If your home was damaged by this year’s super-storms, you probably want to rebuild and make your house liveable once more. But you don’t have enough funds, so you approach Pag-Ibig and ask for their help. After all, they are the biggest calamity loan provider in the country. 600,000 Filipinos have turned to Pag-Ibig Fund to request for calamity loans and the good news is that most of their applications were approved. P9.3 billion has released by the home financing institution to date, and they anticipate disbursements to reach P10 billion by end of December 2009. So if you’re a card-carrying member of Pag-Ibig Fund, it’s very likely that you’ll get your calamity loan approved unless:

1) You have given less than 24 monthly contributions. This is the minimum number required for borrowers to qualify for a loan.

2) You have not been remitting your Pag-Ibig contributions and have become an inactive Home Development Mutual Fund Member. In order to qualify for a calamity loan, you should have made at least five monthly contributions in the last six months. If your loan gets approved, you and your employer need to keep remitting contributions throughout the duration of the loan term.

3) Your monthly net pay is lower than P3,000

If you do get your calamity loan approved, remember than the maximum term of loan repayment is 24 months.

Good luck!

Aside from making sure that your home insurance covers the Acts of God clause, Typhoon Ondoy has one more important implication for Philippine real estate: from today onwards, new homebuyers will only consider elevated properties. People will now be more conscious about the safety features of the properties they plan to invest in, not so much safety from robbers and pollution, but from natural calamities.

Floods from previous typhoons usually affect marginalized sectors of the city and other areas located near rivers and creeks. In the news, we’ve seen how riverside neighborhoods in Pasig, Marikina, and Cainta were most heavily damaged by the flood. However, not all of these neighborhoods were poor; in fact, many middle-class villages like Providence were among the most badly hit by the flood. Even upper class neighborhoods in Metro Manila like Corinthian Gardens, Loyola Grand Villas, and North and South Forbes Park took their own hit from the flood. In other words, the city’s inferior drainage system, lack of urban planning, and increasing amounts of non-biodegradable wastes now make formerly flood-proof areas susceptible to flood damage.

Those who are looking to buy properties should make sure their new home is located on hills and elevated roads, or neighborhoods far from rivers and creeks. Although living in a condominium will generally keep your home and personal belongings safe from the flood, a condominium located in a flood-prone area will eventually accumulate structural damage and weaken over time. Make sure you verify that a property is flood-free before you buy or rent them, so that you don’t have to worry about losing your belongings or the lives of your loved ones.

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