Saving, entrepreneurship program for Cebu schoolchildren launched

A program to promote the value of saving and entrepreneurship among school children in Metro Cebu was launched yesterday by a private bank Real Bank, the Department of Education, and a non-government organization Mary Lindbart International (MLB). 

Called “Bata, bata... Mag-impok at Magsinop”, the program is a nationwide campaign and, in Cebu, the initial target of its launching were the pupils of Mandaue City Central School.

Real Bank chairman Jose G. Araullo said the program has been meant to inculcate among children the values of saving and frugality at an early age. The economy will improve if children wake up to the idea of entrepreneurship instead of settling for employment in a company, he said.

The schoolchildren will be taught with saving their “baon” for the weekdays, then introduced to the methods of “selling” and “earning,” said Araullo.

Araullo said that most Chinese succeeded in their trade because they, while still children, were made to see the importance of being frugal, which is also a Filipino value.

Dr. Corazon Santiago, an MLB consultant, told the teachers to encourage also the children to save. “We as teachers should be able to give them the distinction of real needs from wants, things that one could live without,” she said.

Santiago, a former teacher herself, said that some teachers fell into financial mismanagement by adapting the habit “of applying for whatever loans available,” Santiago said.

Real Bank’s Comprehensive School Program, already in its fifth year, has been advocating thriftiness by using the triangular approach, which involved the parents, teachers, and children.

Real Bank has yet to establish a branch here in Cebu but Anna Lina Ochoa, the bank’s first vice president and head of business, said the thriftiness campaign is for the children and parents to save in banks or in any other institutions.

The program is already introduced in 90 schools in the National Capital Region, Regions 3,  4-A, and Davao. — Ferliza C. Contratista/RAE