FROM THE MARGINS
Last Aug. 29, we celebrated "Araw ng mga Bayani" to honor our heroes who gave up their lives for our country. The commemoration highlights two important points: first, that our independence is hard-won; and second, that throughout our history, there are many Filipinos who loved the nation enough to sacrifice their lives.
We need these reminders. Beyond the news of crises, corruption and conflict, there is hope in the selfless acts of ordinary Filipinos: the taxi driver who returned the money left by his passenger; the 30-year-old father who enrolled in Grade 1 to accompany his child to school; the teacher who used her own funds to prepare their classroom for face-to-face classes; the senior citizens who have gone looking for work to help their families amid the pandemic.
We need to look beyond the dismal headlines and social media vitriol to remember who we are as a nation. We are a kind and loving people. From each other, we can find strength and hope.
Poverty warriors
Just think of the many unsung heroes of modern times — the OFWs, the health workers, the peacekeepers, the social development workers, and others who tirelessly work to help their fellow Filipinos. Through the years, I have witnessed the selfless acts of many silent heroes: microfinance workers, our soldiers in the war against poverty. This is my humble accolade to their sacrifices.
Microfinance workers serve the poor, the microentrepreneurs, the rural workers, IPs, and other marginalized sectors, especially women. They operate in far-flung communities not served by banks and other financial institutions. They cater to the poor and the excluded, often going the extra mile to serve. When typhoons, earthquakes, floods and disasters happen, they are always among the first responders in affected communities.
I remember when Taal erupted, microfinance workers in Batangas, Cavite and Laguna were among the first to visit affected communities to provide food, clothes, medicines and hygiene kits. They spearheaded donation drives and worked with government and other agencies to assist those in evacuation centers. They even mobilized clients to help in disaster response — from reporting community developments to facilitating the distribution of information and relief goods.
When Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) wreaked havoc, microfinance workers were among the first to come to the rescue. They were also affected, but they worked hard, fast-tracking the payment of microinsurance claims within one to five days so that clients can rebuild their homes. Their contributions in the aftermath of Haiyan were documented by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership in its study of mutual microinsurance and the SDGs. Microfinance workers helped in the relief and reconstruction efforts, facilitating clients’ recovery by providing much-needed social and financial services.
From them, we learned that communities help each other during calamities and can be effective partners in disaster mitigation efforts. Their services increase the resilience of low-income communities, reducing their dependence on government during calamities.
Paying it forward
Microfinance workers help break the cycle of inter-generational poverty. Because many of them come from poor families, they have a natural empathy for their clients.
Many MFIs, NGOs, cooperatives and other grassroots or community-based financial institutions employ their clients’ sons and daughters. They usually apply because they were inspired by how their nanays turned their lives around with the help of their microfinance organizations. As students, many had been recipients of scholarship or educational loans from the MFIs and wanted to help others like them.
Unsung heroes
I have seen microfinance workers walking for long hours to serve hard-to-reach areas, or brave perilous waters to reach island barangays. I saw them motivating the nanays to start or grow their enterprises by providing not just financial services but also training and technical assistance. I have watched them struggle to instill credit discipline and deal with recalcitrant clients. They told me how they were chased by dogs, or verbally abused — even threatened — by willful defaulters. I watched in awe as they persevered with the same clients, eventually winning them over in maintaining the high repayment rate of their centers.
Microfinance workers endure these difficulties because they want to help eradicate poverty. Focused on helping the poor, they take these challenges in stride, treating them as "just part of the job."
Many workers are field-based, locally-hired but deployed where needed. Working in far communities, they can seldom go home. They sacrifice with their families (some miss seeing loved ones for months or even years), proud of what they are doing to help other poor families. This was especially true at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sadly, a number of our microfinance warriors died in the line of duty.
Last week, the SWS reported that around 2.9 million Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger in the second quarter of 2022. This underscores the role of microfinance workers and others in the frontline of the fight against poverty. Heroes, all of them, sacrificing life and limb, and going beyond the call of duty to serve their fellowmen.
To all microfinance and social development workers, our gratitude. May your good deeds be returned a thousand-fold, and may we all learn to emulate your noble sacrifices.
(Dr. Jaime Aristotle B. Alip is a poverty eradication advocate. He is the founder of the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development Mutually-Reinforcing Institutions (CARD MRI), a group of 23 organizations that provide social development services to eight million economically-disadvantaged Filipinos and insure more than 27 million nationwide.)