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DAVAO
CITY—The Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) hopes
Mindanao will increase the bank’s lending offered at
affordable interest rates to finance bigger development
and industrial ventures.
The
tender came after DBP officials also admitted the lack
of awareness among a wide potential clientele that the
DBP also offers financial assistance to big-ticket
projects, as big as funding the acquisition of ships and
building of port terminals.
Reynaldo
David, DBP president, said he felt embarrassed that
Mindanao accessed these financing at a percentage that
bordered on negligible, on areas such as the
microfinance base to the big commercial and industrial
projects.
“I feel
awkward that Mindanao only got this much,” he told a
gathering of mostly business people here Friday at the
Marco Polo Hotel. David was the guest in the swearing in
of the officers of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce
and Industry, which also sponsored the DBP road show
here.
In
microfinance, a major component in the development
thrust of DBP, Mindanao availed itself of P180-million
financing as of the end of April this year, a figure
dwarfed by the huge P76-billion exposure of the bank
nationwide.
“This is
not even 10 percent of the total,” said Rey Magno Teves,
a member of DBP’s board of directors, and who thought of
the road show of DBP.
DBP’s
road show was the fourth in the series, beginning in
Cebu in Central Visayas, then to Zamboanga City in
Western Mindanao, and Cagayan de Oro City in Northern
Mindanao. Davao City is in the southwest of the island.
Still in
the developmental side, Mindanao has only P1.3 billion
in social services financing that includes health care
(construction of hospitals and putting up of
laboratories); education (construction of school
buildings, dormitories and purchase of computers);
housing (for the informal sector); community development
(public markets); and ecotourism (development of
resorts). Total bank exposure was P5 billion.
In
environmental protection, Mindanao share was much
smaller, at P359 million, to the countrywide exposure of
P5 billion. There were 153 projects nationwide on water
treatment and sanitation, solid-waste management,
alternative fuel and rural power.
Mindanao has only 28 projects.
Mindanao
also availed itself only of P2.2-billion financing,
compared with the rest of the country exposure of P8.5
billion, in big projects in infrastructure and
logistics.
The
biggest project so far was the roll-on, roll-off (Roro),
which connected the islands to the main islands of
Luzon and
Mindanao through a combination of sea routes and
existing national highways.
The Roro
has also constructed new land routes to connect
potential tourism sites and was successful in the
Western Nautical Highway
side of the Roro networks, with Caticlan and the
Batangas ports enjoying brisk traffic of people in goods
to the tourism areas of Batangas,
Mindoro and Boracay.
The Roro
has established three networks, the eastern (connecting
the eastern highways and ferry services) and central
routes (cutting across most of central routes). |
