SunnyBing President Mr. Satoshi Tateno and TSPI Executive Director Mr. Eduardo A. Mendoza shake hands after signing the Memorandum of Agreement.

The Memorandum of Agreement was signed by TSPI Executive Director Mr. Eduardo A. Mendoza, TSPI Deputy Director for Planning and Business Development Ms. Ma. Teresa P. Perfecto, SunnyBing International Trading Corporation President Mr. Satoshi Tateno and SunnyBing International Trading Corporation Partner Mr.  Jose Valencia, in the TSPI Head Office.

The partnership would entail the teaching of the Japanese brining technology to the ginger farmers. This new technology will prolong the shelf life and improve the quality of the high value crop. The gingers with excellent quality harvested by the farmers will be exported to Japan, where ginger is a major ingredient in their cuisine.

Before this partnership was made, the farmers were forced to sell their gingers to the nearby markets for a measly Php 2/kilo.

The MOA signing event was witnessed by TSPI Regional Head for Southeast Sector Mr. Elmer T. Santos, Area Managers Ms. Mayvelen Ver and Ms. Maydee de Chavez, members of the Central Management Team and Mr. Rolly Sarte, SunnyBing International Trading Corporation Partner and Technician.

TSPI Executive Director Mr. Eduardo A. Mendoza and DSWD Secretary Ms. Corazon Juliano-Soliman signing the Memorandum of Agreement last March 25, 2013 at the DSWD Office.

Last March 25, 2013, TSPI signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), formalizing their public-private partnership for the benefit of the department’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino (PPP) Program.

“To maintain a life that can allow them to dream of bigger things,” is Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman’s vision for beneficiaries of the department’s PPP Program.

To realize this vision, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), through the Sustainable Livelihood Program enlisted the help of TSPI, as well as two other civil society organizations (CSOs) namely Ahon sa Hirap, Inc. (ASHI) and the Ayala Foundation, Inc. (AFI).

TSPI will provide micro-finance services with credit and savings schemes and new repayment cycle models and the Sustainable Livelihood Program will bridge them to self-sufficiency. TSPI Executive Director Eduardo Mendoza emphasized that micro-enterprise groups like theirs should have long ago been partnering with the government’s social welfare programs.

Secretary Soliman added that, “we know how to help people value themselves but we need a sustaining factor. This sustaining factor is the private sector, with whom the government shares the vision of inclusive growth.”

TSPI Executive Director Eduardo A. Mendoza (center) and DSWD Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman after signing the MOA. To the left of Mr. Mendoza is Dr. Abraham F. Pascual, TSPI Board of Trustee member who came to witness the event.

Furthermore, Secretary Soliman stressed that the Pantawid Pamilya Program serves as the “tulay para makatawid sa kaunlaran” (the Pantawid Pamilya Program serves as the bridge toward development). She remains confident about this because of the help of partners like TSPI and ASHI, who commit to provide “financial services in the form of credit, savings, micro-insurance that are accessible to the poor.”AFI committed to support the training activities of the Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries for livelihood and development, and will eventually provide market opportunities to promising entrepreneurial beneficiaries.

The DSWD is currently serving 3.9 million poor households under the PPP Program. Out of these households, 300,000 will be finishing from the program by December 2013 as they belong to first set of households that were served in the year 2009.

This article was provided by DSWD. Minor edits have been made.

After working for several years in making rope for one of the local dealers, Nanay Beatriz saw that if you had your own customers, you could earn a much larger profit. Eventually, she and her husband worked up the courage to borrow P15,000 from her mother in order to have a business of their own. They sourced their own bangkuang from local traders and used their connections to source customers. Despite many challenges along the way, the couple has been able to re-invest their profits and grow their business to the size it is today.

Nanay Beatriz sources her raw materials from neighboring pro

Nanay Beatriz Sibayan and her husband stands beside the finished rope products made by their workers.

vinces where the sea grass, bangkuang and buri are ripped up from water ways in order to make space for fish ponds.  The bangkuang is basically trash so she is able to purchase it cheaply in dried form, at  P20 per bundle. She likes the idea that she can make something out of someone else’s waste.

