Noli proud of his accomplishments

MANILA, Philippines - Vice President Noli de Castro vowed to step down next year and leave a legacy of accomplishments.

“I will step down in 2010 with accomplishments and nobody could question them,” De Castro said in Filipino over his radio program “Para sa Iyo, Bayan” yesterday.

De Castro made the statement following his appearance before the Senate hearing investigating the “info-mercials”of Cabinet officials last Friday.

He defended his television commercials as chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and Pag-IBIG Fund.

“If not me then who should appear in the Pag-IBIG Fund infomercial?” De Castro had asked the senators questioning him over the infomercials during the Senate hearing.

Sen. Loren Legarda, who ran for vice president in 2004 but lost to De Castro, repeatedly hit De Castro for capitalizing on his popularity as a former broadcast journalist to increase Pag-IBIG housing loans.

The Senate, through the initiative of Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, is investigating the increasing number of infomercials being aired featuring Cabinet members who are perceived to be presidential candidates.

Legarda, who addressed De Castro by his first name, said, “Nobody has a monopoly of talent and voice in this country,” adding that the P172 million spent on advertisements should have been used for low-cost housing.

De Castro, on the other hand, said his appearance in the Senate hearing on infomercials of Cabinet members was to explain the significant increase in housing loan borrowers of Pag-IBIG.

“I never promoted myself because I have been promoted,” he said.

“The question is ‘why should I promote Pag-IBIG?’ It is because the people are familiar with my voice. But I am not monopolizing this,” he said.

De Castro said his predecessors in the HUDCC and Pag-IBIG also appeared in the agency’s television ads, but it was only during his time that the housing loan availments and numbers of new members have increased.

“All of them (predecessors) made the infomercials but in my effort, it was the most successful and most effective,” he said.

“And for the first time, there was an increase in membership at 7.3 million and we are targeting 10 million members by 2010. Our purpose here is to promote the program,” De Castro said.

On the other hand, Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) CEO Jaime Fabiaña explained that the P172 million spent to advertise their agency’s new housing loan program resulted in P78-billion housing loan approvals from 2007 to June this year.

“In fact, the Fund’s advertising expenditure is very conservative, only around one-fifth of one percent measured in terms of the total housing loan approvals, ” Fabiaña told the hearing.

Fabiaña said Pag-IBIG started to reduce its housing interest rate to as low as six percent in early 2006 but the housing loan approvals “did not pick up,” amounting to only P16 billion in 2006. 

“The actual loan disbursements fell short of Pag-IBIG’s target for the year,” he said.   

In December 2007, the Fund launched an aggressive advertising campaign for its new housing loan program to announce its new low interest rates and extended repayment period with De Castro as endorser.

Fabiaña said De Castro did not receive a single centavo for appearing in the infomercials.

“Other agencies would pay through the nose just to get an endorser,” he added.

Fabiaña said the numbers’ increase shows that the ad campaigns have been effective.

“The increase in our collection and housing loan approvals has resulted in greater income for Pag-IBIG – P7.3 billion in 2007, P9.5 billion in 2008, and in 2009, we are on track to make P11.5 billion,” he said.

“This means greater dividends for our members, more funds for housing and better services for our over 7.4-million members worldwide,” Fabiaña said.