‘Micro-loan’ banks for needy Pangasinenses

By Gerry Garcia

WE rewrite here for you readers who might have missed reading it, a recent Jun Velasco story culled from last Tuesday’s issue of the Manila Bulletin detailing two pieces of good news from our Speaker Joe from Binloc this city. One story is about facility for fishing and the other, money for borrowing by our poor and needier kababayans here in Dagupan City and the province in general.

Jun  wrote that JDV received a P100-M grant from South Korea intended to modernize our fishing facility (for bangus?... and also another P16-M from a Bangladesh Friend, Dr. Muhammad Yunus who, by the way, was a Nobel prize and Ramon Magsaysay awardee. No wonder this Bangladesh friend had the heart to think of putting up a “friendly” bank soon in Dagupan for Filipinos.

This micro-loan bank, JDV says, is the answer to the prayers and hopes of poor Pangasinenses who can’t borrow money from the usual banks because they have no collaterals.

The P16-M grant, Joe adds, came from the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh founded by Yunus, which is the fore-runner of all other micro-loan banks in Bangladesh that lifted millions of people, especially women, from abject poverty.

The Speaker further said the micro-lending idea would tend to revolutionize the Philippine countryside “because it educates and empowers the poor to act responsibly in development work and improve their lives.”

And, as a result, we presume that the poor, like the trike drivers, ice cream vendors, sari-sari store managers and taho-sellers can always look forward to becoming new entrepreneurs and help the nation to rive and develop.

* * * *

The west-end of the 2-lane Perez Blvd caught in the vortex of three criss-crossing roads, Herrero, PNR and the main, broader Mayombo road has become a hazardous traffic intersection, especially when the computerized traffic light system is not working during night-time.

You have to watch out, especially, for pedicab drivers with pedestrian mentality who keep flitting into and out of lane before you. Mishaps are always bound to happen.

Despite these, however, there are POSO personnel on the beat here and they have been doing remarkably well. We can’t help shuddering at the thought of what might happen if our traffic enforcers were not around.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/here-and-there/)

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