After procuring the raw materials, Nanay Beatriz distributes her orders out to her agents. She employs her family members into these roles and the 6 agents manage anywhere from 5-20 people. Using this model, Nanay Beatriz is able to provide employment not only to people from her immediate community but also to those from harder to reach places. The agents are responsible for distributing the dried grass and then collecting the finished products. She pays her workers P10 per 25 meter bundle of rope produced. Despite the fact that she sometimes has to wait up to 45 days to be paid by her customers, she pays her workers upon delivery of the rope. She says the secret to her business success is the relationship she has with her workers. She loves working with her family and hopes to pass down her business to her children.

Nanay Beatriz  not only sells her products in the local market but has suppliers in Bulacan and Pampanga. Her biggest customer AWECA (a local furniture export company) uses her product to make furniture and baskets which are then exported overseas. She says there is very little problem finding customers for her products, the difficult thing is just the payment terms of some of the large companies which issue post-dated checks. “My problem is capital,” she shares.

In 2009 she was approached by the Branch Manager of Mangatarem Branch who invited her to become a member. At first she was wary as she had heard of the conditions of borrowing and was worried about having to pay the debts of others. Eventually she decided to give it a go and recruited some people from her area telling them if they couldn’t pay back their loan she would help them and just deduct their payments from any rope they made for her.

Two of Nanay Beatriz's workers making a rope. For every 25 meter made, they earn Php 10.

Three years later the success of her center has meant that it has now grown to include 30 people. In the last branch Ugnayan she won as the Best Entrepreneur, Best Center Chief and her center won Best Center. She said she could never have imagined all of it happening.

In the past, Nanay Beatriz tried to borrow from a bank; however she was turned away because she didn’t have any collateral. “I’m so grateful to TSPI,” she says “They have just approved a loan for me of P70,000 which means I can expand even further.”

This success didn’t come easily however. After encashing their first check, Nanay Beatriz’s sister and brother-in-law encountered an accident while on their way home. Her brother-in-law required surgery which drained the family’s finances. At this stage Nanay Beatriz was not sure if they should continue.

A week later, a company from Bulacan called, requesting for an order worth P30,000. The family decided to bond together to complete making the order. Nanay Beatriz encountered another setback when it came to making this payment. The check they were given bounced and she had to accept goods instead as the company’s payment.

Their next order came soon after, however with very little cash Nanay Beatriz had to cut costs by drying her own bangkuang instead of buying it already dried. They had to sell their family cow to finance this third attempt at starting on their own. Fortunately the gamble was worth it and she was paid properly. She thanks God for all that he has done for her and her family.

Their family’s story is one of tenacity and perseverance. She says without the support of her family members, Nanay Beatriz could never have achieved what she has to date. She hopes that her most recent loan will help her grow even bigger and help provide livelihoods for more people in her community.

This article was originally written by Philippa M. Walker, an Australian volunteer for International Development of TSPI. Photos provided by the Mangatarem, Pangasinan branch staff.

In his Opening Message during the MOA Signing, Mr. Eduardo A. Mendoza, Executive Director of TSPI, gladly welcomed the joint program on microfinance and health protection and agreed on the premise of the partnership: if the microfinance community aims to strategically address the economic and social development challenges facing the poor, it is vital that it also addresses the health needs of its micro-borrowers.

“I hope that in everybody’s own agenda, this initial effort of doing something together will bear fruit,” said Mr. Mendoza.

The MaHP partnership initiative created among the eighteen participating MFIs a common understanding, motivation and opportunity to generate collective impact by assuring that both microfinance and health services are simultaneously available and affordable in poor communities nationwide. The program intends to build a strong partnership among the MFIs to generate synergies in addressing health inequities in the country, and demonstrates the microfinance community’s recognition that  micro-borrowers could benefit more when MFIs come together to share and extend access to their respective health-related resources.

