Outstanding partners shine in LANDBANK’s diamond celebration

TO MARK six decades of meaningful public service, the Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) honored outstanding clients and partners who have become its strong allies in promoting countryside and national development during an appreciation event on 08 August 2023 in Pasay City.

The 60-year-old state-run Bank conferred the prestigious Distinguished Initiators and Movers of National Development (DIAMOND) Awards to exceptional loan clients, and fund management and digital banking partners from across the country.

“May these awards inspire you to dream bigger and achieve more, while serving as a testament to our solid partnership, and to our unified resolve to continue making a lasting impact to the sectors and people we serve,” said LANDBANK President and CEO Lynette V. Ortiz.

Finance Secretary and LANDBANK Chairman Benjamin

E. Diokno likewise expressed appreciation to the DIAMOND awardees for their contributions in accelerating the post-pandemic recovery of the Philippine economy.

“As chairman of this Bank, I assure you that we will continue to be a reliable partner in your development journey as we build a more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable economy where no one is left behind,” said Finance Secretary Diokno.

Executive Secretary Lucas P. Bersamin joined Finance Secretary Diokno and LANDBANK President Ortiz in presenting the DIAMOND Awards to clients. Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary Conrado M. Estrella III, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Bienvenido E. Laguesma, and Department of Agriculture (DA) Senior Undersecretary Domingo

F. Panganiban also graced the event.

LANDBANK bestowed the DIAMOND Awards to outstanding loan clients nationwide who have trusted the Bank for the growth and development of their business operations, and have made ripples of positive change in their respective communities.

Awardees include the Lamac Multi-Purpose Cooperative as the Outstanding Agri-based Cooperative; ACDI Multipurpose Cooperative as the Outstanding Non-Agri-based Cooperative; Dolefil Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Cooperative and Goodyear Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Multi-Purpose Cooperative (GARBEMCO) as the Outstanding Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries’ Cooperatives; and Biotech Farms, Inc. as the Outstanding Partner in Agribusiness.

Other LANDBANK outstanding loan clients include the Green Innovations for Tomorrow Corporation as the Outstanding Partner in Renewable Energy; Leyte Metropolitan Water District as the

Outstanding Partner in Water Development and Distribution; Fiesta Communities Incorporated as the Outstanding Partner in Socialized Housing Development; Allah Valley Medical Specialists’ Center, Inc. as the Outstanding Partner in Health Services; Juan Sumulong Memorial Schools Systems Inc. as the Outstanding Partner in Learning and Development; spouses Marcelina and Salvador Cabaero as the Outstanding Agri-based SME; and Mr. Porfirio P. Mina as the Outstanding Non-Agribased SME.

LANDBANK also recognized outstanding partners in fund management who have extended resolute confidence in the Bank and remained loyal clients over the years.

Recipients of the LANDBANK DIAMOND Awards under fund management include the Bureau of the Treasury; San Miguel Group of Companies; OceanaGold (Philippines) Inc.; Peninsula Electric Cooperative, Inc.; WCS Construction Inc.; JM Maligaya Group of Companies; Metro Retail Stores Group Inc.; ECJ Negros Farms ARB Cooperative; and Ulticon Builders, Inc.

The DIAMOND Awards were also conferred to LANDBANK’s outstanding digital banking clients and partners who have helped advance digitalization and financial inclusion by leveraging on the Bank’s innovative products and services.

Awardees comprise of the Department of Education as Top in eMDS and weAccess Utilization; the Philippine National Police as Top in Link.BizPortal Utilization; Mastercard Transaction Services (Philippines) Inc. as Top Remittance Partner through LBRS (Local); and the Rural Bank of Sipocot (Camarines Sur), Inc. as the Top Agent Banking Partner.

Lamac Multi-Purpose Cooperative General Manager Elena C. Limocon delivered a special message on behalf of all the DIAMOND awardees and thanked LANDBANK for its unwavering support to clients.

“Our deepest gratitude to LANDBANK for the trust and support showed to us throughout our institutional journey. This award serves as a reminder that through collaboration, convergence, perseverance and a strong sense of purpose, we can truly make a difference in the lives of our people,” said General Manager Limocon.

LANDBANK is celebrating its 60th anniversary this month, representing six decades of uplifting lives, empowering communities, and serving the nation—all in pursuit of an inclusive and sustainable economy.

IT CERTAINLY is a welcome development in the Manila Bay reclamation issue that the president has ordered a halt to the 22 different projects rushed for approval by the Philippine Reclamation Authority and given the requisite ECCs by the DENR prior to Sec. Toni Yulo-Loyzaga’s appointment.

We can only hope a thorough review of all these are done by the DENR and even the local governments within whose municipal waters some of these projects may be located.

We do not know if the president was referring to the New Manila International Airport in Bulakan, Bulacan, a privately financed undertaking of San Miguel Corporation, as the only one which has passed scrutiny.

