Know The Process And The Risks Of Debt Settlement Beforehand

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Debt collectors and attorneys for debt collections may still continue to hound you for asking to make your payments that you have stopped.

If you want to make your debt settlement process a success, you will need to know the risks that you may face apart from the working process of it. In simple terms, debt settlement is one of the most popular strategies of finance industry wherein a negotiation is initiated between the creditor and the borrower finding it difficult to pay off the debt to that particular creditor.

As a result of this negotiation, an agreement is arrived in which the creditor accepts a lower amount than the actual debt balance as full payment and the debt is cancelled. Simple! Well, it is not that simple at all.

Why? Because:

A debt settlement negotiation may or may not be initiated by the creditor especially when there is a third party negotiator involved

The amount that you or your debt settlement company offer to the creditor may not be accepted

When you stop making payments to your creditor in this process it will damage your credit score which is why most people having a good credit avoids this process

Debt collectors may still continue to hound you for asking to make your payments that you have stopped

The creditors may still sue you for not paying and if they win they may even garnish your wage to recover their money for unsecured loans and confiscate the collateral for secured loans

The escrow account created by the debt settlement company needs to be managed well and the company will charge you a monthly fee for that matter along with their original service fees making the debt settlement process costly

There is a fair enough chance of being duped by scam debt settlement companies if you are not careful with your selection and do not compare the debt settlement ratings for that matter

It can take a long time, anything between two to four years to reach to a settlement and accomplish it and

It can take years after a successful debt settlement just to discover that you owe some tax on your forgiven debt as per the Internal Revenue Service clause.

Therefore, with all such risks involved, debt settlement should be your last resort, in spite of its benefits.

Limits of debt settlement

There is no way in which you can opt for debt settlement right away. There are a few limitations for this process to come into play.

Typically, debt settlement process is not possible unless there are not any skipped or late payments and unless it is a potential collection account. However, deliberate failures will not facilitate debt settlement.

The creditor has to believe that you really are in a state of financial crisis and it is better to accept what you can afford and offer rather than lose the entire sum if you file for bankruptcy down the road. If they believe that you can pay the full amount that you agreed to originally, they will not settle your account.

Debt settlement is the most suitable option for unsecured debt such as credit cards. You will not be able to settle a few specific types of debts such as federal student loans or a secured loan on a house that can be foreclosed on or even a car loan as it can be repossessed.

Add to that, debt settlement offers will only work when you open a separate savings account and stop making payments to your creditor and instead pay a monthly sum in to this specific savings account to build a substantial amount of money which the debt settlement company can offer to your creditor as a lump sum offer for a reduced debt amount.

This means, when debt settlement does not work you will need to look for other available options to repay your debt. These options includes taking on a debt management plan as an income based repayment plan or taking on a debt consolidation loan.

No guarantees for success

When you opt for debt settlement you take on a lot of risks because there is no guarantee for the success of this process. Moreover, even if the creditor allows settling your debt for a lower amount, there is no clear cut process for its success. Often scam companies will advertise that they will reduce your debts by as much as 50% and make you debt free within three years but the fact can be far from it.

Considering the facts and statements of two of the largest debt settlement companies namely, National Debt Relief and Freedom Debt Relief it is found that no more than $8 billion in debt has been settled by the for about 450,000 clients since 2002. This figure may be substantial but they still do not guarantee success for debt settlement considering the fact that a few of the creditors do not even negotiate with them.

Another research conducted by a nonprofit research and policy group The Center for Responsible Lending it is found that at least four of the loan accounts of most the consumers needed to be settled to gain the net benefit. In addition to that there is always the risk of the debt total rising due to fees accrued and therefore aggressive collection attempts still continued in most of the cases even after the loans were under consideration for settlement.

If you are already a delinquent customer you will be badly hit if you opt for debt settlement. This is because the reports of delinquent accounts stay on the credit reports for several years when the lenders report that the debt has been charged off.

Therefore, you must consult a reputed credit counselor before you take on debt settlement as your option to prevent the risks. However, every debt relief option may come with its significant amount of risk. It is for this reason you are advised to take on as much debt as you can afford to repay back on time and not fall behind. Following a proper household budget is the most prudent way to manage your finance, debt and your mental peace.

