 20 workers in these businesses, besides managing the Rondayan Kids Band, whose three members are her own kids. She profits approximately P800,000 per year.

Meanwhile, Anunciacion Santillan of Bantayan Island was the “Maunlad” national awardee. Before she became a loan client of First Agro-Industrial Rural Bank (FAIR Bank) in Cebu, she was a struggling sidewalk vendor using a folding bed as her stall.

Being money-wise and hardworking, she now owns three retail stalls that accumulate monthly sales of more than P100,000. She currently employs nine workers and has recently put up a hog-raising business.

Microentrepreneurs qualify for the Masikap awards when they have business assets worth less than P300,000 and have successfully started businesses that are now reliable sources of income for the family.

For the Maunlad awards, their business assets should be between P300,000 and P1 million and have grown businesses that are generating employment for people apart from household or family members..

Other winners from MABS participating rural banks include Cerilo Delfin of Alicia, Isabela (Luzon Regional Winner – Masikap), a puto and kutsinta manufacturer and a client of the First Isabela Cooperative Bank (FICOBank); Julito Malinao of Bogo City, Cebu (Special Award – Masikap) who is also a client of FAIR Bank and who owns and manages the biggest and most popular beauty salon and spa in Bogo; and Elino Andres of Nasugbu, Batangas (Special Award – Masikap) who is a client of Bangko Kabayan. Andres is a diligent traveling salesman and an avid mobile phone banking client who uses the bank’s Text-A-Payment service to pay his loans via Globe’s GCash. He also trains and assists other clients in using mobile phone banking services.

The MOTY Awards is a joint undertaking of Citigroup, the Microfinance Council of the Philippines Inc. (MCPI), and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). The project aims to promote the development of microfinance and microenterprises in the Philippines by recognizing outstanding entrepreneurs who have substantially grown their businesses, improved the quality of their lives, and contributed to the financial growth of their communities.

BSP data showed that banks now have more than 802,000 active microenterprise borrowers and over 750,000 of these are clients of rural banks. As of June 2008, MABS participating banks have disbursed approximately two million loans to over half a million microenterprise borrowers. Almost all the funding for these microenterprise loans come from deposits mobilized from the same communities where the loans are made.