Women – rice growers of Sitio Bo-ongon in Barangay Matica-a in Ormoc City are “ born – winners. ” They live their dreams, gradually and with perseverance. For this group organized by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office 8, under its Self-Employment Assistance – Kaunlaran (SEA-K) livelihood program, learns how to labor and to wait. Foremost of the reasons that helps boost their strength of character is the indomitable leadership of Eufemia Montejo, the association president.
How they have successfully pursued their aspirations can be reflected in the triumphant stories of the BO-ONGoN SEA-KAUNLARAN ASSOCIATION, as it took by heart one opportunity after another. The capital assistance of Php 5,000.00 each for the 15 members, through the SEA-K in 1994, opened more doors for brighter prospects, and all because the association has proven its worth ! The two-year “plan” was reduced to one year; in other words, the members paid their interest-free and non-collateral loans in a shorter time.
Conchita Crisologo, Project Evaluation Officer (PEO) of Ormoc City Social Welfare and Development Office, attributed this luck for the association’s well – managed collection of amortization payments and the savings mobilized. The local government unit, too, has its share of independent monitoring like the DSWD field office, which is being handled by Project Evaluation Officer, Nelia Oledan.
In November of 2004, the association was accessed to another credit facility, that of the PGMA Micro-Finance Program. This time, the member got Php 10,000.00 each for a loan, and the rewards were getting better and better !
“They were always ahead in payment, and really fulfilled with the two-year term,” Crisologo said of them. “So far, this is the best SEA-K group ! “ she proudly told.
As leader, Eufemia ensures regular meeting, at least once a month and on a Saturday. Otherwise, “wa na musarig” (no one will believe), she said of her. The association president revealed that how one gets informed of the schedule of meetings is through word of mouth. It is not a tough job in bringing the news to each and everyone despite the distance between every home, in this farm community. The members have now developed a sense of responsibility.
Eufemia, 65, is married to Jorge, 64, the overseer of the “hacienda” ( big agricultural estate owned by a landed family ) from which the SEA-K members wholly depend for their living. She bared that the family is not solely on rice farming but on pig-raising and growing fruit – bearing trees. The fully – irrigated ½ hectare – rice land is now theirs, and was bought at Php 12, 000 on a monthly installment basis.
Then came the SEA KAUNLARAN Level II or SEA – KABAYAN, a larger people’s organization, which features include the merger of two or more successful SEA-K Associations (SKAs), and registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission as a stock and profit organization.
The Bo-ongan SKA was merged with the Sto. Niño SEA-K Association, giving birth to Ormoc Women’s SEA-Kabayan, Incorporated, with Virginia Quisagan (from the other association) as president. The formation of the KABAYAN required the SKAs’ contribution of Php 5,000.00, taken from the respective association’s mandatory saving’s mobilization, and for the former’s initial equity fund.
The Kabayan seed capital assistance of Php 150,000,000.00 was released on March 12 of this year, and the association was ready for its contribution, having some Php 31, 000.00 as capital build-up.
The Kabayan’s treasurer, Tomasa Dumadapit, of the Bo-ongon SKA, said that she had benefited much from the DSWD’s loan program. Dumadapit bared that even before the Kabayan, she made use of the association’s forced savings, which has a two percent interest only.
Were it not from the government’s assistance, who would think that the family of Dumadapit would survive ? Her husband, Teofilo, was a truck driver of a sugarcane plantation, and there were four children. In the past, all the family had to cling to were private money – lenders. For a sum of Php 1,000.00, it would already cost them a half-sack of rice.
The family has a half-hectare riceland that grosses Php 20,000.00 come harvest time. The property was loaned from the bank for Php 38,000.00, and every “reaping” period, they have to pay Php 2,000.00 to Php 3,000.00 to the bank, for a span of thirty years !
Maria Linda Rivero, the Kabayan’s secretary and also from the Bo-ongon SKA, said the new loan of Php 10,000.00 for the individual member, saved her family from loan sharks. She revealed that Php 1,000.00 credit is equivalent to one cavan of “palay” or rice grain. “This is already a big help !” Rivero exclaimed.
Indeed, little things count for these small entrepreneurs who take a “speck” of opportunity to immense use . . . who take up the challenge of survival . . . and lifting themselves up, they will, for sure, grow !