Mr. Eduardo A. Mendoza (leftmost), Executive Director of TSPI, signs the Joint Microfinance and Health Protection Program Memorandum of Agreement together with 17 other MFIs.

“What we’re doing [through this MOA] is integrating and unifying the whole industry, whether we belong to another methodology or [alliance]. Our business [is] not microfinance [but] poverty eradication. And if that is our overriding mission and vision, microfinance is just a means. It is important for us to unite and share among ourselves [our services that are beyond microfinance],” said Dr. Jaime Alip, Managing Director of CARD-Mutually Reinforcing Institutions (CARD-MRI), in his closing message during the MOA signing ceremony.

“This initiative is not coming from CARD per se. This initiative is coming from all of us. It’s very good to learn and understand and share together our practices in the field of health,” Dr. Alip added.

The Joint MaHP Partnership Program is being chaired by Mr. Kamrul Tarafder, President of ASA Philippines Foundation, and Secretariat support is being provided by CARD’s MaHP Program team. Other signatories of the MOA and also present during the ceremony were: Alalay sa Kaunlaran, Inc. (ASKI); ASA Philippines Foundation (ASA); Bukidnon Integrated Network of Home Industries, Inc. (BINHI); Center for Agriculture and Rural Development, Inc. (CARD); CARD Bank, Inc.; CARD SME Bank, Inc.; CARD-MRI; Center for Community Transformation (CCT); Daan sa Pag-Unlad, Inc. (DSPI); Kabalikat Para Sa Maunlad na Buhay, Inc. (KMBI); KFI Center for Community Development Foundation, Inc. (KCCDFI); LifeBank Foundation, Inc.; Pag-Inupdanay, Inc.; Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation, Inc. (NWTF); Rizal Rural Bank, Inc.; Rural Bank of Talisayan-Mutual Benefit Association (RBT-MBA) and FONUS Multi-Purpose Cooperative, Inc.; Taytay Sa Kauswagan, Inc. (TSKI); and USWAG Development Foundation, Inc.

The MaHP initiative was first implemented in 2006 by the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development, Inc. (CARD), with the technical support of Freedom From Hunger, an international non-profit organization with a well-established program for health promotion.

Two years ago, TSPI launched its Community Development Program, acknowledging that holistic transformation would require more than just micro-lending and micro-enterprise development. One of the components of the Community Development Program is Health Promotion, which for the first two years of implementation has focused on educating TSPI clients and other community leaders about breast health care and breast cancer prevention, which is now the foremost cause of death among Filipino women.

This article was originally written by Mr. Gian Erik Adao, Community Development Program Assistant and edited by Ms. Maria Lourdes Baylon, Community Development Program Manager. Photos provided by CARD.

After a few years, Nanay Magin’s business had a breakdown and this is when she decided to go back to TSPI. She learned that her former center still exists, and upon expressing her interest to return, her co-members warmly welcomed her back.

The business of buying and selling chicken culls proved to be sustainable and profitable for Nanay Magin.

Nanay Magin started again from the first cycle by borrowing an amount of five thousand pesos (P5,000.00) that she used to start her new business of buying and selling chicken culls. Her initial inventory was 50 heads of chicken culls and sold them to nearby towns or barangays.

Hardwork, determination, discipline and a positive outlook were Nanay Magin’s formula for achieving success in her new business. She made sure that her loans from TSPI will be used strictly for her business. These values helped her to gradually improve her business. She was able to buy equipment such as 2 units of sprayer, a freezer and delivery vehicles such as an L-300 van, motor with sidecar and a multicab. Her business now provides employment to eight members of her community.

Demand for the chicken culls also grew. Soon she was able to open five more branches in other areas of Batangas namely Lipa City, San Juan and San Felipe. She is also planning to open a branch in Muntinlupa as her customers are growing in this area as well.

