Globe Telecom-DSWD partnership helps rural folk

MANILA, Philippines - Opening a bank account is not high on Baguio City resident Victoria Taborda’s list of priorities. She spends her days weaving doormats and rags to help her husband make ends meet and feed their brood of four children.

Taborda is one of the beneficiaries of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), a social development strategy of the national government which provides conditional cash grants to extremely poor households to improve their health, nutrition and education.

Taborda, 39, said her income from weaving sometimes reaches up to P1,000 in a week. She never tried opening a bank account because of the strict guidelines set by financial institutions and her family always needed the extra cash required for the maintaining balance.

Taborda is now one of the CCT beneficiaries in Baguio City empowered with a savings account through a partnership by the DSWD with Globe Bridging Communities, the corporate social responsibility arm of Globe Telecom.

The telecom company recently inked a partnership agreement with DSWD to aid CCT beneficiaries with sustainability skills and empower them with their own bank accounts using the Globe Bridging Communities (GBC) SIM card which gives them access to a variety of financial services through BPI Globe BanKO, the country’s first mobile-based savings bank. 

Taborda also received free life insurance which comes with the savings account. She said her family will save some of the funds they received from the DSWD CCT program and work toward saving.

The CCT program’s cash disbursement is also powered by Globe through GCash Remit, allowing for easier and more efficient disbursement of cash grants to beneficiaries in remote areas of the country.

Through the i-Prosper program of Globe Bridging Communities, Globe will also assist the DSWD in providing computer-literacy training sessions and business linkages, and mobilizing Globe employee volunteers to help in the disaster operations of the National Relief Operations Center and Bayanihang Bayan.