DOST-SEI Urges Sci, Math Teachers to Join Innovation Contest

Wazzup Pilipinas!

A student from the Philippine Science High School-Central Visayas Campus flies drone to collect data on different environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure and gas concentration.

To catch up with a rapidly changing educational landscape, teachers are embracing new roles as innovators and designers of learning environment.

This is the idea behind “InnoBox” or Innovation in a Box, a nationwide search for the most innovative teaching and learning resources (TLR) which can be used in teaching both science and mathematics.

The competition, organized by the Department of Science and Technology – Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI), is open to all public and private elementary and secondary school teachers who are currently teaching science and/or mathematics. It aims to encourage teachers to be innovative, creative, and practical in teaching science and math concepts to improve students’ performance in the subjects.

“We’re always on the lookout for teachers who are keen on improving science and math education in the country,” says DOST-SEI Director Dr. Josette Biyo. DOST-SEI, known for implementing various DOST scholarship programs, recognizes the crucial role of educators in strengthening science and technology in the country. 

DOST Undersecretary for S&T Services, Dr. Carol Yorobe (rightmost), and DOST-SEI Director, Dr. Josette Biyo (leftmost) with one of the winners of the 1st InnoBox competition, Marc Vener Del Carmen of Congressional Integrated High School, Dasmariñas, Cavite.


Now on its second run, InnoBox continues to challenge science and math teachers to come up with ideas for more engaging learning experience in the classroom. Nine teachers/group of teachers (three per category) will be given P50,000 each to develop their project prototype, while top three winners (one per category) will receive a plaque of recognition and P100,000 each.

DOST-SEI invites all qualified teachers to submit proposals in any of the following search categories: Grades 3-6; Grades 7-10; and Grades 11-12. The deadline for submission of proposals is on July 12, 2019. For details, interested parties may go to www.sei.dost.gov.ph or email the InnoBox Secretariat at innobox.seidost@gmail.com.

How a Filipino Scientist is Making Headlines in Culturing Marine Herbivores

Wazzup Pilipinas!

While the private sector is focusing on the culture of highly-prized carnivorous species, Filipino scientist Doctor Westly Rivera Rosario and his team have been busy developing new culture methods for herbivorous marine finfish. After perfecting the culture of Milkfish (Chanos chanos) and creating marine-tolerant strains of Tilapia (Oreochromis spp.), he and his team have now succeeded in developing a hybrid Rabbitfish (Siganus spp.) with a higher growth rate and improved disease resistance.

Globally, the culture of carnivorous marine finfish and crustaceans receives the most interest from constitutional investors, with species groups like sea bass, salmon and shrimp showing double-digit growth rates. These species are enjoying high demand from western and Chinese customers and fetch relatively high prices. Their culture however comes with high environmental impacts. Large amounts of fishmeal are typically required as feeds, and it is estimated that at present, a quarter of all fish landed globally – a whopping 21 million tons annually – are caught for the fishmeal industry.

With the planet facing a global environmental crisis, improving the sustainability of our farming methods is critical. Together with more efficient ways of farming fish, a serious part of the solution is to critically consider just which species we should be farming.

Though it is definitely an option to develop vegetarian and lower-impact diets for farmed carnivorous species, shifting away from top predators like salmon and sea bass to herbivorous fish and shellfish would maybe constitute a far more logical solution? Bivalves for example, require no external inputs to be farmed. Due to their massive filtration capacities, their culture actually has a positive effect on the water quality around farms. Similarly, the culture of marine herbivores has a significantly lower impact on the environment surrounding fish farms. When stocked at low densities, there is also the potential to culture herbivore finfish without external inputs. This has been common practice for the culture of carp in freshwater habitats and Milkfish in backwater fishponds for centuries across Southeast Asia.

Aside from lower environmental footprints, culturing marine herbivores is crucial for ensuring food security in developing countries surrounded by vast amounts of seawater like Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

In the Philippines, an island-nation of over 7000 islands, finfish play an important role in the daily diet of people living in rural communities. With a population exceeding 100 million people, large amounts of fish must be produced. Since the Philippines has limited freshwater resources but nigh-endless coastal marine areas, the country’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has for years been wisely focusing on promoting the culture of marine herbivores. Their main focal point has been the culture of Milkfish, with the Philippines now producing around 400.000 tons annually, making it the country’s top aquaculture species in terms of volume.

