Therese A. Ong of Radiowealth Finance Co., Inc. is the New CMAP President for FY 2025-2026

Greetings and Introduction

Good afternoon, everyone. I hope everybody had a good hearty lunch.

Part of the ceremony is for me to welcome you and hopefully present some directions for this fiscal year for the Credit Management Association of the Philippines. To our esteemed Board of Trustees, Committee Chairpersons our dedicated Secretariat, past officers and trustees of the association, distinguished guests, our dear families and friends, and most importantly, to our fellow CMAP members, a warm and energized welcome to our first General Membership Meeting and induction of officers for the fiscal year 2025 and until 2026.

It is both an honor and a privilege to stand before you today as your president as we begin another chapter in the history of the association – a history marked by resilience, relevance, and shared pursuit of excellence in the credit and financial services industry. This year we gather under the timely and powerful theme “Igniting Synergy: Leading Together, Building Tomorrow”. We hope that this is more than just a slogan but also a call to action. Kanina sabi ni Hon. Heidi Mendoza diba? Are we just here for the socials? Ano ang gusto nating ambag as an association? So the theme speaks of our shared vision, our collective responsibility, and our commitment to move forward together.

Recognitions

Let me begin by giving due recognition to the immediate past board of trustees and Secretariat under the able leadership of our outgoing president Mr. Juancho Magpantay and the collective effort of all committee chairs and members. CMAP has made meaningful strides in strengthening our programs and reinforcing our role as a thought leader in the credit and finance industry.

To our CMAP Secretariat led by Miss Judy Tagle, thank you for your steadfast coordination and support. May I please ask the previous board of trustees and Secretariat to please rise and be acknowledged. Please give them a generous round of applause for all the work and effort that they did last fiscal year. Maraming Salamat Po.

Strategic Direction and Key Initiatives for F.Y. 2025-2026

As we build on a strong foundation that was laid last year by our previous board, allow me to present the strategic direction and key initiatives for fiscal year 2025 to 2026 with a vision to make CMAP a more responsive, future-ready, and inclusive organization that empowers credit professionals and business leaders, such as ourselves, to ignite synergy, lead together, and build tomorrow.

There are various committees in CMAP, and when I joined three years ago, it was only then that I learned about these various activities being done by the association. I would usually attend, (and) like most of you, I’ll be in one corner, eat a good lunch, enjoy the speaker, leave, and file OB. I think that that generally, especially if you’re younger, you were sent by your boss to represent the company here. But then when I joined, later on and became an officer, I realized there are a lot of activities and participation that we can actually do, and that is one of the things I’d like to call on everyone again.

Sabi nga diba ni Miss Heidi, “Are we just here for the socials?” I like that it struck me, that statement. So, gagawin nating relevant ang ating representation of our respective companies to the association. Hence, I’ll present to you some of the committees that we have that have been very active, and in the background, the visibility may not be there for all the members.

Membership Committee

First, we have the membership committee. They have initiated aggressive membership engagements resulting in a significant uptick in the new membership number. CMAP now currently has 500+ member companies from various sectors, including banking finance, sales, manufacturing, trading, and services. The membership committee also launched onboarding orientation for new members and reinvigorated lapses laps membership as a strategy for this fiscal year. We hope to focus on strengthening member engagement and growing our base, hopefully also in the other regions. Our presence is quite strong in Metro Manila but we hope to be able to reach membership also in the regions. We will target the onboarding of professionals in fintech cooperatives and digital leaders. We will also try to explore tie-ups with other financial lending and business associations, of which some of us are also members of, to reach out to potential members and ensure that CMAP’s network is inclusive and expansive.

Training and Education Committee

Another committee that has been very active the past years since I’ve been onboarded also with the board is the Training and Education Committee. I think this mostly you feel through the online and face-to-face trainings that we do. The committee has organized several high value learning sessions during the previous fiscal year such as “Fundamentals of Credit Fraud Detection and Prevention,” “Collections in the Digital Age,” “Property Appraisal,” with CPD credit units, “Remedial Legal Account Management,” and also offered free webinars covering “Data Subject Request Processes.” These seminars were consistently well-attended and rated highly in terms of feedback.

