Pag-IBIG Fund, Cebu employers team up for employees’ housing

MANILA, Philippines - The Pag-IBIG Fund recently partnered with three Cebu-based employers – the local government unit (LGU) of Argao in Cebu, Cebu People’s Multi-Purpose Cooperative and Marco Polo Plaza Cebu – through Pag-IBIG’s Employer Accreditation Program (EAP), enabling them to avail of the Fund’s personalized and faster housing finance services.

The LGU of Argao administers 45 barangays at the southeastern portion of Cebu province.  Based on the 2010 census, the first-class municipality’s population stood at almost 70,000 residents.

The Cebu People’s Multi-Purpose Cooperative has 59 community chapters with 45,326 members, mostly market vendors, drivers and small- and medium-scale entrepreneurs.  It is currently developing a housing project to benefit its members and 144 employees.

On the other hand, Marco Polo Plaza Cebu has 235 employees which help maintain the only five-star hotel in Cebu City and this year’s winner of the Marco Polo Hotel of the Year award.

The EAP is a Pag-IBIG program which aims to reach out and partner with employers in the public and private sectors in order to give their employees ready access to Pag-IBIG’s housing programs and services and meet their housing needs based on their preference and affordability level. The program also aims to strengthen government and private sector partnerships in the provision of shelter among the employees by extending appropriate housing support services.

“Instead of waiting for Pag-IBIG members to come to our offices, we adopted a program to partner with big employers where we could offer our housing loan services in wholesale rather than through the usual process for retail loans.” said Pag-IBIG Fund president and CEO Darlene Marie B. Berberabe.

Accredited employers benefit from personalized services, including pick-up of housing loan application through the employer’s Human Resource Department (HRD), shorter processing time for loan applications, and delivery of notice of approval.

In return, the partner-employers designate their HRD to receive all loan applications and other related documents of employees.  They enter into a collection servicing agreement with Pag-IBIG, with the collection of loan amortizations of employees to be done through salary deduction.

As of June 30, 2014, Pag-IBIG Visayas has accredited seven private employers and two national government agencies/LGUs. Pag-IBIG also has on-going EAP negotiations with 120 private employers, 10 national government agencies/LGUs, five cooperatives, and six state universities.