TOYM 2006: A Humbling Recognition By Miro Quimbo
Also posted on Good News Pilipinas - Inspirational Views
(TOYM Acceptance Speech of Atty. Romero Quimbo on behalf of fellow awardees at the Rizal Hall, Malacañang Palace, December 6, 2006)
It is an honor to accept this recognition as one of the outstanding young men for this year. It is an even greater honor to speak here on behalf of my fellow awardees.
For the twelve of us, conferment of these awards: (a) represents a humbling recognition of the hard work we have done and the contributions we have made in our different fields of endeavor; and (b) the hundreds, if not thousands, of hours we have devoted to look for the solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems, to overcome obstacles often perceived as insurmountable.
Yet more importantly, these awards serve as a reward for the countless sacrifices our parents and our spouses have had to make if only to allow us to pursue our missions in life. While it may be our names that are etched in these Abueva sculpture-trophies, they truly belong to our beloved parents whose unbridled self-sacrifice we unfortunately learn to appreciate seldomly: in our youth, we appreciate them only when we ask for money and in our mature years, we start appreciating them again when they are at the throes of death. Kaya sasamantalahin na po naming itong okasyon para magpasalamat sa inyo. Maraming Salamat po sa inyo aming mga magulang lalu na po sa aking mga magulang na si Romy at Lydia. We promise to take you to a hearty lunch today after this ceremony. Just please don’t forget to bring your credit cards.
This award also belongs to our beautiful spouses, who are our number one cheerleaders and archest critics at the same time. Their constant encouragement and positive reinforcement makes us believe that we can do the impossible. To our spouses Theresa, Kai, Maria Angelica, Marissa Rowena, Kay, Melannie, Anivel, and Uriel and to my very most beloved Stella, we thank you for making us ignore our limitations and helping us overcome our weaknesses. We feel like superheroes when we are in your company.
While the TOYM is truly significant for all of us awardees today, let me stress that for most us, the TOYM was the farthest thing in our minds while we pursued our respective careers and causes. This award is not an end to itself rather it is the natural result of an untiring and unrelenting work ethic, doing things we passionately love to do. The lifestory of each awardee represents a constant commitment to serve the public at large and to do it with unquestionable zeal and passion for one single objective: to achieve excellent results. Such has been the character of my co-awardees:
1. Receiving the TOYM was certainly the farthest thing from Dr. Windell Rivera’s mind when he would continuously go to depressed areas and mental institutions to collect fluids and saliva samples in his quest to develop a reliable scientific tool to accurately diagnose harmful ameobiasis;
2. Neither was awardee Dr. Raffy Consunji motivated by rewards when, fresh from Johns Hopkins, he founded a community-based, non-government organization in pursuit of his obsession to keep children safe from accidental yet preventable injuries;
3. When sculptor Mike Cacnio started developing a unique style in his field, his motivation was purely to use his beautiful and much sought after sculptures as a vehicle to show his love for God, our country and family.
4. Mountaineer Romy Garduce braved all adversity and even practically exhausted his own finances if only to put the Philippine flag on the highest peak of the world in trying to bring support to his environmental causes.
5. Bro. Bo Sanchez on the other hand continues to provide the soothing balm of his teachings to the weary souls in our society purely for the purpose of carrying out God’s work;
While rewards such as the TOYM have not been foremost in our minds, its conferment today is significant for it validates the many difficult and often unpopular choices as well as sacrifices many of us had to take in our obstinate pursuit of our beliefs.
6. Braving almost three years of separation from family, Leo Oracion survived the most difficult conditions nature offered and indelibly etched his name as a true pioneer as the first Filipino to have climbed the highest mountain in the world;
7. Awardee Vivienne Tan, in her conviction that the country needs an entrepreneur revolution to truly develop, refused to take the expected course of putting up her own business like her predecessors, and instead devoted her time to help others become entrepreneurs by putting up the first true entrepreneurial college in the Philippines.
8. On the other hand, awardee Rico Hizon, wanting to do what no other Filipino broadcast personality has done, accepted the grim reality of being away from his beloved country in order to become another pioneer in his field. He stands today as the only Filipino to have become a news anchor of the world’s most prestigious news organizations, CNBC and BBC.