A new initiative last year by our Training and Education Committee was the “Credit Podcasts” so I hope that you would check our website You could view the podcasts that we have wherein we engage practitioners across the industries from fintech and rural banking to SME lending cooperatives and risk advisories. These are very good short snippets or narratives in relation to credit management and practices, so please do check our website for the podcast that we have, and we hope to continue with that activity as well as part of our Education Committee.

Following these initiatives, we envision CMAP to be a center or hub for learning and excellence. As such, we will expand the coverage of our training programs and modules and podcasts to areas beyond credit and financial management, that is, to customize training programs that will address the learning and development requirements of our other members from other industries, not just limited to credit, finance, and lending. This will require a lot of development of modular training programs and entail tapping subject matter experts on technical skills, leadership training compliance training, and the various many types of trainings and seminars that can be held. It is a handful and quite ambitious but remember I mentioned there’s more than 500 of you that we can actually refer to and tap as subject matter experts in this endeavor. Again, I call on your participation in this committee. We’re looking for other speakers but then I’m pretty sure there are a lot of speakers within your organizations that we can actually tap and speak before the membership to share their expertise.

Credit Information System Committee

Another committee wherein we have big plans for is the Credit Information or CIS Committee. In the past two years, there was a continued groundwork for the CMAP CIS initiative or what we refer to as the iCMAP 2 platform. The feasibility study has been done scoping, and initial consultations with stakeholders have also been completed. This paves the way already for the phase 1 implementation. The iCMAP 2 is designed to strengthen data sharing among members, improve risk management, and promote responsible lending. With the many bureaus that we’re looking at, especially for the those in the lending industry, of course you have CMAP, you have NFIs, you might have CIC. We want to be included in that organization and of course find our own niche and find our own expertise in terms of credit bureau management. The pilot testing is scheduled Q4 2025 or Q3. (Nilayo ko na nga Q4 eh, to manage expectations, para very good tayo pag Q4). Alright, so we will start with willing participants both from banks and non-banks, so please expect our chairman for the committee, Trustee Anchet Magpantay to reach out and to cascade the related activities for this pilot testing.

Social Involvement Committee

Next is Social Involvement Committee. For the last fiscal year, it has allowed CMAP to engage in meaningful and impactful outreach activities that make the association holistic and rooted in the community. In 2024, CMAP held outreach activities in Baguio City, in partnership with PCWorks, care of Former Trustee Mike Chua (the company is also a member of CMAP), where cash and in-kind donations were given to the Lucnab Child Development Center, with a courtesy call to the Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong. Further, the board of trustees visited Thrill of Hope in the city and gave monetary donations to children with severe illnesses. A special mention to former Trustee Mel Alvarez for spearheading the Social Involvement Committee for the past five years. She is now here also with us as our guest. For this fiscal year, CMAP shall continue to uphold this legacy, its commitment to nation building with relief and livelihood initiatives to underserved communities. Further, we shall strive for deeper involvement and participation again from our members. Ayaw na naming kami kami lang ng board and our guests so we would like to invite you as members to our corporate social responsibility activity that we will be having. There will be a planning session wherein specific plans for the social involvement will be drafted also and scheduled, so we invite you in terms of participation, maybe in terms of sponsorship and donations as well, or simply by accompanying us and sharing in the experience of giving back to our communities, especially the marginalized sector. So please expect us to reach out to you in the fulfillment of our social involvement endeavors. Again, it’s really a call for participation from all the members that we’d like to encourage for this year.