Quail eggs selling is the one of the new business ventures of Nanay Magin, the other being hogs-fattening.

Aside from her chicken culling business, Nanay Magin is also venturing into hog-fattening and quail eggs selling.

Nanay Magin is very thankful to TSPI for helping her family and her business prosper. TSPI gave her the assistance she desperately needed when her family had no one to turn to in those days her sari-sari store and frozen food products selling business broke down. Nanay Magin now owns a house and lot and has already purchased investment properties in San Juan, Batangas and Los Baños, Laguna. She also proudly shares that TSPI helped her send her eldest child to college, who is now a registered nurse.

Her hard-earned success did not go unnoticed. She was nominated by the TSPI Rosario branch to the 2012 Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year Awards Program.

Nanay Magin frequently says, “Life will prosper in TSPI (Sa TSPI, gaganda ang buhay).” And she has her business and life experiences to back up that claim.

This article was originally written by Mr. Christian Aldwin O. Tendero, former Business Development Officer, Planning and Business Development, for the 2012 Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year Awards Program.

Nanay Edna Cacanindin proudly shows one of her bags produced out of corn husks.

An entrepreneur is an opportunity seeker who always tries to see things from a new and fresh perspective.

Nanay Luzviminda Edna Cacanindin or Nanay Edna shows she has this trait with the number of microenterprises she had put-up over the span of two years. Nanay Edna, 47 years of age, is in her third straight year to be nominated by TSPI Agoo branch for the Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year (MOTY) Award.  In 2010, she made it to the semi-finals stage of the prestigious annual event with her Mushroom Production and Hog Raising microenterprises. She was a recipient of the the Citi-Bayan Academy Entrep-Eskwela scholarship sponsored by Citibank and ABS-CBN Bayan Foundation. Nanay Edna was grateful for the opportunity given to her, inspiring her to work harder and pour more passion into her business. She faithfully applied her learnings from the Entrep-Eskwela training and put up her new business of banana and sweet potato (camote) chip production in 2011. Her latest micro-enterprise is bag making using corn husks, established in 2012, for which she once again made it to the semi-finals stage of the Citi MOTY 2012. She is managing these enterprises alongside her growing mushroom production and hog-raising businesses. Nanay Edna loves to attend trainings and seminars and is diligent in applying the knowledge and learnings gained from them by putting-up and expanding her businesses. With this, she is able to provide income and employment to her community.  More so, she is able to utilize the resources in her locality to earn and share her blessings.

Nanay Edna poses with a few of her bag-makers.

In March 2011, Department of Industry (DTI) representatives came to the community of Nanay Edna and sponsored a training on producing banana and camote chips.  There were 23 of them who attended the training but only she was able to continue and put up a banana and camote chip production business. She also applied what she learned in the Entrep Eskwela seminar she attended in January 2011, as a benefit of being a semi-finalist of the Citi MOTY 2010. Nanay Edna saw that all the necessary materials for producing banana and camote chips were in her community. Banana was not really sellable in the market, but Nanay Edna thought otherwise.  She used this opportunity to buy bananas from the community to avoid wastage and spoilage and help the people have an additional income. In December 2011, another opportunity came knocking at Nanay Edna’s door. She learned the Local Government of Aringay, La Union in partnership with the Department of Agriculture will provide a training on Corn Husk Handicrafts in their community. Seeing the opportunity from the availability of corn husks in her community, Nanay Edna attended the training and in the following month was able to start her bag-making using corn husk enterprise.

Bags made out of corn husks and the corn husk rope used to make them.

She now employs a total of 56 individuals in her businesses wherein she has 16 workers in her mushroom production business, 14 workers in her banana and camote chips making business, 24 workers in her bag making business and 1 helper in her backyard hog-raising. Nanay Edna is keen on expanding and growing her businesses. Aside from having purchased a lot for her mushroom production business, she shares that she still wants to grow her new businesses of bag-making and camote and banana chips production and help more people in her community.  She is now able to supply her chips regularly to a school and four stores in the town and provide mostly balikbayans their order of bags made of corn husk. Nanay Edna shares that a ready market is waiting for her products. She also intends to employ more workers in her operations.  With the way Nanay Edna handles her businesses, it’s not impossible for her to achieve her immediate and future plans.