9. It was certainly a leap of faith too when Dr. Yella Castillo chose to turn her back on a lucrative Pediatrics practice in the US and instead co-found a unit at the PGH that would become a refuge for thousands of abused children.
Aside from being living testimonies of sacrifice and hard-work, it is our fervent wish that the story of this year’s TOYM awardees may serve us a humble reminder to pessimistic Filipinos that there is so much to hope for in our country.
10. Take the case of awardee Benedict Hernandez. He has stood at the forefront in the development of our sunshine industry- the BPO/call center. From a non-existent industry six years ago, it passionately believes that it will become a $10B per annum industry by 2010 employing 500,000 Filipinos.
11. Or the triumph over financial adversity by awardee Sammy Soliven who spent most of his childhood in the mountains with his Kaingero parents scavenging for Rattan in the forests of Nueva Vizcaya to be able to send himself to school. He is today a multi-awarded teacher and serves as the principal of one of the biggest schools in their town.
12. Like with the rest of the awardees, it has been my obsession to restrore our people’s hope on our country and its trust in our government. Under the guidance of the President, we have time and again striven to succeed at the Pag-IBIG Fund if only to show to our people that this government can work and that when run properly it in fact can be at par with or even be better than the private sector. We are motivated by our desire to show that despite the unrelenting attacks government is getting, people should never give up on it. We should never give up on it.
In conclusion, on behalf of the awardees, allow us to express our deepest appreciation to the Philippine Jaycees, Inc. specially to the JCI National President ISMAEL P. PENADO, the Chairman of the Board of Judges Mr. Rey David, and the entire board of judges, 2006 TOYM Chairman Mr. Fulbert Woo, TOYM Foundation President Mr. Butch Jimenez and the rest of the TOYM search committee. We salute your ability to have carried out an awards program that has remained untainted and significant since 1959. We laud the JCI’s advocacy to promote the positive in our society and hope that this can be a start in removing the blanket of negativism covering our land.
The 2006 awardees humbly accept this TOYM not simply as reward but rather as a challenge to commit ourselves to do even better than what we have done and to surpass even the highest standards set by those who came before us.
Thank you very much and good morning.
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SHDA Business Meeting
I would like to thank our partners from the premier organization of subdivision and housing developers in the country for inviting us to this business meeting. As always, we welcome any invitation from SHDA to discuss our programs. I know you would like to hear more from us regarding the newest developments in our housing loan program. And similarly, we would also like to hear your views and concerns.
Early in 2006 we issued circular 213, or the revised guidelines of the Pag-IBIG housing loan program, the highlight of which was the revised interest rate structure with reduced interest rates. Later that same year, we received orders from our chairman, vice president Noli de Castro, to look into the viability of further lowering the interest rates and extending the loan repayment period to 30 years.
This is meant to lower the housing loan amortizations, particularly in our low cost housing packages, to make the loans more affordable to low income earners. This is the segment of the market which is currently not being served by private banks, and the vice president is firm that government intervention in the formal sector be focused in this segment, without compromising the financial position of the fund, of course.
The result of this is circular 219, or the guidelines to the “Pag-IBIG Pabahay, Abot Kamay” program, which was approved by our board of trustees last November. Let me present now some of the more important changes introduced in the new guidelines.
Under the new guidelines, we have lowered the required contribution rates vis-à-vis the loan entitlement. For instance, under the old circular, the loan entitlement for a Php200 monthly contribution ranges from over Php125,000 to Php250,000. Under circular 219, a member may now borrow up to Php500,000. For the maximum loan of Php2 million, the required monthly contribution is now only Php950, down from Php1,600.
We have also adjusted the loan to collateral ratio to 95% for loans over Php750,000 to Php1 million under a buyback guaranty, and 85% for those without buyback guaranty and for retail accounts, up from the previous 90% and 80%, respectively. We also increased to 75% the loan to collateral ratio of our highest loan package for loans without buyback guaranty. This is to bring it up to par with private banks.
Of course, the highlights of the new guidelines are the new interest rates. I’m sure most of you still remember when Pag-IBIG could only lend housing loans of up to Php500,000 with interest rate of 17%. We are certainly a long way from that now.
We now have only for loan packages, with their corresponding rates, instead of six under the circular 213. Loans up to Php300,000 now have an interest rate of 6% per annum, down from 9%.
