by: Mike Baños

June 28, 2006

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – As a humble housekeeper, Mrs. Rosie Bilog never dreamed that she’d one day be rubbing shoulders and making small talk with the highest representative to her country of the most powerful nation in the world today.

Like many of her neighbors, Mrs. Bilog of Bgy. Lumbia processes cashew nuts in her home-based family business. Her parents started the family enterprise in 1988 and Rosie learned how to prepare the local delicacy while still a primary school pupil at Lumbia Elementary School.

Since the supply of raw cashew nuts is highly seasonal, Rosie and other cashew nut producers like her have to stock up on inventory during the harvest season from April to June to allow them to process the product year round and meet the increasing demand for the increasingly popular pasalubong and snack item.

Produced entirely in households like the Bilog’s, the cashew nuts are sold by wholesalers and retailers in Cagayan de Oro, Manila, Davao, Cebu and Dumaguete. Mrs. Bilog also has a retail outlet in the vicinity of the Cagayan de Oro airport.

Besides mobilizing financial resources from the country’s rural areas through loans and deposits, micro enterprises like the Bilog’s cashew processing cottage industry also provides livelihood and employment in the rural areas where opportunities are few and far between. In fact, the Bilog’s family business provides employment and livelihood for at least 12 other families who help them process the nuts, as well as numerous other wholesalers and retailers who buy them for resale.

Having already invested P500, 000 in their home-based enterprise, the Bilogs secured a P50,000 loan for additional working capital last May from the Cagayan de Oro branch of the GreenBank of Caraga, through the Micro-Enterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) program which enjoys technical assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

"What’s interesting about our micro enterprise lending program is it’s entirely self-financed with resources mobilized internally by our bank," stressed Joseph Omar Andaya, president and CEO of Green Bank, which has the most number of branches among the MABS’ participating banks with 32 covering Mindanao and the Visayas. "MABS just provides us with technical but not financial assistance."

What Rosie didn’t know at the time she applied for a loan was that she would be marking a milestone as GreenBank’s 30,000^th micro enterprise client, with no less than US Ambassador Kristie Kenney, last June 8.

Kenney joined bank dignitaries headed by GreenBank President and CEO Joseph Omar Andaya; John Owens, MABS Program Manager, and Tess Espenilla, USAID project officer in simple rites recognizing Bilog as their 30,000 th micro client and the major role played by MABS and its micro enterprise clients in the growth and expansion of GreenBank.

"I’m ambassador to the whole of the Philippines, and that means not only Manila but Mindanao and the Visayas as well," Kenney told the small crowd during the recognition rites held at GreenBank’s Cagayan de Oro Branch. She said her trips south of Manila were mainly to get a first hand view of the types of partnerships the US has in the Philippines, besides being one of its staunchest allies in the global war on terror.

"So I’m taking a look at how our partnerships in banking is working and education programs that provide youths with skills so to enable them to share the benefits of prosperity," she added.

Andaya briefed Kenney on how GreenBank started offering micro loans in 2000, when it received training and technical assistance in the design, development and management of its microfinance services through the Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines-MABS (RBAP-MABS).

The program is jointly implemented by RBAP and the Office of the President through the Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCo).   It assists rural banks to develop their capability to provide financial services (loans and deposits) to micro entrepreneurs who are usually not served by the domestic banking system.

Since it became a MABS participating bank five years ago, GreenBank has expanded its operations from six to 33 branches and released over 98,000 micro loans with a total portfolio of PhP1.4 billion (US$26.9 million). Forty one percent of the bank’s total clients are micro enterprises and 15 percent of its total loan portfolio is invested in microfinance, Andaya said.

During her brief talk, Kenney lauded GreenBank for its support of the MABS microfinance operations, which she said was instrumental in demonstrating that micro enterprises are ‘bankable’ clients and microfinance operations can be profitable to the bank.

Kenney also met with Bilog and other microfinance clients of GreenBank after her talk, encouraging them to continue with their small businesses and become key players in the socio-economic development of the Philippines rural areas.