The Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF), or Pag-IBIG Fund, and the Southern City Colleges (SCC) on Saturday entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a housing village in this city for the latter’s employees.

The village will be established on a 1.2-hectare lot owned by the school located in Sitio Tala, Barangay Boalan, this city.

Fermin Sta. Teresa Jr., Pag-IBIG Fund Senior Vice President for the Business Development Sector, said that under the MOU, Pag-IBIG would pay for every house the SCC would build for its employees.

In return, Sta. Teresa said, the SCC employee, who is a member of Pag-IBIG Fund, will pay the HDMF a monthly amortization based on the terms of the availed loan.

He said the maximum loan term each Pag-IBIG member could avail of is thirty years.

“The members will pay us (over the) long term, with a very liberal loan term, especially the interest rate, which is the lowest in the market,” Sta. Teresa said, adding that the owner of the house can also avail of additional loans if they wish to undertake home improvement.

Edwin Caliolio, SCC president, said it has been the dream of the school management to provide its employees with decent shelters.
Caliolio said they were going to build 57 housing units for the employees of SCC in Sitio Tala, Barangay Boalan.

“This signing of the MOU is a milestone,” he said, citing that SCC is the first educational institution “to do this in Zamboanga.”

Mae-zelle Timbreza, SCC guidance counselor, expressed gratitude to Caliolio for initiating the project.
Timbreza noted that building a house is not only time-consuming but is also costly.

“This project, the SCC Village, it will give us an opportunity to own our own house,” Timbreza said, citing “owning one is not easy.”

The signatories of the MOU, aside from Caliolio and Sta. Teresa, were SCC Board Secretary Ariel Caliolio; Western Mindanao State University Faculty Union president Al-Ghani Mohammad; and Pag-IBIG Fund Business Development Department Manager III Cesar Bazan.

The MOU signing was followed by the groundbreaking ceremony and the unveiling of the SCC Village plan. (PNA)