BTr releases P291M to NHMFC

The Bureau of Treasury has released to the National Home Mortgage Finance Corp. (NHMFC) a total of P291 million in government subsidy to finance the loans for land purchase and housing acquisition bythe homeowners’ associations of informal settlers under the NHMFC’s Community Mortgage Program (CMP).

Angelico Salud, NHMFC president, said that the subsidy released is part of the allocation for CMP under the 1999 general appropriations act (GAA) amounting to a total of P644-million already covered by a corresponding statement of allocation release order (SARO) issued by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

This is in compliance with the directive earlier issued by president Arroyo to the DBM to scale-up housing acquisition by the informal settlers under NHMFC’s urban poor home financing program, he cited.

Salud credited the program and policy initiatives of Secretary Michael Defensor, presidential housing adviser and chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council for President Arroyo’s support and adoption of CMP as the major loan assistance program to address homelessness among the urban poor.

The fund will benefit an estimated total of 11,640 urban poor families whose average CMP loans for home acquisition are at the level of P25,000 per beneficiary.

Prior to this, NHMFC had not received any fund releases since the start of the Estrada Administration in 1998 and the agency had to rely on its equity funds, borrowings and loan collection to sustain home lending for the informal settlers, Salud pointed out.

NHMFC is also working for the release of outstanding fund balances for CMP under the 1999 GAA and some P1.78-billion under the year 2000 GAA, he added.