CEDAW/C/PHI/4 English Page 71 301. It is to be noted that the awarding of patents and certificates of land ownership is highly unequal between women and men. According to sector studies, this is attributed to the following: (a) The low number of female-headed households in the country; (b) The prevailing cultural norms which consider farming as masculine work and gives men the prerogative of owning and inheriting agricultural lands at the beneficiary level; (c) The low participation of women in advisory or decision-making bodies such as the Presidential Agrarian Reform Councils, and the Provincial Agrarian Reform Coordinating Committees on the part of the programme implementors. 302. Moreover, little recognition is given to women as farmers and worse, as fisherfolks. They lack equal access to information and resources such as training, new technology, credit and marketing facilities. 303. One of the highly criticized programmes of the Government is Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. One criticism is that the has been so sluggish; only minimal land distribution has occurred support services have been made available in the rural areas. In indiscriminate conversion of urban and industrial zones displaces families and threatens food security. the implementation and minimal addition, the peasant 304. A few government lending institutions (Land Bank and the Development Bank of the Philippines) are now providing loans for rural women payable in five years with minimal interest and no collateral. The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration also gives capital assistance with low interest rates and debtto-equity minimum collateral requirements. Despite such developments, it is widely observed that credit resources earmarked for farmers are eventually given out to male farmers. This is especially true for bank-managed credit programmes for mainstream farming and fishing. 305. In contrast, small loans disbursed under the social or microenterprise credit scheme, which tend to characterize many credit projects of non-governmental organizations, find their way to women. 306. The "Tulong sa Tao"-NGO Micro-Credit Program of the Department of Trade and Industry is designed to address the credit needs of existing and potential microentrepreneurs through the extensive use of non-governmental organizations as conduits for lending and technical assistance. As of December 1994, a total of 14 women had availed themselves of the programme. However, amid the increasing opportunities being given to women as far as credit facilities are concerned, studies show that loans extended to women remain small and are often insufficient to increase the scale of their project operations. 307. This issue was particularly responded to by the Department of Trade and Industry when it recently worked for the amendment of the Implementing Rules and Regulations for Republic Act 7882 upgrading the maximum loanable amount for women in microenterprises from P1.5 million to P5.0 million. /...