Community savers get P13K 

aid from CoMSCA fund raiser 

TAGBILARAN CITY, May 29 (PIA)—Her’s is a leaking and crumbling house that has seen better days, basket weaving for livelihood, two teens under her care and a swelling thyroid that she has to attend to. 

Alone as single mother. 

But, with faith, determination and persistence, 44 year old Sulpicia Oerba might find a bit of ease: she, with 14 year-old daughter Maria Venus accepted the P13,108.00 which poor people like her pooled for this year’s traditional savings fund raiser. 

The fund raiser is highlight of the National Summit of Community-managed Savings and Credit Associations (CoMSCA), and the pooled funds go to directly help handpicked individuals which the Network of 7 NGOs think, should be given immediate assistance. 

Set now as a traditional initiative of a network of Non-Government Organizations (NGO) who are into helping communities fare better and rise above their pitiful poverty situation, CoMSCA has pushed for engaging more and more Filipinos to save. 

In a single day, thej fund raiser pooled P39,334.25 from the over 1,500 summit participants, according to World Vision Cebu Cluster Area Program Manager Faith Richelle Sy. 

The amount was divided evenly among the three beneficiaries for the traditional savings activity. 

Other than Oerba, another Boholano family, of Angelita Boyonas of Ubay, and a Negros family of Rhea Bantayanon received the same help amount from the CoMSCA network. 

Asked her plans for the amount, Sulpicia said she would replace the roof of her crumbling 6x8 hut, build a small containment for her vermicomposting and buy nets to start off a native chicken production. 

"I need to work hard, after-all the kids are getting bigger now and I have no one to lean on," she said. 

Her partner and father of her kids left Sulpicia, of barangay Villa Aurora in Antequera with two children, for another family while they were in Manila, about a decade ago. 

Left alone to care for the kids and faced with the challenge of filling the family table with something to eat, she has to learn and unlearn all ways she could, to earn money. 

With no one to turn to, Sulpicia decided to come home to Antequera where she knows life would be less difficult. 

Here, she has a family to turn to and she can do odd jobs while tending to her very young kids. 

The plan was to survive, feed, send the kids to school and possibly strengthen the kids so they could survive and fight into a life much better than she could give them. 

Now, her son Vincent is 16 and Maria Venus 14, are enrolled at nearby public high school: Busao National High School in nearby Maribojoc town. 

Next to a new-found preoccupation, Sulpicia thinks educating her kids are the biggest savings she is investing for now. 

And talking of investment, she, along with some 20 other members of her church, are now finding a way to help each other by the little that they all have. 

Members of the Celing Shalom Evangelical Free Church, Sulpicia, along with their pastor who had seen the benefits of starting a community-managed savings and credit, formed a self-help micro-credit association. 

Assisted by a non-government organization called Precious Lamb Cordell Foundation, Sulpicia’s worship group soon met community savings advocates who convinced them to learn about CoMSCA. 

"It is a credit association we formed after Sir Ernie Macabenta talked to us about the community managed savings and credit association (CoMSCA)," she shared, amidst the roaring crowd gathered during the 4th CoMSCA Summit held at the Bohol Cultural Center, May 28. 

"After every church service, we meet and put in our weekly share of P20 per share, for a maximum of five shares and a social fund contribution of P5," she disclosed. 

All our money becomes our savings, all entered in a passbook and placed inside the CoMSCA box, which our officers keep," she narrated. 

"For members who wish to borrow some money, we decide during meetings, the borrowing limit is twice the paid up capital," she explained in Cebuano, while her daughter Maria Venus listened intently. 

With a little “interest,” the borrowed money is repaid in staggered scheme, and all members can borrow. 

The interest, she added, is basically one that goes back to the organization and adds up to the ComSCA capital. 

"We used to study small savings and credit groups and put up the best of these practices while trying to remedy problems like corruption," according to World Vision Associate Director and CoMSCA pillar in the country, Ernesto Macabenta. 

We used three keys for the CoMSCA Box, and all the decisions of the group is transacted only during Sunday meetings, he shared as one of the innovations. 

This way, one would have to talk to at least four persons: members of his group to allow him access to the money and his passbook, Macabenta, who keeps decades of CoMSCA experience under his belt noted. 

With Sulpicia’s case, she joined the group last March and has borrowed P400, which she used to pay for her kid’s graduation projects and school contributions. 

"The good thing about this is that, with a small amount, we are encouraged to save, and this has become a great habit for my children, they are now setting aside savings for their future spending," Sulpicia, who has goiter commented. 

She admitted she used to tap government help through the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Self Employment Assistance-Kaunlaran. 

Along with organized community members from the poor families, she also tried to venture into socio-economic skills for entrepreneurship. 

But the demands of single parenthood and the daily need of bringing food on the table got into her that she finds paying the P5,000 a bit of a problem. 

"We have to pay weekly and for me, it was becoming a problem," she confided stressing on keeping her name and honor as her only collateral. 

Skilled as a basket weaver since childhood, her fingers have to find every spare time to weave and sell baskets at the town flea market every Sunday. 

Small in build, Sulpicia could not do the bigger baskets that it would be a lucky week if she could earn P500, the most part of it go to the SEA-K payments. 

World Vision officials also shared that the good thing about it, is that politicians found that with CoMSCA in their areas, fewer and fewer people are knocking for financial support, Macabenta told media during a pre-Summit conference. 

Because of this, Bohol Congressman Rene Relampagos is now sponsoring bills to make financial literacy an institution and further engage the Filipinos into savings, a thing which excited CoMSCA network members. 

A Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas study showed that 70% of Filipinos do not own savings and 80% of them, belong to the underprivileged or the poor sector. 

The Bohol CoMSCA Summit also targets an ambitious one million Filipinos owning savings by 2020. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

Sulpicia Oerba and daughter Maria Venus await in anticipation as the COMSCA organizers announce the selected beneficiaries of the on-day fund raiser when community managed savings and credit association (CoMSCA) advocates gathered in Bohol for the 2018 CoMSCA Summit. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)