PBC ANNEX 2

PEOPLE’S BANK OF CARAGA

CASELET 2

DIONISIO MONTEBIRGEN
Member ISAPA PLUS
Pasta, San Francisco, Agusan del Sur

From the National Highway, one must take a motorbike or habal-habal through unpaved
roads to get to Mang Dionisio’s farm.

Mang Dionisio would leave at dawn to attend to his farm while his son would help him feed
their fish in a nearby pond.

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Mang Dionisio is now 70 years old and he has lived in Pasta, San Francisco, Agusan del
Sur since 1959. Mang Dionisio came to Mindanao in the 1950’s with his brother. They
were from Iloilo and were lured by the opportunities in Mindanao.

Mang Dionisio does not own the land he tills. As a tenant, he pays back the landowner half
of the total net profit gained from selling the farm produce. The farm is about four hectares.
He plants regular rice varieties but he utilizes about 1.75 hectares for organic rice farming
methods.

Dionisio’s wife, Gwendeyna, is a regular member of People’s Bank of Caraga’s (PBC)

microfinance program called Project Abante Barangay Para sa Kauswagan (PABK). She
has been a member of PABK for the past seven years.

Gwendeyna stays at home to manage their other livelihood activities as well as to attend to
household chores. The couple has five children. Two of them are living and working in the
Poblacion of San Francisco, one is living just along the national highway with his family
and helps Mang Dionisio in the farm. Two other children live far from them, one in Cavite
and the other lives and work in Kuwait with his family.

It was through Gwendeyna that Mang Dionisio was able to join PBC’s ISAPA Plus. He has
been a member of the ISAPA program for the past four years and admits to have benefited
immensely from the program.

The loan from PBC has answered much of Mang Dionisio’s farm financing needs. The loan
is used in land preparation, for the purchase of farm inputs, and for materials in his organic
farming activities. Mang Dionisio’s latest loan from ISAPA Plus is P75,000, which he will
pay on the next harvest with interest of 2.3% per month.

His organic rice farm can produce as much as 70 sacks of palay while the inorganic rice can
reach up to 50 sacks. A sack contains about 47 to 50 kilos of palay and sells at P16 per kilo.
He can earn as much as P92,000 at harvest time.

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Aside from their main income generating activity, which is rice farming, they are also
involved in fish and livestock raising. He can earn an additional P10,000 to P15,000 per
semester from tilapia, native chicken and swine which they raise in their farm.

Mang Dionisio keeps financial records as required by the owner of the land. He admits that
this helped him become more financially disciplined, as he needs to pay his obligations to
the landowner on time. Mang Dionisio also has a unique budgeting and savings method. He
shared that when he receives the loan proceeds, he would segregate it and binds the money
together using tape and marks it to make sure that the amount will be secure and used for
the intended purpose. He believes that budgeting thru self-discipline is attainable.

For Mang Dionisio, borrowing money is good because it will help the borrower buy what
he needs, but what’s wrong is if the borrower does not know how to control his spending.

“naay sounds.. walay ilis.”

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Mang Dionisio was speaking about his neighbors and their lack of financial discipline. They
buy their wants instead of their needs. He finds that other neighboring farmers are not
successful because these farmers do not know how to prioritize and budget their money for
immediate and long-term needs of their households and their livelihood. He shared that
other farmers, after they receive payment for their harvest, would buy lechon manok and wine
on their way home and a day long merry making begins.

“sayang humay kung humay ang interes”

He no longer borrows money from the trader because he knows that it is financially
impractical to borrow from them since interest is high and traders prefers payments in kind
thru their harvest. A farmer pays one sack of rice as interest for every P1,000 loan and he
finds this impractical and abusive.

Mang Dionisio prefers borrowing from PBC because the bank helps him ensure that his
limited resources will be used for the intended purpose such as buying farm inputs or
machineries. Bank field officers are always visiting him to check on his farm. He also makes
it a point to borrow only from PBC. He agrees that availing too much loans from different
financial providers is bad and so PBC’s policy of requiring members to borrow from just one
financial institution helps poor farmers become more financially disciplined.

Mang Dionisio lamented however that he often encounters problems in the farm.
Infestation and disease are manageable, but extreme weather is the main cause of low
production quality and quantity according to him. Floods have devastated their crops more
often in the past few years and this has caused fluctuation in prices of farm inputs as well as
palay buying prices.

In order for the farm to be sustainable, Mang Dionisio engaged in other sources of income,
which serves as his safety net in times of calamities. An additional source of income is also
crucial in providing needed cash in times of emergencies. He learned about this from PBC

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through its Integrated Farming System (IFS), which the PBC staff taught him in one of their
meetings. He uses part of his loan and savings to finance other farm projects such as swine
raising and fish culture. The income from these activities, though smaller compared to rice
farming, helps them eke out when palay production is low or had been affected by floods.

Aside from his own efforts, PBC has also offered him other services that he found very
beneficial. He said that the agriculture microfinance program of PBC offers life, loan and
crop insurance and savings. He also appreciates having to work with a group of other
farmers where PBC teaches them to work together and mag-damayan, which means the
group would help fellow farmers who are experiencing difficulties by shouldering and
sharing the burden among themselves.

“lisud kung walay PBC”

Mang Dionisio is very thankful for PBC’s programs for poor like him. The bank makes it a
lot more easier for them to go through the hardships of being a farmer.

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