Program, Sports and Fellowship Committee

So in a related committee, we also have Program, Sports and Fellowship Committee. Last fiscal year, the committee managed to bring back intercompany camaraderie through a bowling tournament held at Paeng’s Midtown Bowling Center somewhere in Manila. Other fellowships included a Bingo Socials during the year the CMAP Christmas party. Who attended the Great Gatsby Fellowship Night last September at the Makati Shangri-la, where we featured our employees from your companies showcase their extraordinary talents through the CMAP Got Talent competition. I’m not sure if it was the first but it was the first time I actually witnessed some sort of program during the fellowship, and it was fun. Yung mga nakaattend dito no so recognizing the value of personal connections and well-being, we will continue our bowling activities. Maybe we might think of other sports later on during the planning session, and we will introduce new wellness tasks and maybe even other conversational topics beyond the boardroom that we always have to stay in during our work.

CMAP Office Project Committee

There’s a new committee that was created. We refer to it as the CMAP Office Project Committee. The association has embarked on the acquisition of a new office. We have established this new committee to oversee this task and the completion of it. Location study has been completed, budget and monetary allocations have been approved, and now the committee is overseeing the design development and construction of this new CMAP office in Makati. It is envisioned to be a hub for collaboration, training, innovation, and we hope to move into the new office within this fiscal year. So by that time, our chair Trustee Jess Pimentel will invite all of you for a similar occasion in our new office for the blessing.

National Credit Congress Committee

Last but not the least, I think most of you are familiar with this committee -the National Credit Congress Committee. It is the annual flagship and culminating event of CMAP held during the observance of the Credit Consciousness Week. The primary aim of this occasion is to promote positive credit awareness and discipline, not only in business and finance sector, but in the entire country as well. It is a venue for our members and keynote speakers to share current events, business trends, and innovations economic outlook. The best practices and compliance to regulations within the credit and financial landscape, the accompanying trade exhibit, (if you recall, we have this mini trade exhibit during our Congress) has expanded our network and provided opportunities for partnerships among our members. For this fiscal year, while we will still carry on with that activity, we shall aspire CMAP during the National Credit Congress where C is for collaborative, M is meaningful, A is ambitious, and P for pioneering. Hence, we shall aspire for a collaborative, meaningful, ambitious, and pioneering National Credit Congress in April 2026. We shall engage our participants in the dialogue, allow them to interact with our trade exhibitors. I think that is something we have to maximize and utilize. Let us appreciate our exhibitors during the Congress, maybe even gamify the event, in the interest of promoting connections and business transactions among ourselves. We want to generate business with good credit management if necessary during the course of the transaction. Shout out to the new chairman of the National Credit Congress, Trustee Rogel Sombilon. So we want a CMAP (collaborative, meaningful, ambitious, and pioneering) National Credit Congress in April.

Call to Action

Isinasaalang-alang ko na po ang board, including myself of course, for the work that they do. They’ve been doing a lot of hard work the past fiscal years. I guess it’s just not very visible, that’s why again, I call to invite everyone to participate to attend the programs to volunteer for the committees. It’s very limited manpower so it would be very helpful to have more hands working together for each of the communities, and I guess it’s up to the board to reach out to all our members as well.

To all our members stakeholders, board of trustees, again, CMAP is not just a venue for events. Again, going back to Hon. Heidi Mendoza’s statement earlier, let’s not just be here for the socials but also for a little work and a little participation, working for a common goal, which is to uphold credit integrity, empower financial inclusion, and support responsible growth. Help us to bring to fruition the advocacies of CMAP, and hopefully, everything that I have stated here, we are able to accomplish this year together with the board and everyone, so please participate actively in our programs, projects, and activities. Please do volunteer for the committees and also get engaged with each other. It’s an association so we have to associate ourselves with each other; rub elbows (sabi nga diba) with each other so that we can expand our network; and of course in the long run, we have to foster integrity and ethical standards at all times in our association. Let us ignite true synergy, lead today with purpose, and build a stronger CMAP tomorrow, rooted in innovation, collaboration, and responsibility. Maraming salamat, and mabuhay po tayong lahat!