Cebuano dried fish vendor, national awardee of Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year

MINERVA BC NEWMAN

CEBU CITY – A dried fish vendor from Medellin, Cebu-- Luzviminda Sunit was named as Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year National Awardee for Central Visayas with nine other Filipino microentrepreneurs, was honored at the virtual ceremony of the 18th Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards on June 15, 2021 celebrating her success in business that paved the way for the realization of her dreams, including owning properties and the completion of her children’s education.

                                  

Nanay Luz as she is fondly called recalled how she started her journey. “I would take the basin full of fish and peddle it around town to make a sale and in 1975 she eventually ventured into making dried fish or “buwad” with an initial capital of P4,000.

With her determination, optimism and confidence, Nanay Luz was able to meet people and institutions that helped and pushed her to get a loan from the First Agro-Industrial Rural Bank (FairBank) in Bogo City, Cebu to expand her dried fish business.

FairBank is an affiliate of City Savings Bank (CitySavings) which focuses to address the needs of rural communities by offering banking services for micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) like Nanay Luz.

Since then, Nanay Luz’s business soared with her products now available in the local public markets of Medellin and Bogo City as well as in Leyte. She now has over 20 workers, including some who lost their regular jobs during the pandemic. 

The success of Sunit’s business also paved the way for the realization of her dreams.  Her resilience is another trait that has been synonymous with Nanay Luz that even when the current public health crisis struck, she was unperturbed and instead became more innovative in her business approach.

“We had to shift to delivering directly to our customers to make better sales,” she said.

Her journey has become an inspiration to other SMEs.  She is a pride of the Visayas as she received the distinction from BSP governor Benjamin Diokno and Citi Philippines chief executive officer Aftab Ahmed.

Diokno, in his message during the virtual awards cited the awardees as purveyors of hope and perseverance in these challenging times. “We take this occasion to recognize our microentrepreneurs who, despite the odds, have shown great resourcefulness, courage, and resilience to flourish amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” Diokno said.

Nanay Luz on her part advised aspiring entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams and there are individuals like her and institutions like FairBank who will lend a helping hand.

“Ang ganahan mag-negosyo atong tabangan ug tagaan nato og puhunan,” Nanay Luz said. (We will help those who want to start their own business and provide them with capital.)

Despite her success, she never fails to look back to where she started and express her gratitude to FairBank, the institution that guided and supported her for the past 17 years.

FairBank on the hand cited Nanay Luz as a testament to the achievement of its corporate pursuit of better lives and brighter future.

 It is a distinct privilege for FairBank to have been a part of the success of CMA National Awardee Luzviminda Sunit in growing her microenterprise over the years. She was able to nurture a dried fish backyard venture into a prosperous trans-island operation,” FairBank president and CEO William Amado Castaño said.

The Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards (CMA) is a nationwide search for outstanding microentrepreneurs in the country, organized by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Citi Philippines, and the Microfinance Council of the Philippines, Inc. and was launched in 2002.