FROM THE MARGINS

Happy Fathers’ Day! I send greetings to all the husbands and fathers of our microfinance clients, especially the Tatays who have joined our programs to take better care of their families. You are an inspiration to all of us! As the world honored fathers yesterday, I thought of Alfredo Villocino, a microfinance client from GMA, Cavite. He is a model husband and father. When the pandemic hit the country, his bakery business was heavily affected by the Covid scare and the travel restrictions. Poor sales forced Alfredo to close his bakery and look for other sources of income to support his family. He decided to do online selling, marketing and promoting the peanut butter that his family makes. He also sold ube halaya, buco pie, coco jam, and other food items he outsourced from neighboring towns. Alfredo also took part-time jobs as an online tutor, provider of internet service installations, and Lalamove rider.  He did everything he could for his family. Last year, Alfredo won as Digital Champion-Microentrepreneur Category in the 1st Digital Financial Inclusion Awards (DFIA) sponsored by the Citi Foundation. This is because of his success in adopting digital solutions to improve his business, especially after the challenges posed by the pandemic. Alfredo is one of the few male clients in microfinance, an industry that has always focused on women. This bias is grounded on both developmental and business perspectives: women have less power and less access to finance compared to men, and they are better borrowers in terms of repayment. Further, we found that financial resources given to women are almost always used to benefit the family (to provide food, educate children, fix the home, and others). Their enterprise projects usually also have a ripple effect on economic activities within the community. While it is true from my experience that women, as microfinance clients, perform better than men, I have become convinced over the years that many husbands and fathers also play key roles in our clients’ successful family lives and microenterprises. They are the Nanays’ partners and supporters, and even co-members of their wives’ microfinance organizations. Many men find microfinance membership difficult because of the traditional gender roles: men are supposed to work and be the main breadwinners, while the women are supposed to stay at home to care for the children. Even if men wanted to, they cannot attend the weekly Center meetings, which is focus of microfinance operations. The system is really suited to women, as they are the center of family life and community interaction. What is wonderful about microfinance is that it facilitates behavior change. Because financial services are provided alongside trainings in financial literacy, family values, health, livelihood and microenterprise development, among others, I have observed that even if the women are the first to join and start a livelihood project, their husbands eventually participate. Many microfinance clients run small businesses, like handicrafts or furniture making.  In these types of businesses, it is usually the men who provide labor, while it is the women who handle the business aspect of things, like sourcing supplies, hiring of workers, budgeting, marketing and distribution.  In food processing/selling, the women usually are the ones cooking and processing the food, while the men do the marketing and product distribution.  In agricultural communities, the wives are the ones planting vegetables and other crops with the help of the children.  The husbands usually work outside, helping only when they can, but during harvest time, they play very important roles in distributing the produce and bringing them to the market and other outlets. We have seen many cases of previously uninvolved husbands who, after seeing the economic potential and feeling the financial benefits of their wives’ enterprises, had been enticed and motivated to help in their wives’  businesses. There are also many examples of husbands who resigned from their previously low-paying jobs (usually in construction work and other industries) to devote their time and efforts in helping their wives expand their businesses. Their involvement would usually be gradual -- from just helping or putting in labor, over time and as the business expands, there will be a division of work, with the wife and the husband handling different aspects of their business operations. Then, they would get their children involved and before long, the enterprise becomes a family business. Generally, the wives act as the manager of the business. It may be because of social conditioning or traditional gender roles, but it appears that for microfinance clients, women are good at enterprise management, while the men are good at external relations.  Being their wives’ business partners usually result to husbands also sharing more household chores and taking care of their children. The whole family dynamics change, and there is an overall improvement in family relations: between husband and wife, and between them and their children. “A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.” -Unknown *(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.)*