This article was originally written by Mr. Erness Emmanuel Guinto, Business Development Officer of Planning and Business Development, for the 2012 Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year (MOTY). Photos courtesy of the 2012 Citi MOTY Awards Program.

As with most inspiring business stories, the story of Nolicious Meat Processing began out of an adversity. When the company where Tatay Noli works for closed down, she felt a desire to help the employees who suddenly found themselves out of work, so she hired some of the staff such as her poor relatives and the children of her fellow TSPI center members. She also supplied to the agents and dealers of processed foods, who used to work in the same company as Tatay Noli.

Tatay Noli and Nanay Lourdes are the husband and wife team behind the successful Nolicious Meat Processing business.

Nanay Lourdes and Tatay Noli have a clear understanding of what makes a business successful, and they have been hard at work in ensuring these principles are applied in their business. In terms of product quality, Nanay Lourdes is all out in ensuring that the quality standards are met. Her family members form the quality assurance team who carefully inspect all the finished products per plastic before it is sealed and placed in the delivery box or freezer. The slaughter house they get their raw materials from is Bureau of Food and Drug (BFAD)-registered.

The couple also spends a lot of time planning on what new products to develop for their customers, agents, dealers and retailers. She makes it a point to introduce new products every quarter. Financial planning also plays a big role in how they manage their business – she always looks at her savings and her capacity for additional capital for the new products she plans to launch. She said that extravagance in lifestyle should be put aside to sustain them and their business. She prioritizes paying for her loan on time too, so that no breach of trust will be committed to those who willingly entrusted the loan to them.

She considers her staff as her friends and relatives. She doesn’t just act like their employer but as a mentor who gives her employees advice and who mediates when they quarrel. She is a generous employer who gives incentives and who helps them in their medication when they are ill. When her employees asks her to consider them as agents, she would give them opportunities to engage in it for their extra income.

Employees of Nolicious Meat Processing busy at work.

Yearly, Nanay Lourdes and Tatay Nilo would always evaluate the previous year’s business accomplishments. Then, they would write and list what their priorities are for the incoming year.

Nanay Lourdes believes that perseverance, determination and hard work matched with prayers is the right formula for stepping up to the ladder of her business success. She prepares for the lean months that will affect her produce. Even when faced with difficulty, she always looks at the positive side of things and takes the difficult situation as learning opportunities for her to become a better entrepreneur. She gives thanks God in her everyday transactions and desires to be a blessing to others in return.

Truly, she is a perfect example of a thriving entrepreneur who turned an adversity into an opportunity and who expanded her wings to serve the greater good of those around her. This may be one of the reasons why she made it to the Semi-Finals stage of Citi Micro-entrepreneur of the Year Awards last year.

This write-up was originally written by Ms. Honey Dawn A. Romantico, Program Supervisor, Product Development Department, for the Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year 2012 Awards. The photos in this article are provided by the Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year Awards Program 2012.

The partnership will enable 62 TSPI senior managers and officers to be trained about entrepreneurship and how to further grow microenterprises, through Bayan Academy’s Enterprise Development, Growth and Evolution (EDGE) Program. 

From left to right: TSPI Planning and Business Development Deputy Director Tess P. Perfecto, Executive Director Eduardo A. Mendoza, Bayan Academy Chairman Dr. Eduardo A. Morato and EDGE Managing Director Estelita C. Catacutan signing the Memorandum of Agreement.

Among those who attended the event from Bayan Academy were Chairman Dr. Eduardo A. Morato Jr., EDGE Managing Director Ms. Estelita C. Catacutan, Bayan Educational Systems and Technologies (BEST) Manager Mr. Philip S. Felipe, Internal Audit Director/Comptroller Ms. Daisy Domingo-Lara, Finance Director Ms. Maritess M. Ngabit and Executive Assistant Mr. John Xavier Francia. Members of the TSPI Central Management Team were present to witness the event held at the Boardroom, TSPI Head Office.

