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| GOVERNMENT took another step in enhancing the country’s competitiveness as an investment destination when it signed a memorandum of agreement Wednesday with 28 agencies toward enhancing their system of linkages and networking for the speedy handling of investor-related concerns. Trade Secretary Peter Favila said this is another initiative recommended by the semipublic National Competitiveness Council to increase the country’s investments rate to 30 percent of GDP from the current 15 percent. Under the agreement, the 28 agencies will be clustered into a broad investment promotion unit, with the Board of Investments acting as coordinator. The Board will monitor and document investment-related issues and concerns referred to the promotion unit to ensure prompt and accurate response, and then update the investors on the status of the referrals made. The 28 agencies include among others the Departments of Trade and Industry and of Finance, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Customs, Internal Revenue, Department of Agriculture, of Energy, and of Foreign Affairs, Immigration, Department of Labor and Employment and of Tourism, Land Use Regulatory Board, Manila International Airport Authority and Securities and Exchange Commission. The IPUs are mandated to act on investment issues and concerns within 72 hours. Public officials and employees are to act on letters and requests not later than the 15 working days prescribed under RA 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees. These units are mandated to expedite the approval of permits, licenses and other documents needed by businessmen in putting up investment projects. The CSC will periodically assess the performance of Investment Promotion Units (IPUs) and recommend possible developmental interventions to improve work efficiency. Favila said the agreement aims to improve the delivery of government services to investors. “By this agreement, we are making sure that government is clearing barriers in the economic growth of the country. Businessmen will find it easier to locate their operations in the country.” --M. V. de Leon |
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Friday, December 14, 2007
042607: 28 agencies ink MOA for investors
042707: NTT invests P5B more in PLDT
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| By Emeterio Sd. Perez |
| Section Editor |
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| THE Japanese-owned Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. paid P4,915,155,000, in buying additional 1,966,062 common voting shares in Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., thereby raising its stake in the The acquisition cost is based on a P2,500 market price of PLDT common voting shares on the Philippine Stock Exchange. Despite the additional investments, the ratio of the combined ownership of the NTT units in PLDT only slightly rose to 14.438 percent from 13.488 percent because of the increase in PLDT’s outstanding common voting shares. The increase in outstanding common voting shares came from the issuance of PLDT common voting shares under the employees’ stock option plan and from the conversion of preferred shares into common voting shares. PLDT had 188,434,695 outstanding common voting shares as of December 31, 2006, and 188,613,889 as of April 26, 2007, or an increase of 179,194 shares. NTT said the PLDT common voting shares it owns are held by two of its majority-owned units. NTT Communications Corp. holds 12,633,487 common voting shares while NTT DoCoMo Inc. has 12,633,486 shares. In a filing, PLDT said NTT’s additional acquisitions included 1,316,724 shares represented by American Depositary shares. PLDT’s ADRs closed at $54.61 on April 25. In its disclosure dated April 18, 2007, NTT said NTT DoCoMo bought the additional PLDT common voting shares from March 20, 2007 to April 16, 2007 “through the Philippine Stock Exchange and American Depositary Receipts through the New York Stock Exchange.” “Through these open market purchases, DoCoMo has acquired 1,966,062 additional shares (including 1,316,724 shares represented by American Depositary Shares),” NTT said in its filing. “Upon the acquisition of the additional DoCoMo PLDT shares, DoCoMo will beneficially own, in the aggregate, approximately 14.5 percent of the voting power attached to the outstanding common shares,” NTT said. NTT said its investments in PLDT will continue if it finds “the market and other conditions favorable.” “…DoCoMo may increase its ownership of the company’s equity securities through open market purchases, negotiated purchases, or other transactions, up to the limitation of 21 percent of the common shares..” NTT said. Equity update Foreigners own 76.60% of PLDT voting shares in three months, the foreign ownership of common voting shares in Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. rose to 66.138 percent on March 31, 2007 from 59.865 percent on December 