Officials of the Pag-Ibig Fund have expressed hope their more than 400,000 members in the Ilocos and neighboring provinces will avail of the agency’s low-interest emergency loans which are easy to avail of and released in just two days.
Mervin Pereda, area head for Pag-IBIG-Ilocos Region, said of the more than 400,000 members in the Ilocos areas that cover Baguio City, Benguet, Mountain Province, Abra, Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, La Union, and Pangasinan, only about 19,000 are availing of loans.
In Baguio, Benguet, and Mountain Province, out of the 130,000 members, only about 6,000 are availing of the loan packages.
“We want the people to know that if they are active members, Pag-Ibig is a place to go to for fund needs,” Pereda said.
Philip Raymund Salem, head of the marketing and sales division of the Ilocos Region cluster, said: “It is easy to avail so we hope they would avail of the Pag-Ibig emergency loan package.”
Using the loyalty rewards card plus, a member can apply for a loan online.
A member’s savings come from the contribution paid by the member, the share of the contribution of the employer, and the dividends earned by the member.
He, however, clarified the emergency loan charges 47 centavos per P1,000 per day and can be paid as soon as the person’s cash becomes available.
He said when people need money, the first thing they think of is borrowing from another person, use their credit cards, pawn their jewelry, or even ask from a loan shark.
“They must remember that they have money saved in Pag-Ibig and they can make use of that whenever they need it,” Salem said.
Pereda said the money of the Pag-Ibig is owned by the members through their savings and management is only allowed to use the fund for the multipurpose and housing loans of members.
He said the money is not invested anywhere else so it is the members who use them by availing of loans that contribute to the income of the fund and is returned to the members by way of dividends.
The officers said aside from an over-the-counter transaction, Pag-Ibig is now online and has the “Pag-Ibig Lingkod on Wheels” that goes to different locations to bring the services closer to the community and attract non-members to register.– PNA
