Author Archive
Filipino Values Pt 1: Bahala Na
When I was in grade school, we would start every year of Pilipino class with a lesson on what the Filipino traits were. The ones I particularly remember are: bahala na, pakikisama, hiya, mañana habit, and utang na loob. These five values inform every Kiva Fellow’s experience in the Philippines but also explain why many of the micro-entrepreneurs I’ve spoken to become borrowers in the first place. Literally translated, these words sometimes seem pejorative in English yet without understanding them, one would be hard-pressed to understand how microfinance works in the Philippines. (more…)
How to be a Not-Microfinance Borrower
Recently I attended a centre meeting with one of PMPC’s loan officers. I sat down beside a woman who smiled broadly but did not want to give me her name or have her picture taken since she hadn’t prepared for it, which, in the heat and humidity of the Philippines, I could certainly understand. I asked her if she was a borrower and she said no, she wasn’t. She was a member of the centre, which meant that she was a PMPC-client but only had a savings account. She re-paid her last business loan but decided not to take another one out. When I asked her why not, she told me, laughing “Pagod! Mag-pahinga muna ako!” (Tired! I’m going to rest first), very kindly answering me in Tagalog instead of Visaya sensing I was still more with my local dialect.
That got me thinking about microfinance and its critics. We Kiva Fellows have responded in depth and with much honesty about the criticisms of microfinance and whether or not it is an effective poverty alleviation tool. One of the charges leveled against it is that the poor don’t know how to run a business: they take out loans, don’t know what to do with the funds, get over-indebted and run themselves ragged trying to repay it. Ultimately, they turn against microfinance and never want to take out another loan again. It’s true, that does happen sometimes but sometimes it doesn’t.
In this woman’s case, it didn’t. What happened to her was that she’d taken out a loan, and run a successful enough business that she could now close it down. She had her children to take care of her, as is the custom here, and in addition to that, she’d saved enough over time and through her savings account at the MFI so she could now support herself during this break. Sometimes, meeting a microfinance borrower who has stopped being a microfinance borrower is proof enough that it is working.
After reading both the detractors and the devotees, I know I can be a little of both but meeting smart and savvy PMPC-clients gives the advocates an edge this time. This woman made an active decision rather than being caught hopelessly in a cycle out of her control and she was an active member of her community, putting together the holiday decorations and always attending meetings. The chance to rest gives her the chance to celebrate the holidays. Happy New Year everyone!
Squid Centre's Holiday Decoration- Made out of Softdrink Straws!
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A Promise to Readers and A Business Training Session
I promise that not all my blogs will be about food. This will be a pretty hard promise to keep- especially when my very first post breaks that promise right from the start.
I’m the newest Kiva Fellow at Paglaum Multi-Purpose Cooperative in Northwestern Mindanao, Philippines. I’m also a native Filipino who was born and raised in Manila but just happened to spend the last ten-odd years of my life living and working in other parts of the world. This means that every time I do go home, I eat an inordinate amount of Filipino food. Filipino food has got a bad rap from critics in the past. People have found it bland, lacking in spices, too fried and unhealthy unlike its more popular Thai or Malaysian cousins. These critics are wrong. Well it is fried but really, who doesn’t like fried food?
What does this have to do with microfinance? In the Philippines, quite a lot. It’s a culture that revolves around food. We just love to eat and we love to eat together. In the microfinance world, that means lots of micro-enterprises making, selling, distributing and buying food. (more…)