31, 2006. The filings with regulators showed the continued dilution of Filipino ownership in PLDT’s common voting shares. As of April 26, 2007, foreigners controlled the equivalent of 76.597 percent. The ratio was computed based on 188,613,889 outstanding common voting shares. Culled from various disclosures were the data on PLDT’s ownership profile naming First Pacific Co. as the biggest stockholder with “economic interest” of 28.67 percent. First Pacific is identified in the list of PLDT stockholders as the beneficial owner of the shares held by Philippine Telecommunication Investments Corp. and Metro Pacific Resources Inc. It has three other units, which also own PLDT the underlying common voting shares of American Depositary Receipts – Larouge B.V. with 4,711,949 shares, Semillion Enterprises Inc., 4,152,236 shares and First Pacific Telecom Assets B.N., 2,048,667 shares. PLDT, however, still has two Filipino stockholders who hold shares for the “public.” It listed the Social Security System as the record stockholder of 5,024,789 common voting shares, or 2.664 percent, and beneficial owner of 7,100,220 common voting shares, or 3.64 percent. The Government Service Insurance System owns 1,603,825 shares, or 0.850 percent. As record stockholder, SSS holds shares for borrowers under its stock purchase program. The increase in foreign ownership had two major sources. Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., whose two units used to own 13.4 percent of PLDT common voting shares, has been beefing up its holdings while First Pacific Co. bought the remaining 49 percent stake of the government in Philippine Telecommunication Investments Corp. PTIC owns 26,034,263 PLDT common voting shares of which 12,756,788.87 shares belong to Prime Holdings Inc. by virtue of its 49 percent minority stake in PTIC. Top 100 stockholders PCD Nominee Corp. is PLDT’s biggest record stockholder. It holds for foreigners 56,305,867 shares, or 29.852 percent of outstanding 188,613,889 common voting shares as of April 26, 2007, and 18,046,115 common voting shares, or 9.567 percent for Filipino stockholders. Included in PCD Nominee are those held by foreign trustee banks such as JP Morgan Assets Holdings (HK) Ltd. of NTT Communications and NTT DoCoMo directly own a total of 27,233,035 common voting shares, or 14.438 percent. |
http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/0427&282007/headlines04.html
Teves lures US biz into P1.7-T infra
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| By Jun Vallecera |
| Reporter |
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| FINANCE Secretary Margarito Teves urged investors in To be conducted over a four-year stretch, the massive buildup program was conceived to ensure the country’s growth was on a secure and sustainable path going forward. “Private-sector participation in our country’s infrastructure development program will be essential to its success,” Teves reported from He told a gathered crowd there are “opportunities for investments in income-generating infrastructure projects such as roads, highways and bridges” waiting to be discovered in the The corps of officials he headed has in fact received “strong indications of interest” that he plans to pursue in earnest later on, Teves added. He noted American companies already comprise some 85 percent of the business process outsourcing firms already in the Other high-growth sectors with very significant American participation involve companies in the area of information and communications technology, mining and power generation, he added. These sectors were all expected to post high growth in the coming years as the country’s macroeconomic underpinnings continue to improve over time, Teves said. “These investors realize that we have been delivering on our promise of economic and political stability, and clearly we have not just been meeting but exceeding expectations the past 12 months,” he said of those that have already established their presence in the “Our microeconomic reforms geared toward raising our country’s competitiveness by improving the quality of our workforce, streamlining our transaction flows, lowering the cost of doing business and enhancing our country’s infrastructure network will help build even more confidence and attract more investments in the years ahead,” Teves said. From Teves completed all his financing needs for the year when he sold government bonds that generated $1 billion from investors last January. The road show was designed to drum up global awareness of what the Philippines has achieved in recent months and what it plans to do to build on its successes going forward. |
SMEs in RP Asia's 'laggards'
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| 58% OF RESPONDENTS IN U.P.S. SURVEY ATTACH ‘LEAST COMPETITIVE' ’TAG |
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| By Max V. de Leon |
| Reporter |
