FROM THE MARGINS
March is Women’s Month. Since 1988, the Philippines has dedicated March to celebrating women’s achievements and raising awareness about domestic violence, discrimination, and other issues facing Filipino women. March 8 is also International Women’s Day.
The Philippines holds one of the best gender equality ratings worldwide. We ranked as 1st in Asia (19th out of 146 countries worldwide) in the 2022 Global Gender Gap Report. This is good, but down two notches from our previous ranking so we need to do more. According to PSA, approximately 16.6 percent of Filipino women live below the poverty line. Women (like farmers, fishermen, children, and self-employed/unpaid family workers) have a higher poverty incidence compared to the general population.
Microfinance pioneers
In the mid-1980’s many NGOs were organized to address poverty in the country. While doing development work at the Philippine Business for Social progress (PBSP), I dreamt of starting my own NGO to provide assistance to landless coconut farmers. Inspired by my parents’ beneficence, I convinced fellow rural development practitioners to put up a development program for landless coconut workers in Laguna. This was how the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD) started.
We were not alone. Many NGOs at that time were searching for ways to help the poor, and microcredit (before it became microfinance) flourished, patterned after the Grameen Bank methodology. Three NGOs pioneered Grameen Bank Replication in the country: Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation (NWTF), CARD, and Ahon sa Hirap, Inc. (ASHI). Women leaders played key roles in these microfinance pioneering organizations.
NWTF was founded by Dr. Cecilia Del Castillo with two other ladies: Corazon Henares and Suzzette Gaston. Cecile became one of the flag-bearers of microcredit and was elected as president of PhilNet, an association of Grameen bank replicators in the country. She led the conversion of NWTF into a microfinance bank, keeping Project Dungganon as a Foundation. They moved their matured clients to the bank, while the Foundation continued to serve members all over the country. Sadly, Cecile passed away a few years ago. Cora took over the reins of NWTF Bank while Suzzette became the executive director of the Foundation. Both institutions are now serving half a million clients.
Three of my former PBSP colleagues had been there since the beginning of CARD: Dolores Torres, Lorenza Banez and Flordeliza Sarmiento. These three ladies played pivotal roles in transforming CARD NGO into becoming the first microfinance-oriented rural bank in the Philippines. Dorie headed CARD’s operations; Lorenze handled finance; while Flor was in charge of training. With their leadership, CARD grew into several purpose-driven institutions now known as CARD-MRI, whose vision is to eradicate poverty in the country. These ladies are retired now, but they have prepared the organization’s next generation of women leaders. CARD-MRI now serves 8.6 million clients and insures more than 27 million individuals nationwide.
ASHI was founded by the late UPLB Professor Generoso Octavio, but it was a lady, his successor, Mila Bunker, who led ASHI’s expansion. When Mila left ASHI, another capable lady, Mercy Abad, took the reins. ASHI continues to expand and is now serving 115,657 clients.
Women leaders
It is often said that microfinance has a woman’s face. This is true in the Philippines, not only because microfinance clients are often women, but because there are many women advocates of microfinance and financial inclusion. I am lucky to count many of them as friends and colleagues in the microfinance industry: Maros Apostol of CEVI, Alice Cordero of TSKI, Sister Adelia Oling of PALFSI, Didi Quimpo of USWAG, Jane Manucdoc of ASKI, and Maria Anna (Me-an) Ignacio of KASAGANA-KA, among others.
Other ladies in positions of influence helped the microfinance industry flourish. Tes Pilapil, Oikocredit regional director for Southeast Asia, provided grants and wholesale loans to Philippine MFIs. Iluminada Cabigas, former president/CEO of the Peoples’ Credit and Finance Corp. (PCFC) advocated for more financial support to MFIs during her time. PCFC later was absorbed by Land Bank, whose current president/CEO, Cecil Borromeo, is also supportive of microfinance. The industry is also thankful to the women stalwarts of the banking sector: Teresita Sy-Coson of BDO, Florencia Tarriela of PNB, Marie Josephine Ocampo of BPI Direct BanKo, Helen Yuchengco-Dee of RCBC, and others who support microfinance and financial inclusion.
I also had a chance to work in Vietnam in the early 90s with the Vietnam Women’s Union. VWU started its own version of Grameen replication thru a project known as Tau Yeu Mai (TYM). I worked with Mdme Do thi Tan and two other ladies, Mdme. Le thi Lan and Mdme Pham Hoai Giang. While they have retired, TYM became the microcredit model in Vietnam, becoming the first licensed MFI in the country. It now is serving more than 250,000 clients.
I salute these women leaders for promoting financial inclusion and championing microfinance as a powerful tool in poverty eradication.
Let’s celebrate women year-round, with these words from self-acclaimed ‘Global Educator Katipunera’ Maria Africa Beebe: “We need to emphasize our shared humanity while accommodating differences.”
(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.)