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THE National Anti-Poverty Commission announced over the weekend that
the government extended loans worth P126 billion to some 80,779
shopkeepers, grocers, food processors and other small and
medium-scale business owners between 2004 and March 2008.
Anti-poverty Secretary Domingo Panganiban said
the government granted the loans through the Small and Medium
Enterprises Unified Lending Opportunities for National Growth or
Sulong Program, which is led by the state-run Small Business Corp.
“The government had afforded loans amounting
to nearly P120 billion to 58,694 small and medium-scale Filipino
entrepreneurs between 2004 and 2007 under the Sulong Program
alone,” Panganiban said.
The government released an additional P6.2
billion in loans to some 22,085 Filipino entrepreneurs through the
program during the first quarter of 2008, creating another 103,120
new jobs nationwide.
The program is part of President Gloria
Arroyo’s continuing commitment to create six million new jobs by
2010, Panganiban added.
Panganiban said that for the past four years,
the program has allowed small and medium-scale Filipino
entrepreneurs to provide employment for nearly two million poor folk
throughout the nation.
Panganiban unveiled the accomplishment during a
briefing organized by the Committee on Oversight of the House of
Representatives to assess the progress of the new jobs component of
the Arroyo administration’s 10-point agenda.
A report submitted by Small Business Corporation
Chairman and Chief Executive Virgilio Angelo to the anti-poverty
agency showed that the Sulong loans were granted to small and
medium-sized firms through the said corporation, the Development
Bank of the Philippines, the Land Bank of the Philippines, the
Quedan Rural Credit and Finance Corp., the Philippine Export Import
Credit Agency, the National Livelihood Support Fund and the Social
Security System.
Panganiban further said the government plans to
extend some P29.8 billion in loans to small and medium-scale firms
under the same program this year, to boost Filipino enterprise
development and create more job opportunities for the poor.
-- Ira Karen Apanay
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