CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City government has set aside P5 million this year for low-income residents or low-income households who want to start a small business.
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The P5-million fund has been allocated to Department of Social Welfare and Services of the Cebu City government, who will be in charge of vetting and releasing of the P5,000 to P10,000 seed money for small businesses to beneficiaries.
This would be through the DSWS Self-Employment Assistance Program (DSWS-SEAP).
Zenaida Nacional, focal person of DSWS-SEAP said in a message on Thursday, August 15, that the city had allocated P5 million to beneficiaries of the of the zero-interest loan program for this year.
Nacional said that for last year the program had an allocation of P10 million and nearly 2,000 residents from different barangays in the city were able to avail of short-term financial loan program at that time.
She said that to qualify for the SEAP, the applicants must be Cebu City residents earning less than P10,000 per month, not employed in whether in a private or government office and must have an existing small time business.
According to the Cebu City Public Information Office, the DSWS has recorded 1,743 residents from different barangays who availed of the loan program.
With majority of vendors at Carbon Public Market and farmers from mountainous barangays in the City.
As of July this year, the DSWS has accepted 139 applications of its Self-Employment Assistance Program (SEAP) with 28 of these are new applicants.
Nacional said that beneficiaries could loan P5,000 from the city, which must be repaid within a year while repeat borrowers could borrow up to P10,000 from the program.
“Once mabayaran nila in a year ang ilang gihuwaman, maka-qualify sila nga makahuwam again, pero times two na ang ilang mahuwam,” she said.
(Once they can pay their loan in a year, then they can qualify to borrow again but these would be times 2 the amount of what they had previously borrowed.)
Qualifications
Meanwhile, in order to avail of the program, the beneficiaries must submit an endorsement from the barangay captain, barangay’s Gender and Development (GAD) focal person, or from a barangay councilor.
Additionally, the beneficiary must complete the validation process required by DSWS, undergo an half day skills training by Department of Manpower Development and Placement and wait three to four weeks before receiving the loan, Nacional said.
To repay the loan, the beneficiary is required to pay the loan in City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) and then submit the receipt to the DSWS for recording.
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