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Senate President Manny Villar urged government financial institutions (GFIs) to extend loans to wet market sellers engaged in micro-entrepreneurship.

Villar, who is making the rounds of wet markets across the country in his senatorial campaign, said the market vendors are falling prey to leaders who offer quick loans with excessively high interest rates.

"One of the biggest obstacles encountered by our market sellers is their dependence on fast loans from lenders charging excessive interest owning to their scarcity of capital," the reelectionist senator who is running as an independent guest candidate of the Genuine Opposition said.

The Senate President said the funds allocated by the government and GFIs must be accessed by market sellers to give them leverage in effectively managing their micro-enterprise.

GFI extending small loans are the Livelihood Corporation, Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corporation, Small Business Guarantee and Finance Corporation, the Technology and Livelihood Resource Corporation, and the Land Bank of the Philippines.

At the same time, Villar emphasized the need to review the lending system for market sellers to make it more responsive to prevailing conditions.

"The policy of lending to market sellers should be reviewed to make it responsive to the current market situation and to uplift the livelihood of micro-entrepreneurs representing the grassroots level," Villar said.

"We must ensure that our market sellers are able to avail of said loans as quick and as easy as possible and with the least requirements," he emphasized.

Villar encouraged banks to carry out their corporate social responsibility by offering small loans to market sellers at low interest rates. (PR)