PIA Press Release
2008/06/28
by Prix D Banzon
Davao City (28 June) -- The housing accounts that were moved to Bahay Financial Services, Incorporated (BFS) are the housing loans undertaken by the National Home Mortage Finance Corporation (NHMFC) for the period 1987 to 1996. There were about 20,000 accounts and 6,000 of these are now under the BFS.
NHMFC head of Davao Regional Office-Mindanao Division Jose Macuto in a telephone interview said this housing loans are covered under the low cost housing where package ranges from P150,000 to P236,000. Monthly amortization is about P1,400 for the P150,000 and P2,370 for P236,000.
Macuto said these housing loan accounts in Davao City are mostly found in NHA Bangkal, NHA Kadayawan, NGA Ma-a, NHA R Castillo, Hillside Subdivision, Margarita Subdivision, El Riso Subdivision, Jolibelle, Jade Valley, Country Homes, Emibille, Tierra Verde, Davao Empress, Landmark, Villa Corazon, South Villa Heights.
The other accounts are found in Tagum City and in Digos City. He said the remaining 12,500 active accounts regularly pay their amortization to their office where their monthly collection totaled to P17 million.
The borrowers also pay their amortization to collecting banks namely Development Bank of the Philippine and the Philippine National Bank. Macuto clarified that these accounts were never been under the Social Security System, Pag-IBIG Fund of the Government Service System.
It may be recalled that NHMFC borrowed money from SSS, Pag-IBIG and GSIS to finance their housing program of about P42 billion. The three financial institutions are still to recover the money that NHMFC borrowed from them.
BFS corporate communication development head, Atty Gerald Paez in an interview after a consultative meeting on Thursday in Davao City said most of the accounts transferred were highly delinquent meaning walang bayad for 15 years or kung nagbayad man about one year only.
There are also those moderately delinquent and low delinquent borrowers and Paez said they do apply scheme on case to case basis. The BFS is a multi-national service mortgage company that offers to affected borrowers one-time payoff scheme or restructured financing scheme.
They also offer customize settlement terms, he said. Paez said their office do a remedial management where they apply scheme on how to manage delinquent account. During the consultative meeting there were several issues raised and most of them said that the borrowers are hard up to pay the amortization.
Although there is a perception that many of the borrowers have the capacity to pay based on the income tax return, some still claim they cannot, he said. He said if the homeowner dos not have the capacity to pay, the property will be reverted back to the NHMFC under the social putback provision.
He said about 52,000 housing accounts nationwide are covered under BFS, the collection arm of Balikatan. Of this figure, 36,000 are from Luzon, and 16,000 in Mindanao. In Mindanao half or 6,000 are in Davao. (PIA)
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