For loans over Php300,000 to Php500,000, the interest rate has been reduced to 7% per annum from the old rate of 10%.
For the Php500,000 to Php1 million package, the interest rate is now 10.5%, and for the p1 million to Php2 million package, 11.5%.
We no longer have separate rates for payments made after the due date. Instead, a penalty of 1/20 of 1% for every day of delay shall be charged for payment made after the due date.
These interest rate reductions translate to, of course, lower monthly amortizations. For a loan of Php300,000 with a 30year term, for instance, the monthly amortization is only Php1798.65, compared to p2,413.87 under the old rates. The required net disposable income for this loan package is only Php4,496.63.
For loans up to Php300,000, Pag-IBIG may reprice the outstanding balance of the loans once every five years, provided that it shall not exceed the original rate.
For loans over Php300,000 on the other hand, Pag-IBIG shall now reprice the outstanding balance once every five years based on prevailing market rates, with but only up to 9%, 12.5% and 13.5% for the three highest loan packages, respectively.
We have also revised the loan terms. The maximum loan term is now 30 years for all loan packages. The loan term shall not exceed the difference between the present age and age 70, instead of 65, of the principal borrower.
These are some of the most important points of the new guidelines.
We ended 2006 with Php16.09 billion in end user housing loans released to 33,038 borrowers. This year, we expect to attract even more borrowers with our guidelines. In fact i am happy to report that we are now seeing a warm response from our members to these guidelines.
For one thing the number of requests for membership status verifications slips, or MSVS, which is one of the requirements for a housing loan application, has increased five times. We are also now seeing four times more members who are attending our loan counseling seminars.
Many developers are also gearing up for more buyers in the Php500,000 market. In fact we have one in Cagayan de Oro with a 105hectare-socialized housing project.
Aside from the major change in our enduser housing loan guidelines, i would also like to announce some new changes we have introduced or are proposing.
First, we have set an 8.5 % floor rate for our institutional loans. This is in response to the downward trend in treasury rates, which we use as the basis for interest rates in our institutional loan programs.
For our housing receivables program, we have already liberalized our policies. We have raised the financing amount to a maximum of Php5 million per receivable account, with a maximum term of 10 years.
We also have our latest institutional loan program, the house construction financing line, which aims to further increase the inventory of new housing units.
This is for developers who have existing developed subdivisions and who wish to avail of an institutional loan to built housing units in these subdivisions. Since you can no longer avail of a developmental loan in this case, we are offering this new program that gives a one year revolving line of up to Php20 million. The good thing about this is that we can replenish a developer’s financing line within the year based on the delivery of loan takeouts.
Aside from these, we are about to submit for the board’s proposal another new program called Pag-IBIG Township. This is bigger than the Pag-IBIG City program, with minimum project size of 100 hectares and 4,000 Housing units.
Of course, as you know, we have just had another successful issue of our housing bonds, which further assures continuous funding for our housing loan program. And i would like to thank SHDA for investing in the kabayan housing bonds to the tune of Php30 million.
For this year we are allocating Php25 billion for our shelter financing programs. And i hope our friends from SHDA will do their share in utilizing this allocation.
Ladies and gentlemen, 2006 proved to be a very good year for the fund. We hope to do even better, especially in fulfilling our primary mandate of delivering affordable shelter to our members. With the strong support and help of our partners from the private developers sector, especially the members of SHDA, this is what we hope to accomplish.
Thank you very much.
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Investor’s Forum
Good morning.
We are here today to present to you the Pag-IBIG Housing Bonds 2007 issue. As you know the Pag-BIG Fund Board of Trustees approved on July 3 last year the P2 Billion Pag-IBIG Housing Bonds, to be issued this year. This will be our fourth Pag-IBIG Housing bonds issue, following our successful bond flotations on 2000, 2001 and 2005.
This year’s bond flotation, which will also be called the “Kaunlaran ng Bayan” or “KaBayan” Bonds, is intended to raise additional funds for the Pag-IBIG Fund’s housing program.
The Housing Bonds shall be issued at par, with a term of up to five years and one day from issue date. For this issue, the coupon rate will be a fixed interest rate based on the prevailing market rate at the time of issuance. This will be tax exempt. The bonds will be secured by an HGC guaranty up to the amount of Principal and Interest.
