Loans of the local banking system to the country's education sector have been on a general steady decline over the past 19 months, available data of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas show.
The education sector's share was only 0.4 percent of the P46.83 trillion the country’s banks lent to industries and consumers since January 2010.
From a high of P11.98 billion in loans in April 2010, educational institutions got only P9.01 billion last July 2011.
Since January 2010, the education sector got P190.34 billion in bank financing compared to the P7.06 trillion the manufacturing sector got as loans from the banks.
The aggregate size of education sector loans was also a tiny fraction of credit card debt of P2.19 trillion and auto loans of P1.05 trillion, also since January last year.
The only other sector that got less financing from the banks was the fishing industry, which received only P67.53 billion in loans. — Earl Victor Rosero
