The Home Development Mutual Fund or PAG-IBIG Fund has cut interest rates on its housing loans packages to as low as six percent to low-income members for the second time this year.

However, the PAG-IBIG office in Oriental Negros has yet to receive the go-signal for the implementation of the cut-down rates.

"We are still adapting the same rates and guidelines at present," Julio Carmel Alfarero, Pag-IBIG Fund Provincial Officer-in-Charge, said. Alfarero said that they have learned of the new housing loans but they still have to get the official communication for the set of guidelines He added that their office may receive the policies by next week.

Vice President Noli De Castro, chairman of Pag-IBIG Fund Board, who approved the rate deduction, said that loan packages up to P300,000 will have an interest of six percent from the previous rate of nine percent "This is our early Christmas gift to the minimum wage earners and government workers," De Castro said, stressing that the new interest rates would have the biggest effects on housing loan packages valued up to P500, 000.

All housing loan packages will now have a maximum term of 30 years. Under the old guidelines, loans over P750, 000 up to P2 million had a maximum payment period of only 20 years. He added that the new rates would apply to new loan applicants, and not on existing loans.

The target-beneficiaries for loans of P500, 000 are employees classified as Teacher I, Police Officer I, and security guards, De Castro said.*

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