PSHF

At the tender age of eight, Rosalie Yanoc and her older brother Diolando started working alongside their parents on a sugarcane plantation in order to help earn for the family. "Pangampo" or working on a sugarcane farm was their only way to earn a living and so the more people in the family working on the sugarcane farm, the better. Later on, when Rosalie was 12 years old, her mother arranged for her to work as a servant for a well-off family in the town center of Santa Catalina. Unfortunatelay, her employer suspected her of stealing and so she quit and went back to working on the sugarcane fields. Eventually she came to know Marvin Yanoc who was to become her husband. 

Rosalie's parents were very poor whilst Marvin's parents owned a big tract of land in their village in Manlawaan. They (Marvin's parents) were thus displeased when they found out about their son's relationship with Rosalie. Marvin however was persistent and he married Rosalie against his parents' wishes. (They did forgive him before his wedding day.) He and Rosalie have three children,  all girls: Jinky (19), Fern Ann (10) and Sunshine (2). They live in a dirt-floored bamboo house which Marvin himself built, about a hundred yards away from his parents' house. 

Marvin was given a half-hectare piece of land to till by his parents. He has planted it with coconuts, and very recently, a small vacant portion with sugarcane. Aside from farming, Marvin has carpentry skills and occasionally he gets hired to build or repair a house, church or school. When there are no carpentry or farming jobs to do, he cuts sugarcane or ploughs a field. As for Rosalie, she supplements Marvin's income by working in a sugarcane farm, either planting or weeding. Occasionally, she also sells snacks such as hot cakes. She used to sell salted as well as sugar-coated peanuts, and even peanut brittle, but she stopped because she spent her capital when her youngest child, Sunshine (2) got sick. She would like to revive this project, hence her application for a loan from the PSHF.

Rosalie needs a new skillet to make her peanut treats. She also would like to buy peanuts in bulk - two sacks weighing 30 kilos each, as well as cooking oil and sugar. She has applied for a loan of 3,000 pesos which will enable her to buy the above items. She will go house to house to sell her treats as well as leave some with sari-sari (variety store) owners. She projects a monthly net income of 1,400 pesos (US$33), a portion of which she will save in order to build a toilet at home. She is hoping that the PSHF will enable her set to up her peanuts project again.                                                       

Bernadette G. Togado
PSHF Negros Oriental
April 2012