WORLD BANK TEAMS STUDYING PHILIPPINE LOAN REQUESTS
Two World Bank review teams are in the
Philippines to assess government requests for funding for an
expanded housing plan and an accelerated land reform program,
bank officials said.
    They told Reuters the housing program loan request is for
100 mln to 150 mln dlrs.
    The government has said it will ask for another 500 mln dlr
long-term loan from a World Bank-led consultative group of
multilateral and bilateral aid donors to partially fund its
land reform program.
    The officials said negotiations will start next month on
another 150 mln dlr loan sought by Manila to carry out reforms
in 14 major state-owned corporations.
    On Tuesday, the world bank approved two loans totalling 310
mln dlrs to help the country's economic recovery program.
    The bank was also studying Philippine proposals for loans
to finance geothermal and education projects, sources said.
    World Bank sources said the bank's lending to the
Philippines since 1957, including the latest loan, totalled 4.3
billion dlrs. The money has been spread out over more than 100
loans and about 1.2 billion dlrs remains undisbursed.
    The World Bank sources said the bank cancelled 450 mln dlrs
in loan commitments to the Philippines during the last three
years of President Ferdinand Marcos's rule. Marcos was toppled
by a military-civilian revolt in February 1986.
    "The loans were cancelled because the projects slated for
aid were not implemented properly," they said.
    The sources said the bulk of this week's loan would be used
to rehabilitate the state-owned Development Bank of the
Philippines (DBP) and the Philippine National Bank (PNB) which
are saddled with seven billion dlrs of non-performing assets.
 Reuter