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| PHILIPPINE small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been tagged as the laggards in the region by their Asian counterparts, according to the UPS Asia Business Monitor (UPS ABM) 2007 survey. Results of the study, which covered 1,200 SMEs in 12 Asia-Pacific countries and conducted from November 15, 2006 to January 10, 2007, were released locally Tuesday by the world’s largest package delivery company at the New World Renaissance Hotel in The survey covered Respondents were from a range of industries such as automotive, garments and textiles, health care and pharmaceuticals, toys and sporting goods, electronics and electricals, gifts and housewares, timepieces, jewelry and optical goods. The survey said 58 percent of the total Asian respondents rated the SMEs in the Also, 46 percent of the respondents see local small and mid-sized firms as less competitive than the SMEs in their own country. With this, Asian SMEs were also least optimistic towards Philippine economic growth, with only 26 percent of them believing that the country will grow economically this year. As expected, the respondents were most optimistic for Tim Gohoc, UPS Philippines managing director, said the survey did not inquire into why the Philippine SMEs were rated the least competitive by their peers. Still, government and business leaders said there is truth to the “perception” and this should be used both as an opportunity and challenge. Benel Lagua, president of the state-run Small Business Corp. (SB Corp.), said this presents an opportunity for Philippine SMEs to prime up and compete better since they are not being seen by their counterparts in the region as threats. “Since we are not in their radar, this is the time to build up capacity. Let us look at the opportunities and take advantage of our best resources, which is human capital. This is how we should look at it,” Lagua said. Also, Lagua said the government and the private sector should move quickly to correct this perception, as this might discourage foreign investors to come in. He thinks this negative perception on the country’s SMEs stems from the perception that bad politics here hinders the growth of enterprises. Donald Dee, chairman of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), said it is true that the Philippine SMEs are the least competitive in the region mainly because they are not getting the “much-needed government support to be of the same level” with their Asian counterparts. These same issues were raised by the SMEs as challenges to their growth in the survey. “The SMEs in the |
Ask GoNegosyo: Solutions to hunger (Part 2)
ASK GONEGOSYO By Joey Concepcion
The Philippine Star 04/12/2007
It seems my column entitled "God’s Greatest Gift" which was written two weeks ago when my daughter Maria Isabella Alexandria was born has elicited a lot of response. Thanks to those who sent kind emails/messages. In a way, I guess we have also inspired those still trying to have children above 40 years old. My wife mentioned to me that this is one gift that you cannot buy even if you wanted to. Seeing my newborn daughter every day is absolutely priceless.
I also discussed a very timely and important topic last week which was about hunger. To those who have not read that column that came out last Maundy Thursday, let me point out some key points.
Hunger is one of the most prevalent and age-old problems that our country is suffering until now. The root of the problem I believe is the lack of "responsible parenthood" where some would have too many kids, not knowing how they can adequately provide for their bright future like the right kinds of food, shelter and good education. I guess many still rely on others like government for support and doleouts from other sectors. While there are programs of government that take care of these, the number of dependents simply multiply geometrically that it would become impossible to service everyone. And it is also this practice that perpetuates that cycle. And to those not happy would simply complain and blame everyone except themselves.
Thus, it is this cycle that we must aim to break. We must create that mindset of optimism, a can do- winning attitude that would make them do something productive and take control of their lives, no longer relying on others for support. Spreading a culture of entrepreneurship I believe is one of the ways we can solve this problem. And as we advocate entrepreneurship, let it be not simply getting into business. I think we can see many Pinoy entreps but mostly considered survival entrepreneurs. What we must advocate is the kind of entrepreneurial mindset that always seeks for unserved demand, one that develops better concepts and innovations that have better market opportunities. Being different pays as long as their creativity translate to products or services that are very relevant to and affordable for the consumers. If we are able to create this generation of enterprising Pinoys, then I absolutely do not see any reason why Filipinos will go hungry.