Internally, TSPI renamed the TSPI-Bayan EDGE Program as “Araling Pag-unlad”.  Mr. Eduardo Mendoza, TSPI Executive Director said, “This program is aimed at tranforming the way we look at our clients, the way we plan and execute the service that we provide, and the way we define the impact that TSPI should achieve in the livelihoods and lives of our clients.”

Araling Pag-unlad commenced last January 10, 2013, and will be held every other week until June 2013.

From left to right: Area Manager Adel Ramos, Executive Director Eduardo Mendoza, Account Officer Jeonalyn Nanales, Citi MOTY 2012 for Luzon Milagros Hiyas, her husband Isagani Hiyas, Sector Manager Chito P. Cruz, Branch Manager Marlon Capillano, Regional Head Stella Escuadro and Planning and Business Development Director Tess Perfecto.

Hailing from Mabitac, Laguna, Nanay Milagros and her husband Tatay Isagani has gone a long way and has overcome many obstacles in order to reach the success they are enjoying now. Their rattan handicrafts manufacturing business humbly started with a cradle. Now, her workers produce sala sets, rocking chairs and other home furniture of excellent quality.

As one of the six winners of this year’s MOTY, Nanay Milagros received a cash prize from Citi, micro-insurance coverage and is automatically enrolled to an entrepreneurship course funded by Citi. This is the second time that one of TSPI’s clients was recognized as one of the major winners by Citi and MCPI.

Together with Nanay Milagros and her husband at the event were her Account Officer Jeonalyn Nanales, Laguna 2 and 3 Area Manager Adel Ramos, Siniloan Branch Manager Marlon Capillano, Southwest Sector Manager Chito P. Cruz, Southwest Sector Regional Head Stella P. Escuadro, Planning and Business Development Director Tess P. Perfecto and Executive Director Eduardo A. Mendoza.

The six Citi MOTY 2012 winners with Citi and BSP officials.

Nanay Corazon B. Bautista, TSPI client and 2011 Citi MOTY Winner – Masikap Category, was also present during the event together with the former MOTY awardees for the past ten years. Together, they make up the Alumni Network of Citi MOTY and participated in the Oath Taking activity prior to the Awarding Proper. Each of the members of the Alumni Network took home a copy of the coffee table book published by the Microfinance Council of the Philippines, Inc. (MCPI), containing stories of 10 past MOTY awardees.

The coffee table book was published in time for this year’s Citi MOTY Awards Program, which marks the 10th year that Citi honors the commitment and dedication of the microentrepreneurs who have succeeded in uplifting themselves, their families and their communities from poverty. The Citi MOTY is organized by Citi, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and MCPI.

Mr. Gary Powell spent the day with TSPI and Opportunity International Australia (OIA) staff based in Manila to gain an understanding on the contribution the AusAid NGO Cooperation Program has made to TSPI programs.

Mr. Powell met with TSPI Executive Director, Mr. Eduardo A. Mendoza along with other TSPI senior management staff to gain an overview of the organization, as well as to learn about some of the business development innovations OIA and AusAid are supporting.

TSPI client Nanay Adelia Palacios shares a lighthearted moment with AusAid Assistant Director General Mr. Gary Powell.

He also visited one of TSPI’s successful clients, Nanay Adelia Palacios,  who runs a bag-making enterprise made out of water lilies. Nanay Adelia is a member of Maunlad, TSPI’s new individual loan program.

Through the visit, Mr. Powell was able to see the impact of the loan TSPI entrusted to Nanay Adelia. Her business has grown to a point where she is now employing more than 100 workers from her local community.

This write-up was originally written by Ms. Philippa M. Walker, an Australian volunteer for International Development of TSPI.