Thousands of small Filipino farmers, fisherfolk, urban poor household heads and informal workers who are struggling to make ends meet can now look forward to adequate financial support as government has announced plans to ensure affordable loans for nearly a million poor folk over the next two years.

Secretary Domingo F. Panganiban of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) said recently that the government will increase the client base of the country’s microfinance sector by at least 800,000 additional borrowers between 2007 and the end of 2008.

“The loans will range from P1,000 to P150,000 each. They will be made available through the government’s 1,410 microfinance partner institutions and their branches nationwide,” Panganiban said.

A report submitted by Microfinance Program Committee (MFPC) chairman Mr. Edgar V. Generoso to Panganiban indicates that the new loans will form part of a massive government effort to promote self-employment among the country’s poor and underprivileged folk.

NAPC oversees the management of the People’s Development Trust Fund (PDTF), a grant facility for microfinance capacity-building efforts established specifically for the Filipino poor in 1998 through Republic Act 8425. The fund is administered by the People’s Credit and Finance Corporation (PCFC).

Panganiban said the government is launching a national financial literacy campaign to help borrowers access available microfinance services and inform them of their rights and responsibilities as microfinance clients.

“The literacy campaign was developed with the support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and will involve capacity building activities for both providers and users of microfinance services,” Panganiban said.

The country’s microfinance service providers have already issued small loans amounting to more than P74 billion to over 3 million active clients throughout the nation over the past three years alone, the NAPC Secretary added.

The government estimates that these loans have in turn generated jobs for some 1.3 million poor folk throughout the archipelago.

Panganiban said 59% of the microfinance loans issued between 2004 and 2007 went into the development of trade enterprises. The rest were invested in agriculture, aquaculture, livestock, and home-based food processing and manufacturing endeavors.

Around 31% of the country’s active microfinance clients are small farmers; 24% are poor fisherfolk; another 28% are informal workers; while 15% belong to the urban poor. The Filipino youth and indigenous folk comprise the remainder.