THE DEPARTMENT of Education has raised the ceiling of the provident fund loan of teachers and non-teaching personnel to assist them with their financial needs.

“Even as we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of this public health situation, we are determined to implement financial policies that can help our teachers and personnel fully recover from the impact of the pandemic,” Education Secretary Leonor Briones said.

Under the amended guidelines, an employee can borrow as much as P300,000.

The ceiling for a multi-purpose loan was raised to P100,000 and for an additional loan, P200,000.

The fund’s beneficiaries are teaching and non-teaching personnel from central, regional, division, and other field offices of the department who have permanent and regular status of employment and who are subjected to official payroll deductions.

“By adjusting the ceiling of additional PF loan for extreme cases by P100,000, we have provided our DepEd Regional Provident Fund Chapters more flexibility to assist our field personnel on their financial needs,” Undersecretary for Finance Annalyn Sevilla said.

In the amended increase for both types of loans, the contractual interest rate is 6 percent per annum. It may be paid from one to five years, depending on the capacity to pay of the borrower, which is subject to the net take-home pay requirement set under the Authorized Deductions, General Provisions of the Annual General Appropriations Act.