WITH its corporate life expiring in 2013, legislators are pushing for a 50-year extension of the corporate existence of the Land Bank of the Philippines so that it can continuously replicate with greater dedication and visibility its past successes in countryside development.
In House Bill 4621, Party-list Rep. Cresente Paez and Rep. Jose Ping-ay of Coop-Natcco sought to extend LandBank’s corporate life when it expires on August 8, 2013.
LandBank is the country’s leading official government depository bank and belongs to the top 5 commercial banks in the country.
According to legislators, as of December 2010, the bank reported P565.72 billion of total assets and a net income of P8.108 billion. It had 326 branches all over the country as of April 30, 2011.
“LandBank is the biggest lender among cooperatives and the most important ally of the cooperative sector,” said Paez.
Paez said LandBank has provided the National Confederation of Cooperatives, a federation of rural and urban-based cooperatives with 1.6 million individual members, with a P500 million credit line.
The bank is now on its 48th year of operation since its creation in 1963 by virtue of Republic Act 3844, or the Agricultural Land Reform Code. From its original role as a financing arm of the Department Agrarian Reform, LandBank ventured into commercial banking.
The legislators urged LandBank to come up with policies favorable to the farmers and fisherfolk as many of them do not have access to the bank’s credit services due to stringent policies.
Paez, vice chairman of the House Committee on Agrarian Reform, said only 8 percent, or $2.5 million, was disbursed by LandBank out of the $30.4 million agricultural credit it should have provided to agrarian-reform beneficiaries under the Agrarian Reform Communities Project of the Asian Development Bank.
“We are optimistic that LandBank would intensify its dedication to serve the farmers, fisherfolk and other stakeholders and to fulfill its mandate of promoting countryside development,” the congressmen said.