Dr. Westly Rosario, lead scientist for BFAR’s aquaculture research station in the province of Dagupan (read more about their facility here) is one of the scientists behind the successful culture of Milkfish. In recent years however, he and his team also saw the need to diversify the country’s aquaculture sector. For the past years, they have been putting a lot of effort in the culture of Rabbitfish. Actually, as he explains, it was his father who first experimented with and saw the potential of these fish.

Rabbitfish (Siganus spp.) are medium-sized herbivorous fish native to the Indo-Pacific region, thriving in coastal areas. Some species prefer brackish-water mangrove habitats while others live in and around coral reefs. Locally known as Danggit and Samaral, these fish are very popular and sought-after food fish. As Dr. Westly explains, “the Philippines is the top producer of wild-caught and cultured Rabbitfish with annual landings of around 30.000 metric tons (MT).The demand for export within Southeast Asia and other markets like Hawaii is very high.  However, few Filipinos are raising Rabbitfish due to the low supply of fingerlings and un-disseminated technology. Their popularity as food fish is leading to the decline of their numbers in the wild.”

About 10 years ago Dr. Westly and his team started working to close the lifecycle of these fish in captivity. Eight years ago, they successfully cultured two of the most commercially-interesting candidates, the Golden Rabbitfish (Siganus guttatus) and the Maze Rabbitfish (Siganus vermiculatus), for the first time. Both species are popular food fish, growing to about 50 centimeters with a maximum weight of one kilogram for the first and two kilograms for the latter. Fresh, they fetch around PHP 325 per kilogram farm gate (USD 6.20), and PHP 380 per kilogram retail (USD 7.20), which in comparison is almost double the price of Milkfish.

Pictures 1 and 2 the Golden Rabbitfish (Siganus guttatus) and the Maze Rabbitfish (Siganus vermiculatus)

Their experimental hatchery is now achieving very reasonable survival rates of 5% from larvae to fry sizes in 45 days. The fry are stocked in nursery ponds and reach fingerling size in about 90 days. Fingerlings can then be further cultured in brackish-water ponds, pens or floating sea cages. In lower densities, the fish can be fed with filamentous algae, seaweed and sea grass which grow luxuriously in brackish-water ponds. However for large culture volumes, a local plant-based pellet feed that ensures good growth and survival rates, has already released by local feed producer Tateh Feeds. Fish can be harvested at 250 grams within five or six months of culture from fingerling size.

Rabbitfish are also ideal candidates for polyculture systems as they are non-aggressive and feed mostly on filamentous algae and other vegetation. In the Philippines they are already co-cultured with both Milkfish and shrimp. They have also been experimentally co-cultured with grouper, with small numbers of Rabbitfish added to grouper cages to keep the floating nets relatively free of algae and seaweeds.

To further improve growth and survival rates, Dr. Westly explains how he came up with the idea of developing a hybrid between the Golden Rabbitfish and the Maze Rabbitfish. This took some trial and error as S. guttatus spawns during the first quarter of the lunar calendar, while S. vermiculatus spawns during the last quarter (as the team later found out, the hybrids will only spawn during a new moon). These findings on lunar cycles will enable Rabbitfish hatcheries to maximize production year-round. These hybrids should grow better than the parent species because of hybrid vigor and show stronger disease resistance while fetching the same price in fresh fish markets. However, some questions remain on the potential of these hybrids escaping and reproducing in the wild. It is important to never let this happen.

Pictures 3 and 4: 2 different crossbreeds of the Golden Rabbitfish (Siganus guttatus) and the Maze Rabbitfish (Siganus vermiculatus)

Despite the strong foundations laid down by Dr. Westly and his team, the Philippines was still producing a paltry 303 tons of Rabbitfish through aquaculture in 2018, however this is almost 90% of global production, plus the figure is up 56%  compared to the 194 tons produced in the country in 2017.

It cannot be denied that the culture of lower-trophic marine herbivores like Rabbitfish has enormous potential to feed the world’s steadily-ballooning population, while simultaneously reducing the environmental footprint of the food we produce. This is a path more aquaculturists and investors should explore. This article was first published on The Fish Site.

By Jonah van Beijnen (VB Consultancy Head) and Gregg Yan (Best Alternatives Head)