Date: October 24, 2025 | 9AM-1PM
Venue: 8F Social Hall, PGH Central Block Building
Author: Sofia Ysabelle C. Julia
Human Resource Development Office
Handling money requires more than the surface knowledge taught in homes or schools. Aside from spending it, saving, investing, or insuring money are one of the many things one can do to safekeep their assets. With the emergence of digital technology, monetary transactions also began shifting to ease the method of doing these services to its constituents. As years go by, more and more ways to keep money from flowing smoothly and safely into their accounts have risen and dominated the money market. However information of these advancements are not easily disseminated even among employees who also keep a steady source of income.
In order to educate the UP Manila employees on ways to handle their finances, the UP Manila Human Resource Development Office, in partnership with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance, hosted the Financial Literacy Hub & Training on October 24, 2025, from 9AM to 1PM, located at the 8F Social Hall of the UP-PGH. In this training, a resource speaker was invited to talk about financial literacy and several private and government banks were also invited to put up booths and discuss their services to the attendees, enabling them as well to open bank accounts should it interest them.
To kick off the training, a poignant opening message was delivered by Mr. Michael Antonio F. Mendoza, the HRDO Director of UP Manila. He reiterated the importance of being financially literate, and learning ways how to safekeep our financial resources. He also pointed out to maximize this training to inquire directly from banks so that they will be informed and be more literate when it comes to handling their money.
Afterwhich, the guest speaker for this training, Dr. Johanna Patricia D. Adevoso-Cañal, Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance, began her talk by sharing her life story in relation to financial literacy. She specified her experiences into two major lessons in verbatim: (1) magpakatotoo ka, and (2) to hone one’s discipline and EQ
She also encouraged the attendees to actively think about their spending habits, asking them straightforward questions about the usual expenditures (e.g., buying drinks at Starbucks, media and network subscriptions, etc.) and requesting them to compute using their phone calculator, so they can actually gauge their financial discipline. Dr. Cañal also extended beyond her talk by teaching how to evaluate one’s financial assets and liabilities while also giving out relatable life advice on how to deal with those. Several features were mentioned in this part: when buying clothes, shoes, phones, cars, house, enrolling your child in a public or private school, working in government, engaging in paluwagan, investing funds in businesses, and having credit cards. She emphasized the need to have a higher EQ or specifically, the ability to delay gratification, in order to create better financial habits and security.
Lastly, to add up on what Mr. Mendoza stated in his message, Dr. Cañal highlighted once again to utilize this opportunity to ask the important questions such as regarding the maintaining balance, the duration of loans and insurances, the coverages, and more, so they themselves can build an idea on which bank offers the best services that caters to their needs.
The Land Bank of the Philippines or simply LandBank, one of the invited banks in this training, took the opportunity to tackle financial literacy as well as introduce their services that can help its members to reach their financial goals. Mr. Bonifacio B. Dela Cruz Jr. and Mr. Gryan Kenneth L. Soriano, Marketing Specialists of Landbank, began discussing the different savings accounts offered by LandBank.
Lastly, Mr. Jason Jommel B. Pabelonia discussed the remaining loans offered by LandBank which are auto loans and vehicle loans. He also expounded on the topic of credit cards and credit score, as well as the common fraud scams found among banks and the ways an individual can do to prevent it.
Once the training session ended, the booths finally commenced and were attended by the employees. The five (5) invited banks for this hub were Land Bank of the Philippines, Philippine National Bank, Development Bank of the Philippines, Banco De Oro or BDO, and Bank of the Philippine Islands or BPI. All five banks offered employees the opportunity to open a bank account or a credit card account with their chosen bank. Some of the banks like BPI and BDO also showcased their insurance plans to interested employees. In addition, this training allowed these banks to endorse their mobile banking products, should they have one, so that employees will be informed of the services they can avail once they have the mobile application installed on their phones.
A number of employees took the chance to open their accounts on this day with the supervision of the staff of their chosen banks. The hall was filled with meaningful discussions with regard to banking responsibilities and opened the floor for inquiries if they already have accounts with the invited banks for the day.
A total of 67 attendees joined the training and inquired about the services and accounts offered by the invited banks.
The Learning and Development Section of the UP Manila HRDO strives to deliver training programs and caravans that are both conducive and beneficial to our fellow UP Manila constituents. Look out for more exciting updates on events that we’ve got for you here at our website!