Manila will rapidly decline into urban decay.

Yet there is so much land in the suburbs, whether in eastern Rizal, northeastern Bulacan, or southern Laguna, and much more in other provinces where, once upon a time, government declared a policy of decongesting the metropolis and developing the countryside.

This writer has always maintained opposition to reclamation projects in Manila Bay for reasons we have kept enumerating in this space.

Instead, the national government should be serious about moving the government center and its many offices outside NCR, and President Marcos Jr. should take the lead.

Whatever happened to the hundreds of hectares reserved for a National Government Center in Clark? Even the DoTr which during Sec. Tugade’s stint had moved there is now back in the metropolis. If the national government moves out of Metro Manila, prices of real estate should then go down, as supply will be more available for private sector development.

Think of the military camps, the NAIA complex of some 640 hectares, the government complex around Quezon Memorial, and many others that could be sold to raise funds while augmenting the supply of land for private commercial and residential uses.

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It may be time also for the national government to think out of the box when it comes to resolving the perennial undersupply of rice as our staple food commodity.

The labor group Federation of Free Workers (FFW) is urging the House of Representatives to pass a bill mandating a P63,997 starting salary for nurses in both the government and private sectors so they can be convinced to stay put in the country instead of looking for higher pay in whatever country would accept them.

The proposed pay is nearly double that of what nurses in government medical facilities and health centers are getting at present, which is P36,619.

But it’s the nurses in the private sector who are getting the short end of the stick from the government.

Private sector nurses in the National Capital Region receive a daily wage of P610 while those in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) get a ridiculously low daily wage of P431, which is way below the daily minimum wage in NCR.

In other words, if our nurses receive starvation wages whether they’re in government or in the private sector, we our nurses what is rightfully due them—a decent living wage—to allow them and their families to keep body and soul together? cannot blame them if they want to go abroad where their services and expertise are better appreciated.

If government does not consider the noble nursing profession as deserving of better pay despite their having finished four years of a nursing course and passing a difficult board exam, then the country is likely to have a shortage of nurses that will adversely affect the over-all quality of our health system.

We understand that there are already no less than 58 bills pending before the House of Representatives and 21 in the Senate all aimed at raising the salaries of nurses to between P50,000 and P64,000.

So what’s keeping our lawmakers from taking the plunge and giving our nurses what is rightfully due them— a decent living wage—to allow them and their families to keep body and soul together?

The FFW-UERM Employees Union has pointed out that there is a significant disparity between the pay of nurses in the public and private sectors, with those working in government already getting P35,000 monthly.

“These wage disparities are severe and unjust. Nurses, regardless of their employment sector, merit higher compensation given their crucial role and the intense physical and mental strain of their profession,” the union pointed out.

We completely agree with their position: “We must stem the brain drain. We need to give our nurses compelling reasons to stay in the Philippines and not seek greener pastures abroad.”

Truth is, technically speaking, SMC did not reclaim from the sea by dumping sand into newly-created islands, unlike what is happening in the Manila Bay reclamation projects.

They bought titled properties through many years, some of them rice fields converted into fishponds, and augmented the height of the property above sea level.

What were properties with very little value from which the municipality hardly earned from property taxes became highly valued land on which an aerotropolis with a 4-runway international airport would be built.

That airport will be a magnet for foreign investments in electronics and other types of manufacturing aside from servicing the travel requirements which the NAIA with its single long runway cannot adequately serve.

The islands being built by dumping sand into the Manila Bay, on the other hand, is for real estate development by speculators who find reclamation cheaper than expensive mainland real estate.

These will be sold to the very rich, many of them foreigners from China, Korea and elsewhere, while the mainland will be repopulated by the construction workers who will have no other option but to live as informal settlers in our squatter colonies.

While there may be gleaming new cities in the reclaimed islands, the inner Metro

I refer to promoting the consumption as well as production of substitutes like white corn, camote and saba bananas.

Before Masagana 99 made rice affordable, even if only for a few years, before overpopulation and corresponding demand caught up with meager supply, many in the Visayas and Mindanao subsisted on these crops.

I remember then Prof. Leonor Briones who hails from Negros Oriental mention this to me when I headed the NFA—why not promote these alternative staples?

But when I advocated a stop to “unli-rice” marketing practices by some fastfood purveyors, media roundly condemned the idea.

Demand management may be difficult, and it may take time to bear fruit, but it deserves a second look.

And we should start with the young, who, whether at home or in school, should be taught proper nutritional habits, including less carbohydrate consumption.

DA on the other hand, should propagate such alternative staples, especially in areas where these were traditional food crops, while exerting all efforts at producing more vegetables and fish as cheap source of protein.

For many of our urban poor, carbo-loading is the only recourse because viands are expensive.

And a diet of rice plus instant noodles has led to malnutrition and stunting, breeding a nation of—I hate to say it—future morons.