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| About 200 graduated from various courses offered free by CARD MRI. |
By Vir B. Lumicao
Starting this year, the Philippines’ biggest microfinance group, CARD MRI, will integrate financial literacy in pre-departure orientation seminars for Filipino workers.
This was announced by CARD MRI president Julius Adrian Alip at the graduation ceremony for some 200 financial literacy and skills training graduates at the Catholic Centre Auditorium on May 29.
Alip also said those about to depart for work abroad will be signed up as members and provided with loan facility so they won’t have to borrow from loan sharks.
At the same time he invited graduates of its financial literacy program to apply for the 17,000 additional staff positions that the NGO needs for its Southeast Asian expansion in the next five years.
The graduation highlighted the fourth year of CARD MRI Foundation Hong Kong, which has already trained more than 1,200 OFWs in financial investment, debt management and livelihood skills since its founding.
Guest speaker Labor Attache Jalilo de la Torre said he would push for the social and economic reintegration of professionals among the 180,000 OFWs in the SAR, while keynote speaker Vice Consul Alex Vallespin encouraged the workers to save and avoid getting mired in debt and in get-rich-quick schemes.
Alip noted with sadness a newspaper report that said domestic workers coming to Hong Kong are already buried in debt even before they arrive here.
“If you read the whole article, it states that there are many violations of their contracts, but what struck me in the heart was a sentence that said even before they leave the Philippines they are already buried in debt,” Alip said.
“So, I was thinking, what can we do? Ano ang pwede naming gawin bago pa lang sila dumating dito para magtrabaho? How can we address the situation? Kasi sumasakay pa lang sa eroplano, may utang na. So, huli na yung financial literacy.”
He said the idea of pre-departure intervention was broached by CARD MRI Hong Kong’s first chair, Edna Aquino, when Alip was invited to join as private sector representative on a committee in the Commission for Filipinos Overseas.
He brought up the pre-departure intervention in a conference at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas about two months ago, proposing that OFWs should be given financial literacy training even before leaving the country.
Alip proposed that the government financial regulators could accredit microfinance institutions and the banking community in the rural areas as providers of pre-departure orientation seminars so that those in the provinces need not travel to Manila. He said financial literacy would be included in the PDOS.
He said CARD, through its three banks, would try to grant “reasonable loans” to those coming to Hong Kong for their air fare and other expenses “para hindi kayo baon sa utang. Gagawin na namin kayo kaagad na member para pagdating nyo rito, meron na kayong kakunekta kaagad.”
“We will be advancing this idea because it will help you a lot… I told your first chairman Edna Aquino we will start this project this year,” he said.
He said CARD MRI had been invited to Singapore and Japan to start the program in those two OFW destinations.
In the next five years, CARD would expand its operations in Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and, hopefully, in Thailand.
“Now I will be needing 17,000 additional staff within the next five years. Saan ako kukuha? Sa inyo, at yung mga anak ng staff… because we are expanding,” Alip said.
Labatt De la Torre said OFWs’ main goal is to prepare themselves for reintegration to the Philippine society and the economy, yet, less than 10% of the businesses put up in the past by returning workers had become successful.
He said this raised worries about efforts to teach financial education without the proper preparation and management of the workers. “We need managers to lead them, otherwise they go back with nothing to do or they find the things they trained for are not any more suitable for current business realities,” he added.
He urged the graduates to strive for success in the businesses that they would put up, citing the case of a former Hong Kong domestic worker, Myrna Padilla, who has become a business icon through her successful IT business process outsourcing venture.
Vallespin, meanwhile, reiterated that the Consulate shares CARD’s program of promoting financial literacy and its goal of financial freedom for OFWs.
“Bago tayo makakauwi sa ating mga bayan sa Pilipinas ay matuto tayong mag-impok. Little steps, bit by bit…Wala po tayong ‘get rich quick’ schemes. To many overseas workers, the journey to financial freedom is long and arduous,” Vallespin said.
Expounding on “get rich quick” schemes, he warned that most of those who enroll fall for such ventures are scammed with no way of recovering their money.
More than a month after the recent Emgoldex pyramid scheme collapsed, there are still OFWs who fall prey the scam, Vallespin said.
Just before leaving for the CARD event, he said seven OFWs went to the Consulate’s assistance to nationals section to warn against a new spin-off of Emgoldex.