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Here are other contributions from entrepreneurs on how we should solve the hunger problem in this country:
Dra. Vicky Belo
(Owner and medical director, Belo Medical Group)
It starts with family where an entrepreneurial mindset is molded by our parents. From the age of five my mother would bring cute things from the US for me to sell in school. It inculcated in me the joy of entrepreneurship.
Our educational system should also refocus its thrust and undergo a certain entrepreneurial renaissance. There should also be a major government advocacy in encouraging and recognizing entrepreneurship.
Another way is to provide incentives and increase small and medium scale financing programs. We should move from a nation of managers to a nation of owners. Being entrepreneurs satisfies our personal needs for freedom, flexibility, variety, creativity, responsibility, control and authority.
Johnlu Koa
(Founder and CEO, French Baker)
The development of a culture of entrepreneurship among Filipinos must begin with the belief that risks are attendant to any business venture. Failure should be taken as an opportunity for learning and not a reason for quitting. The Filipino entrepreneur must always be able to constantly draw insights from their target consumers on how to better serve their needs. Short-term benefits for himself must give way to long-term goals of the enterprise such as ploughing back profits into the business for expansion. Finally, government must create an environment conducive for business. It should not only regulate but also promote business activities.
Usec. Zoraida "Mel" Alonzo
(DTI undersecretary for Small and Medium Enterprises Development)
We should start with the youth: with the help of educators, especially entrepreneurship educators, we should make entrepreneurship a more popular option for the youth who are planning their future, and will be shaping our country’s future as well. We must stress the enormous potential of entrepreneurs to generate not only their own income but jobs for others as well. The DTI, for instance, through the SME Development Group, has partnered with colleges and universities for its Campus Tour — Entrepreneurship Series, which coaches student participants on the basics of entrepreneurship. We have also embarked on a project with the Department of Education’s Youth Entrepreneurship and Cooperativism in School. Although a module on entrepreneurship had already been included in the curriculum of primary and secondary schools to give students income options at an early stage, this module covered skills development, and not much emphasis was given to business management, business planning, work values and attitudes. So we seek to address this gap through the training of teachers, principals and division heads on these aspects of business, after which they are expected to turn around and pass on their learnings to their students under the existing class module on entrepreneurship.
Mernardo "Butch"Jimenez
(Senior vice president, PLDT)
Entrepreneurship is a combination of good business sense and creativity. The first one can be learned, the second Filipinos are already born with. So definitely, Filipinos have what it takes to become entrepreneurs. Developing a culture is a long process, and experts will tell you the most effective way to develop a culture is to catch them while they are young. So in my view, if we want to develop a culture of entrepreneurs among Filipinos lets start exposing children now to the values of entrepreneurship and we will have a nation of entrepreneurs in less than a generation.
Dr. Rolando Hortaleza
(Chairman and CEO, Splash Corp.)
I think we should start them young. Let entrepreneurial education be a part of our school curriculum – from elementary to college. Let’s have more universities offering courses on entrepreneurship. Let’s persuade our successful entrepreneurs to reach out to our young people so that they may become role models to them. Let us build the environment that will encourage our youth to consider entrepreneurship as career instead of just looking forward to being employed in some big firms. To develop a culture we have to plant seeds. And what better way to plant the seeds of entrepreneurship than in the hearts and minds of our future generation.
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[For feedback, you can email me at joey@gonegosyo.net or thru sms at 09175591245. For free business advice, visit www.gonegosyo.org or watch the GoNegosyo Bigtime TV Show every Monday, 10:30 p.m. in RPN9.]
Ask GoNegosyo: Solutions to hunger and corruption
ASK GONEGOSYO By Joey Concepcion
The Philippine Star 04/05/2007
Upon hearing that the
To those who have traveled and have seen a hungry Pinoy in other countries, please let us know. To my knowledge, there has been no Pinoy that has gone hungry overseas. Pinoys are one of the most enterprising workers in any country they are in. They see opportunities for growth either in an office environment or in business. I believe they are the epitome of what our advocacy has been pushing all along. They maintain an entrepreneurial mindset in everything that they do which is basically having the right winning attitude, never ceasing to see opportunities, innovating on the status quo or creating something new for the market.
