All praises be to Almighty God, who guided us to weather ASA Philippines’ operations during this extremely challenging time of the pandemic.
My heartfelt gratitude goes to our late Chairman, Mr. Edward S. Go. His dedicated leadership at the Board has set an example of simplicity and humbleness, wisdom and compassion, and yet toughness in principles to lead our institution toward remarkable success. He was our Founding Chairman from July 9, 2004 until his death on September 18, 2021. We are forever grateful for his 17 years of extraordinary services. We will carry on his lessons and principles in life.
The year 2021 was not just a challenging year for us but it put us through a test of life and death. Besides the pandemic, we also experienced Super Typhoon Odette (international name “Rai”) which affected our operations in Visayas, Mindanao, and some parts of Luzon, yet our staff did not lose hope and gave their best efforts to provide cash relief assistance and reports on time. The commitment, risk-taking attitude and fighting spirit of our staff throughout the year led us to eventual recovery, and we came through the test with flying colors. I am grateful to our MFO heroes and their heroes for everything they have done for this great institution.
I am also grateful to three of our staff who succumbed to the COVID-19 infection -- AA Frederic Oliver Sol of MIS, BM Ana Marie Rio Alonzo of B0818 Panay, Capiz, and MFO Sarah Mae Laurel Sotto of B0713 Manticao, Misamis Oriental. Each of their life is a vivid example for all of us, of how a staff took the risk to serve our bosses. Their memories will remain alive with us for as long as ASA Philippines exists.
I would like to caution all my colleagues that we may have recovered our financial losses from the pandemic, however, our biggest losses are our write-off clients. It is our obligation to rehabilitate all 187 thousand write-off clients and bring them back to the system. We have already rehabilitated 10% of those bankrupt businesses, and our heartfelt gratitude goes to the staff who took the risk of recovering those clients’ businesses. Risk taking is in our DNA. So, congratulations to every single risk taker. Our challenge today is how do we bring back 90% of those 187,000 businesses to our system. The MalASAkit financing will play an important role in this critical task.
For everyone’s safety, good health and better livelihood, happy Nanays, happy staff and a prosperous Foundation!
Welcome to a progressive 2022!
MD KAMRUL HASAN TARAFDER
President and CEO
February 09, 2022