BDO Foundation focuses on educating Filipinos on saving and investing
The Sy family’s BDO Foundation, Inc. is built on advocacies, partnerships and volunteerism, but mostly, it is about financial inclusion and educating Filipinos about saving money, taking care of their finances and improving livelihood.
BDO Foundation is part of the SM Group of Companies’ four sister foundations, with the other three as the SM Foundation, Henry Sy Foundation (named after the Sy patriarch and founder) and Felicidad T. Sy Foundation.
The SM Group’s bank-linked foundation has 28 partner institutions including SM Foundation, and other private-run entities, and the most significant and obvious partner is the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
Recently, the BSP-BDO Foundation partnership launched the financial education program for the uniformed and civilian personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
Mario A. Deriquito, president of BDO Foundation, said the primary aim for the tripartite partnership – other than the umbrella financial education program for all AFP personnel – is to enable AFP personnel to acquire the knowledge, skills and tools to manage their financial future and “contribute to the transformation of the AFP” and that “once done, financial education will be embedded in the training programs of (our) soldiers.”
About 140,000 uniformed and civilian personnel of the AFP will be included in the program to “combat unhealthy money habits and achieve personal financial freedom.” The AFP Transformation Roadmap, at this point, considers financial wellness as a key cornerstone of the “personal scorecards” of AFP personnel, according to BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno.
“(The) BSP is happy to include AFP personnel as a key target sector of our financial education programs,” said Diokno. “Through this partnership (with BDO) we hope to trigger a chain reaction to ultimately ensuring that every uniformed and civilian personnel will develop healthy attitudes, skills and behaviors towards money.”
“We are waging a war against low levels of financial inclusiveness,” he stressed, adding that for the AFP, it is necessary for soldiers to be financially secure “as they are charged with the significant task of keeping our country peaceful and secure.”
Deriquito agreed and that BDO will help the government “build a strong, world-class Armed Forces that is a source of national pride.” He said that it is important for the army and the navy make good financial decisions and know to pick the right financial choices.
It is a gradual change that they are aiming for. “It will take a long time for us to realize our goals, we still have to enrich the materials that we are going to develop (and) we have to develop more to cover other topics not yet covered by the initial materials. And then we will do training of trainors,” said Deriquito. BDO will depend on the AFP to designate the trainers.
“What I like about the program is it is not a one-shot deal type of program. It will be continuing because the modules on financial education will be embedded into the AFP regular training programs for each personnel and therefore it will benefit not only the present officers and personnel but also those who will join the AFP in the future,” said Deriquito.
“It’s a long process,” he added. “It will require a lot of effort and a lot of time but we are very happy to do this for the soldiers of our country who are tasked to protect us.”
What’s next for BSP-BDO
The BSP and BDO Foundation are embarking on several partnerships. Diokno said what’s next is to forge a collaboration for the financial education of all the micro SMEs or MSMEs and for the workers of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.
The objective is to build a “sustainable and scalable” financial education programs that can support the establishment of a financially-literate nation and “enabling every Filipino to make prudent financial decisions and contribute more productively to the Philippine economy.”
“So far, we have partnered with DepEd (Department of Education) to integrate financial education (in all levels). For civil services, we’ve incorporated financial education (in their system) and included financial education in civil servant eligibility assessments. Also in partnership with OWWA (Overseas Workers and Welfare Administration), we standardize financial education messages for use in the mandatory orientations for OFWs and their families. And all of these are supported by the BDO Foundation,” said Diokno.
In addition, the partnership targets the underserved financial sectors like MSMEs and beneficiaries of the government conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs. The partnership hopes to soon engage firefighters.
The AFP program is only the latest endeavor. Previous and ongoing programs with other government agencies such as the DepEd cover learners who go through K to 12 curriculum, as well as DepEd teachers and nonteaching personnel. They also have an ongoing program for the employees of the Civil Service Commission.
Financial education programs will not be complete without a specific program for overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). The BSP and BDO has a partnership with the OWWA for OFWs and their families.
“(This is) just a subset of a bigger partnership between BDO and many groups, if we succeed in what we’re trying to do (it would be monumental),” said Diokno.
The AFP program includes 140,000 army, navy, and the air force. The “relatable” financial education tools via the AFP capacity building programs were not only for the army but also to the entire Armed Forces, including the Philippine Air Force and Philippine Navy.
The DepEd program is expected to reach almost 28 million learners as of school year 2019-2020 and about 800,000 teachers.
With OWWA, this program will reach more than 14 million overseas Filipinos or the OFWs and their families. There’s another 1.8 million civil servants that will benefit from a BSP-BDO Foundation financial education program, as well as 1.2 million BPO workers.
The DSWD-monitored CCT beneficiaries – about 10 million – are also covered in one of the partnership programs. With the Department of Trade and Industry, for MSMEs, the BSP-BDO Foundation tie up is also planning to involve at least 1,000 NEGOSYO Centers initially.