'TILL DEBT DO YOU TRAP

As good as your last pay, are customers shameless for "not paying" or are loan companies shameless for disrespecting?

Disclosure:  If you expect a post about our national debts, don't read this. This commentary content is NOT ABOUT DOMESTIC, OR FOREIGN DEBTS; OR ABOUT NATIONAL BUDGET BUT AN IN YOUR FACE LOOK AT HOW LOAN COMPANIES ARE IN THE COUNTRY.

One day two men came at our house to remind about a loan obligation which of course I cannot spell the details because they have been done on a private capacity as an individual.

But knowing fully how debtors come to behave in my country, I did not get surprised when I mentioned about laws of home privacy (it's just a mouthpiece alibi for them), and got callous, indifferent reaction from the debt collectors. 

I knew no prodding or convincing would make them agree to simply wait for online payment be done. 

Visits by loan collectors, no matter which side of the argument you sit on, must not be allowed in a country rigged with human rights violation in history.

It may not  be of the same gravity as in the 1980s, but locally, people are "inching" their way to ingress on private individual rights, all for the purpose of debt collection and guaranteed returns in business.

A glow over at previous "presence" of overanxious debt collectors could funnel one to a myriad of network of exposure to people who are hiding behind sim cards and mobile calls, even voice generated prompts to convey scare to erring debtors.

It is not an exaggeration that last year, it can be taken note of, that customer data can be accessed by many individuals not just one, to push the sanity of debt account holder to pay. 

Imagine an estimate of one loan account, can actually expose a customer to 36 minimum of sim card numbers or probably callers, who knows if these mobiles used  were registered.

Collectors call the customer round the clock to pay the remissed payment.  

The follow ups are without remorse and condescendingly done up to the early morning hours of Christmas and New Year.

Surmise to say that given such strategy of collection, a customer is no longer taken as a "dignified" human being, but that of a mere slave of debt, that must comply with sworn obedience to payment. 

That is how many Filipinos think, the locals with money right now.

Falter your debts and locals will have no filter in shaming you, and propagate a culture of shaming against individuals.  

Having debts  actually expose loan account holders to  more hatred and biased treatment in the local community.  

This is true even in payment of homeownership dues, where the gung-ho leaders or part time officials,  do make it a point to shame poor renters by letting all the people in the community join the process of shaming.

Collection is done on the streets or at home, where others can hear about the ordeal.  

Not in dignified homeowners association offices that "shoo  away renters" to track down fellow owners,  like a domestic help regarded low in Filipino communities.

There is no dignified secret when one owes money in the Philippines.  

One man spoke this well when he claimed that there will be no peace of mind  for as long as debts are not settled. 

Such tolerance for shaming against numbers, must not continue to lay the foundations for aspiring home subdivisions in luxe reputation or businesses wanting to get a slice of respect from the community.

The debt 'till you trap that others perpetuate against the lone workers, women disenfranchised by employment, and people who have no hold in local "gratify style" politics, must not cultivate a culture of shame to shatter reputation and names of individuals with debts

; to make themselves richer in the eyes of the  community, their followers, or their beloved spouse.

NRP Commentary