By Madelaine B. Miraflor
The collective savings of members of Home Development Mutual Fund, commonly known as Pag-IBIG Fund, breached the P53-billion mark in 2019, settling at a record high level of P53.83 billion.
On Friday, Eduardo del Rosario, Secretary of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) and the Chairperson of Pag-IBIG Fund Board of Trustees said that the Fund's 14.69 million active members collectively saved P50.38 billion last year, which is 25 percent or around P10 billion higher from members' savings in 2018.
This was largely due to the huge spike in the agency's Modified Pag-IBIG 2 (MP2) Savings collections, which posted growth of 169 percent to P12.01 billion from the P4.47 billion collected in 2018.
"The phenomenal increase in our savings collections is critical to Pag-IBIG Fund's growth because it is through the collective savings of our members that Pag-IBIG is able to extend more loans and benefits at affordable rates to our borrowers," del Rosario said.
In terms of cash loans, Pag-IBIG Fund released a total of P53.83 billion to its 2.59 million members, also the highest cash loans released by the agency in a year.
The Fund also released a total of P86.74 billion to finance the homes of its 95,276 members. Of these, P10.64 billion was released for socialized housing, benefiting 27,145 borrowers belonging to the minimum-wage and low-income sectors.
Financially, Pag-IBIG Fund also showed better than expected performance as its total assets amounted to P603.39 billion by end of 2019.
The agency also posted a net income of P34.37 billion, the highest in its history. In 2018, Pag-IBIG Fund recorded its highest ever income of P33.17 billion.