Lifting Themselves Out of Poverty Through Multiple Income Streams:
The Story of Mrs. Adoracion Panganiban

 Aniceta R. Alip, Lourdes A. Medina and Lester De Leon

Na Doring, at 57, sees retirement as far way off. Not now when she has all the chances to grow her many businesses in a big way as one of CARD Bank’s individual borrowers. Having been a pioneer of CARD’s solidarity group lending when her center was still part of the CARD NGO, she considers being able to give her children a decent education as the greatest benefit of her CARD membership. Four of her 8 children are pursuing college degrees. Her youngest does not have the aptitude to go to school, but he still benefits from her loans: she bought him a horse that he uses in transporting coconut and other agricultural produce from the farm to the lowland as his source of income. He also plans to take driving lessons so he can drive one of their jeepneys in the future, also partly paid by her mother’s loans.

Na Doring is an excellent seamstress. Thus it was natural that her first loan was used to buy sewing supplies and materials such as threads, needles, and a few pieces of fabric. She would save up her customers’ payments and on Fridays go to the Triumph warehouse to buy scraps which she sew into brassieres. Nothing would be wasted even as she would put together the smallest leftover fabrics to make pillow cases. As her surplus grew, she turned out ready-to-wear clothes and sold these on installment in her community. Na Doring claims that she knew nothing about doing business before she got married. Faced with the growing needs of a large family, she looked for ways to capitalize her skills in making clothes. Roaming the village with her RTWs people would ask her if she would care to sell them other items.That got her started on buying and selling of appliances, Tupperware products, and even fresh and processed meats. As she developed her entrepreneurial savvy, she kept an eye for business opportunities. FFor instance, she noted how cheap it was to buy mangoes right in her townmates’ farms during summers. In a good morning, she could easily sell 3 kaing of mangoes. Bought at P250 and sold for P500-P600 in the town or in nearby Lucena market, trading in mangoes became a regular income earner for her.

The Holy Week also offers Na Doring extra income, even as pilgrims flock to the mystical Kinabuhayan mountain, at the foot of which is her hometown of Dolores. She would buy dried fish in bulk in Manila and sold them at a hefty profit. “ I would always calculate in my mind how much I would make if I engage in a venture. With 10 children to clothe, feed and educate, I had to be always businesslike,” explained Na Doring.

If there was one thing Na Doring is so passionate about, it was the value of education. “Poor people like us have nothing to pass on to our children that would secure a better future for them. The only legacy we can give them is education.” Her children imbibed this value, and went to great lengths to help their mother send them to school. Na Doring related how her children would deliver the brassieres to customers before going to school, and the customers would pay right away because they knew her children needed the money for school.

Even putting enough food on the table was a struggle then. “My children learned to be creative, resorting to culinary tactics. A can of sardines would feed 12 of us, even as they learned to plant and scour the garden for extenders, like camote tops. My eldest daughter had only eggs and rice in her lunch box almost everyday while she was finishing her college degree, and I would advise her not to befriend rich people because we were poor,” Na Doring tearfully recalled. The next moment, her face lit with pride, as she told us how this daughter is now earning big money abroad, having graduated from a topnotch private school in San Pablo. “ People now gives me a nod or a smile. I guess they think we are now well off because I can send four children to college all at the same time.”

With her third loan (P8,000), she bought her husband a horse to transport agricultural produce from the farm to the lowland. She added two electric sewing machines from her earnings and hired two women to work on them. Since both were just learning to sew, she tried her best to teach them almost all she knew including the techniques that attract most of her customers. Unfortunately, when the two had learned a lot, they left Na Doring and sought employment in a garments factory. “My children advised me not to take other people into the business again. Kami-kami na lang daw ang magtulungan”. Two of her sons learned to sew. “I was content if we earned P200 in a day.”

Her fourth loan bought her a cow which she fattened and sold to buy another. Today, there are three cows tethered in their barn. Her good repayment record enabled her to obtain a fifth loan of P50,000, with which she purchased a second hand jeepney. The vehicle is driven by one of her married son, plying the Dolores, Tiaong and San Pablo routes. Her weekly amortization then was P1,200, which was easily covered by the jeepney’s earnings, with some to spare for her son’s family.

She was on her 6th loan when her businesses thrived. With her own savings, she expanded her sewing business by making curtains and seat covers . She also started her appliance and plastic ware business. When CARD introduced its CLAP product, Na Doring was the very first CLAP loanee in her branch. With her P110,000, she acquired another second hand jeepney for public transport in Lucena City. It was also at this time that her husband, who was assisting a surveyor in Lucena, was able to reserve three parcels of lot (90 sq. m. each) on his name. Na Doring took advantage of the opportunity and started paying the lot with her earnings from her businesses.

When CARD started piloting the Individual Loan scheme in October 2000, Na Doring qualified. She was unfazed to apply for the maximum loan ceiling, knowing that she had acquired credit discipline (she has never called on her center to help her repay her loan, and never dipped into her capital to buy inconsequential things). With her net loan value of P100,000, she put up a bakery in Lucena. However, the bakery lasted for only a year. She said it was a good business but not as profitable as she expected. She learned that one should know everything about the production aspect, otherwise it would be difficult to monitor the hired workers. “A tray of bread would be inadvertently burned, and it would take me three days to recoup the loss. You never know if you are being short-changed or not.” Not one to allow her investment to go down the drain, Na Doring thought of ways to make money out of the failed bakery business: she now rents out the bakery equipment and the space is now being renovated into residential space for rent.

Her current loan of P160,000 saw Na Doring into a joint venture with her son-in-law. They contract mango plantation owners to have their trees sprayed with flowering hormones. Judging from her track record, this promises to be another money maker for the indefatigable Na Doring. From her gross earning of P50,000, she has no problem meeting the P16,400 monthly amortization.

Did “graduating” into individual borrower made any difference in her business? Na Doring’s reply was prompt, “It is now so easy for me to get a loan. If I filed my proposal today and the signatories to the check are all available, I will go out of the Bank with the money. I feel good that I am treated that way. I am not afraid to borrow because I know that I hold the key to its continued availment: using my loans wisely and not turning away from the responsibility of paying them back. “ She also paid tribute to the support that her family is constantly extending to her. “Before I take out a loan, our family holds a meeting. I am aware that not all ventures will turn out well; there are factors that are beyond my control. If it happens, I want their assurance that they will be there to help me out. Afterall, it is the whole family that enjoys the benefits of CARD’s assistance. It is only right that the whole family also face up to the attendant obligations.”

Postscript: We visited Na Doring a year later in March 2003. While she is qualified for a bigger loan, she only accessed P80,000 this time “because I still have enough revolving fund and lots of stocks (she places the value of her Tupperware items at P300,000). She is now concentrating on her appliance business: people would place order for TV set, washing machine, refrigerator, or VCD player and arrange to pay it on installment. Ever the entrepreneur, Aling Doring responds to her customers’ preferences, offering flexible terms that fit their cash flow (“people prefers 3-4 months, saying 6 months is too long.”) When not delivering her products, Na Doring would visit her bakery-turned-apartment in Lucena, where she has a room. These are not idle times for Na Doring – she would bring cloths for sewing, and when my neighbors hear the whir of my machine, one by one they would bring their clothes for repair, curtains for sewing, Two of her offsprings are now working, one as a cashier, another as a teacher. She is now on her 13th loan but still sews when she goes to their house in Lucena. •

- date published: July 2003