Pag-IBIG Fund said Tuesday it released P20.94 billion worth of home loans in the first quarter despite the pandemic, up 33 percent or P5.17 billion from P15.77 billion in the same period in 2020, top executives said Tuesday.
“We are happy to report that our home loan releases in the first three months of 2021 have increased compared to the same period last year. This increase in our home loan releases means that more Filipino workers are being helped by Pag-IBIG Fund to secure their own homes, which is very important at this time of pandemic,” said Secretary Eduardo del Rosario, who heads the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development and the 11-member Pag-IBIG Fund board of trustees.
“We recognize the role we play in helping keep our members safe in their own homes, as we heed President Rodrigo Duterte’s call for government agencies to provide social benefits to more Filipinos, especially during these challenging times,” said del Rosario.
Del Rosario said the P20.94 billion in home loans in the first quarter enabled 20,712 members to acquire their own homes. He said of the total amount, P2.2 billion were released as socialized home loans for the benefit of 5,074 Pag-IBIG Fund members belonging to the minimum-wage and low-income sectors.
Pag-IBIG Fund chief executive Acmad Rizaldy Moti said even if measured against the period prior to the implementation of community quarantines, there was still an increase in home loans.
The agency released P15.49 billion in home loans from as of March 15 this year, an increase of P546.97 million or 3.7 percent from P14.94 billion released in the same period in 2020 when strict community quarantines in Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon were yet to be implemented.
He expressed optimism that the numbers would continue to rise, especially as the economy continued to reopen.
“From September to December last year, our home loan releases were close to ‘pre-pandemic’ levels. We released more than P6 billion to P7 billion in home loans every month during those months, with December loan releases reaching P12 billion—the highest amount released for a single month in Pag-IBIG Fund’s history,” Moti said.
“We are glad that our momentum in the last quarter of 2020 carried over to first quarter of 2021, despite the challenges caused by the pandemic. In fact, home loan releases in the first quarter of 2021 is 22 percent higher compared to our loan releases in the first quarter of 2019, which eventually turned out as our best year ever when annual home loan releases amounted to P86.7 billion. We anticipate that our momentum will continue in the succeeding quarters, barring any major catastrophic event, so we help more members become homeowners,” Moti said.