DTI programs help women entreps grow businesses

In line with the celebration of International Women’s Day, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Alfredo Pascual said the agency aims to level the playing field for women entrepreneurs through its programs. In a statement Wednesday,

Pascual said out of all registered businesses in the country, 313,608 of which belong to women.

The number is nearly 30 percent of the total 1.08 million registered establishments based on data of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

“In support of women entrepreneurs, the DTI provides alternative and accessible sources of financing through our financing arm —Small Business Corporation (SBCorp). SBCorp has already released about PHP1 billion worth of loans in support of

Unlike in Spanish rule when the sole religion was Roman Catholicism, under the US oc-cupation, following the arrival of an American pastor in 1903, paved the way for a denomi-national difference between the Jesuits, who administered the Davao region, and the Protestants.

In the Jesuit chronicles, the contentious conflict seemed to escalate in the second decade of American rule when Protestant conversions in areas tended by the priests became intense. Even in Davao town, the province’s administrative hub, the tension was palpable so much so that in one account the Protestant sect was labeled as “very perverse and active in its proce-dures.”

During the Spanish regime, the priests, chiefly Spaniards, did not have any rivals to con-tend with. The