This year we are opening the bonds to retail investors, with a minimum participation of P10,000. Of course, we will still have the raffle draws, where eligible bondholders may win a house and lot worth up to P1 million. We will give away up to a maximum of 10 house and lot packages.
The details of the Housing Bonds will be presented in full later on. What I would like to present to you is an overview of the Pag-IBIG Fund itself, to give you a better idea of what you will, hopefully, be investing in.
The Pag-IBIG Fund is now on its 26 th year of service as an institution built on the twin mandates of generating savings for its members, and mobilizing funds for housing purposes.
The Fund came into existence as a corporation on December 1980 through P.D. 1752, or the Home Development Mutual Fund Law. The Fund was established primarily to perform two equally important mandates, those of generating savings through membership in an integrated nationwide savings system? and mobilizing the provident funds of its members for housing purposes. Following the change in leadership as a result of the first People Power Revolution, President Corazon Aquino issued E.O. 90 on January 1987, temporarily placing Pag-IBIG contributions on a voluntary basis. It resumed its mandatory coverage for all private and government employees on June 1994 with the passage of R.A. 7742. The same law also provided that at least 70 percent of Pag-IBIG’s investible funds be devoted to home financing and related pursuits.
The powers and functions of the Fund are exercised by its Board of Trustees, headed by the Chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) as Chair, the secretary of the Department of Finance as ViceChair.
As of December 2006 the Pag-IBIG Fund has a total of 6.48 million members. Of this, 70 percent or about 4.56 million are private employees? 25 percent or about 1.63 million are government employees? while the rest are Overseas Filipino Workers, self employed individuals or other working groups and cooperatives or nonworking spouses. We address the varying needs of our members through our network of offices totaling nine in the NCR, 25 in the provinces and nine other extension offices, all strategically located to ensure that our services reach our members.
The Pag-IBIG Fund is part of the housing sector. It is one of the key finance agencies, along with the SSS and the GSIS. At the same time, it is one of the key shelter agencies along with the NHMFC, the NHA, the HLURB and the HGC.
The sector’s support agencies in the government include the NEDA, the DBM, the DOF, the PMS, the MMDA, the DPWH and the DBP. On the private sector side, we have the developers, bankers, contractors, professionals and the low-income beneficiaries.
Among the government financial institutions (GFIs), the PagI-BIG Fund has the biggest contribution to housing finance. As of December 2005, our housing related assets totaled to P101.8 billion, or 36.68 percent of the total financing released by all the GFIs.
Since its inception up to December 2006, Pag-IBIG has financed a total of 721,009 housing units.
The Pag-IBIG Fund is a key player in the National Shelter Program, which aims to provide adequate and decent shelter to Filipinos through marketing, production, finance and regulation.
The Fund’s role is to provide housing finance. Its shelter program is divided into two: the enduser home financing and institutional loans.
Under our enduser home financing, qualified members may borrow up to P2 million, to be repaid at a maximum term of 30 years. We adopted the lowest interest rate in the market. We likewise reduced the equity requirements of borrowers, and even eliminated them altogether in the lower housing loan packages. The result is a friendlier home financing scheme that benefits Fund members belonging to the low to middle economic levels.
Pag-IBIG Fund’s shelter financing support is not only for endusers. We also provide funding support to private developers through our institutional loan programs.
Our institutional loan programs include:
Developmental Loan Program, which aims to create additional housing inventories by providing financing to developers and proponents of housing projects.
The Group Land Acquisition and Development Program (GLAD), which provides financial assistance to organized groups of formally employed Pag-IBIG members for the acquisition and development of land as housing sites.
Pag-IBIG City, which provides for the construction of housing projects to be called Pag-IBIG Cities, is available
to our members at affordable prices.
The Credit Facility for Developers provides a liquidity mechanism to allow developers to continue constructing their projects pending the takeout of complete housing loan applications.
And of course, there is our program promoting the development of Medium/High Rise Buildings or MHRB. In Metro Manila where the scarcity of land makes it impossible to put up new subdivision projects, our MHRB Program allows the vertical development of projects, thus, giving the working class a chance to experience affordable condominium living in areas near their work place.
Our shelter financing program has been growing significantly in recent years, both in terms of loan value and the number of units.
