Fertilizer scam all over again? (Conclusion)

Here's the conclusion on the Quedancor anomaly written by the VERA Files. (Review Part 1 here.)

IN a book titled Quedancor: The Country’s Premier Credit and Guarantee Company, Quedancor executives wrote that the URP “precipitated” what would later be touted as an innovative no-collateral lending scheme for microborrowers: The Self-Reliant Team (SRT) Model. In fact, Nelson Buenaflor (veteran agriculture bureaucrat) likes to be called the “Father of the SRT.”

An SRT consists of three to 15 members who live in the same barangay, have the same project and act as coguarantors. The SRT issues postdated checks to Quedancor (or the Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp.) as payment for a three-year loan of up to P50,000 for a production project and P20,000 for a livelihood project.

The projects range from grains and high-value crops, to fisheries, livestock and poultry, and other commodities, including swine-raising and the URP. A production loan bears a yearly interest of 14 percent and working capital loan, a monthly 2 percent. (Read the rest here. Illustration by BusinessMirror)

Fertilizer scam all over again? (Part 1)

ILOILO CITY—Aura Drew Escanlar was all set to take the nursing board examinations in December 2004 when she decided instead to put up a piggery.

What changed her mind was an offer from the Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor). Called “the poor man’s financing institution,” the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) credit-guarantee arm was giving out loans in the form of piglets and feeds, with a buyback scheme that assured borrowers some income.

Escanlar used her parents’ savings to build pigpens and buy piglets, and signed up for the Quedancor Swine Program (QSP). Less than a year later, Escanlar lost almost everything. The income from the buyback scheme was always delayed, and the feeds came late or were not delivered at all. After 50 of her piglets died, Escanlar stormed the Quedancor regional office here. “You have turned my farm into a graveyard,” she told Quedancor employees. (Read all about it in BusinessMirror.)

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CORRUPTION, scams, scandals...this is will be the enduring legacy of the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo administration. Salamat presidentita.