Senate commends KasamaKa initiative as an advocacy program for financial inclusion in barangays and LGUs

The Senate adopted today a resolution commending the KasamaKa initiative, a national grassroots-based advocacy program, which provides affordable access to inclusive digital finance for every barangay and local government unit.

Senator Bam Aquino, author of Senate Resolution No. 625, said the resolution seeks to steer Filipinos away from informal lenders by giving them access to reasonable cost of credit and introducing them to a complete suite of digital financial services.

"FINTQologies Inc. (FINTQ) spearheads the KasamaKa initiative, a community-based, self-help, income-generating ecosystem-building movement towards financial inclusion and financial literacy via a bottom-up approach," the resolution said.

FINTQ is engaged in the development of software and services related to or incidental to the business of e-money, electronic, and digital financial services including but not limited to mobile banking and payment.

Under the bill, KasamaKa aims to tap barangays to participate in the movement.

According to the resolution, bottom-up approach is a new way of going down the community level and giving opportunity to the common 'tao' to look after themselves by empowering and spreading the benefits of growth and development equitably among the people.

"This program is in accordance with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in its vision, by leapfrogging digital financial transactions in the country from the current one percent to a minimum of 20 percent by year 2020," the resolution added.

Meanwhile, the Senate also adopted a resolution commending Dr. Ricardo Orge for winning the 2017 Manila Water Foundation (MWF) Prize for Engineering Excellence.

Senate Resolution No. 641 was also authored by Senator Bam Aquino.

Orge, a research specialist of the Rice Engineering and Mechanization of the Philippine Rice Research Institute, was chosen for his notable contribution in the field of Agriculture through his Continuous-Type Rice (CtRH) Carbonizer project.

"The CtRH project was conducted to improve the system of processing rice hull into biochar. It was designed to recover the heat generated from the carbonization process with the intention of reusing it in various farm applications, opening up opportunities for additional income for rice farmers and reducing their dependency on fossil fuel," the resolution said.

The MWF prize for engineering excellence is sponsored by the Manila Water Foundation, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the Philippine Technological Council (PTC). (Olive Caunan)