In 2006, we approved a total of P16.1 billion in enduser housing loans and 2.3 billion in institutional loans, financing an aggregate of 43,222 housing units.
Pag-IBIG generates its funds from four sources: member’s contributions, short-term loan amortizations, housing loan amortizations and the income from its investments.
These funds are used for our members’ provident benefits—which include short-term loans, provident claims and death benefits and for our housing finance programs for endusers and developers.
For 2006, we accumulated a total of P58.31 billion of funds from our various sources. Our fund usage amounted to P47.35 billion, which breaks down to P17.81 billion for provident benefits and P29.54 billion for housing finance.
The Pag-IBIG Fund’s asset base has been growing consistently in the last five years. As of December 2006, we have already built up our total assets to P191.55 billion.
We have consistently shown strong income growth since 2000. In 2006, our net income reached a record high P7.7 billion, surpassing the record we have set the previous year at P7.4 billion.
The vigorous performance of the Fund in the past years has benefited members nationwide. Under the law, the Fund is required to set aside an amount equivalent to 70 percent of its annual net income and declare this as dividends. These are later credited proportionately to the members’ total savings. For 2005, we declared P5.4 billion in dividends to our members, which allowed an individual dividend rate of 4.73 percent. Meanwhile, we are looking at declaring P6.2 billion in dividends for 2006, subject to the approval of our board.
We are able to maintain our record growth despite the fact that we have to pay taxes because, unlike other GFIs, Pag-IBIG is not tax exempt. From 2001 to 2006, we have paid a total of P10.99 billion in tax payments. For income tax alone, we have paid P700 million in 2005, and P1.3 billion in 2006.
As the leading source of shelter finance in the country today, the Pag-IBIG operates using internally generated funds. To ensure that it is able to meet the growing demand for housing finance, the Fund initiated innovative schemes meant to raise additional funds.
In 1997, we carried out securitization of 3,600 mortgages and was able to issue Mortgage Backed Securities amounting to P435 million. The effort was undertaken in cooperation with the Citibank N.A./PNB, which served as our financial advisor. The Philippine National Bank was our trustee bank.
In 2000 we floated the Pag-IBIG Housing Bonds for the first time. The 2000 issue was worth P4 billion at a fixed interest rate of 8.25% per annum, and this had been fully paid on April 4, 2005. In 2001, we floated P2 billion worth of retail housing bonds at a fixed interest rate of 8% per annum, which matured on November 2006. In 2005, we floated our P7 billion housing bonds with a fixed interest rate of 8.75% per annum.
Today the Pag-IBIG Fund is recognized as a highly stable, well-managed corporation. This has been given independent confirmation by the Philippine Ratings Services Corporation, or Philratings, when it granted the Fund a “Triple A minus” credit rating in 2005. It recognizes Pag-IBIG’s performance as a consistently profitable company, with a well-managed investment portfolio and with a highly assured liquidity to meet all of its obligations to members and contractual conditions alike.
The Fund has been going through rating confirmation proceedings, and I am glad to say that we have maintained our standing.
PagIBIG has also remained one of the top income earning corporations in the Philippines. In 2005, we ranked 8 th among the country’s top 1000 corporations in terms of net income.
Last year, the Fund received an important recognition for our shelter program and its contribution to the global campaign for human settlements. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, or UNHabitat, named PagIBIG as one of the winners of the United Nations Scroll of Honour Award, the most prestigious human settlements award in the world today. I myself received our plaque during the awarding ceremony on October 4, 2006 in Kazan, Russia which was part of the global celebration of World Habitat Day.
Also last year, our “Tapat sa PagIBIG” advertising campaign won a bronze award in the 2006 Araw Values Advertising Award. We were given the award in the multimedia campaign category for promoting respect for law and authority as well as the cornerstone value of self-discipline. This was awarded by the Advertising Board of the Philippines last December 11 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium of the RCBC Plaza in Makati.
With the help of investors like you, we hope to continue making more of these accomplishments for the benefit of our members, and our country as a whole.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is how the PagIBIG Fund stands today as we prepare for yet another, hopefully successful, Housing Bonds issue.
Thank you very much for your time. We are looking forward to your investments in the Pag-IBIG Housing Bonds.
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