Armbands of Pag-ibig workers for sympathy to chief, nothing more

CEBU, Philippines - Pag-ibig Fund-Cebu City department manager Antonio Enriquez yesterday said that their workers are wearing black armbands to symbolize sympathy and appreciation to their outgoing chief, Romero Quimbo, and “not for anything else” as stated by earlier reports.

Enriquez, in an interview with The FREEMAN yesterday, said that this is not the first incident in which Pag-ibig employees wore black armbands. In 2002, they also wore black armbands to show their sympathy to Manuel Crisostomo, predecessor of the outgoing chief.

The wearing of the black armbands was initiated by the Pag-ibig Fund Employees Labor Association, Enriquez said.

He also clarified reports that Quimbo was dismissed.

“There was no written order or official announcement to that effect; as far as I know, Quimbo resigned to pursue other matters such as his interest to join politics.”

Quimbo is reportedly planning to run for a congressional position in Marikina City in next year’s polls.

His terminal leave started on March 16 while his resignation will take effect on June 15, this year.

Enriquez downplayed talks that Quimbo’s decision to resign had something to do with the treatment he was reportedly getting from Vice President Noli de Castro, chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and chairman of the Pag-ibig Fund.

De Castro reportedly got mad at Quimbo after learning that a key provision in Republic Act 7742, or the Pag-ibig Charter, to invest 70 percent of its funds in housing, was “inadvertently left out” in the proposed Home Development Mutual Fund Law of 2009. This provision was later restored in the bicameral version recently approved by Congress after De Castro attended the meeting to make sure this provision was included.

Castro said Pag-ibig has always been for housing, and should still be its primordial objective under the new law.

Reports said that Quimbo and other old-timers in Pag-ibig wanted 70 percent of fund invested in non-housing, which De Castro opposed.

Enriquez said Quimbo had served well in Pag-ibig, and added that from 2001, when Quimbo joined the Fund, its asset base doubled reaching P245 billion today from just over P110 billion in 2001. It stands today as one of the biggest corporations in the country.

From a minor housing loan player in 2001, today Pag-ibig funds are close to 50 percent of all housing loans in the Philippine economy. Lending in 2008 was at an all-time record of P38 billion.  – Jasmin R. Uy/MEEV (THE FREEMAN)