So why are Filipinos going hungry in our own country? Are they lazy? Or are they not entrepreneurial? Do they have so many children, more than what they can support? These questions are important because people who grow hungry out of laziness are probably those who deserve it. But we can see in some studies that our country actually has a high propensity for entrepreneurship but most are micro or small, often characterized as survival microentrepreneurs who have little or no innovations nor technology-use nor differentiation from other businesses, and therefore would often lead to mortality. We must therefore do our share to encourage, advise and empower our kababayans to be agents of innovations in any product or services that they provide.
I think it is equally important as well to promote responsible parenthood. Part of that is the simple logical belief that if one cannot afford to have so many children, then he must not do so. Lack of responsible family planning I believe is the greatest source of the hunger and poverty problems. Related consequences to this of course are the health, education and other social issues which I need not dwell on.
A related issue is the rural-to-urban migration, and hopefully it is a sustainable pattern of reversal as regional development efforts are taking effects with increased economic activity in the provinces. This is more evident with the continuous opening of provincial branches of super malls of SM, Robinsons and Ayala, the Puregold and Waltermart branches as well as homegrown regional malls and hypermarts. This means faster growth rate in the regions, which we know is further enhanced with the acceleration of infrastructure projects in the super regions. Now the speed and sustainability of this momentum would greatly depend on how enterprising and creative the local people are and also how proactive and supportive their respective local government officials, from the governor, to the mayors are and down to all local officials so that they can truly harness the potential of their regional competencies and resources.
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I asked some of our entrepreneurs on their thoughts on how we can create a spirit of enterprise in the Philippines and this is what they said...
| Manny Pangilinan |
I definitely believe we can develop a national culture of entrepreneurship — I certainly wouldn’t have moved back after so many in years in Hong Kong if I had doubts about our capacity to rise to our futures!
At its core, entrepreneurship is about individuality and responsibility. We must therefore inculcate a culture of responsible citizens, who seek healthy competition, and due to their creativity, innovation and determination to work hard and persevere, can win the confidence of consumers.
At PLDT and Smart we’ve actually grown many ancillary businesses due to a rebirth in entrepreneurial spirit amongst our managers. We encourage an open and honest style in how we deal with each other, which breeds accountability and transparency. It also means that we’re better prepared at recognizing our weaknesses and addressing them. Once we’ve addressed a problem we let that manager perform to the best of their ability — entrepreneurship is about taking responsibility and running with it!
A lot of progress has been made in recent years towards seeing more small and medium size businesses grow. We need a lot more of that to happen — and it has to start with building a strong work ethic and feeling of personal responsibility about one’s own destiny. I’ve found that more often than not, once someone feels empowered so that they are in charge of their life’s decisions, they often choose to make responsible, informed ones.
| Socorro Ramos |
I think the key is education at all levels. For the youth, entrepreneurship should be discussed as early as high school or even at the elementary school level. We should not have to wait until they are in college before encouraging our children to start their own business. And take note, entrepreneurship is not only for the young. There should be an active program of education — perhaps at the barangay level — that can encourage and educate would-be entrepreneurs regardless of age or financial capability. After all, anyone who can cook or run even a small sari-sari store, as long as they are willing to work hard, is already an entrepreneur.
| Santi Araneta |
Most Filipinos are siguristas than risk-takers. Risk is part of business. In order to attract more Filipinos to be entrepreneurs, it is important that the government, both at the national and local level, establish a climate that is business-friendly. Red tape should be cut and government workers should be trained to serve professionally. Government should be the first to show that it means business in order for Filipinos to have confidence to take risk and venture into business.
| Aloysius "Nonoy" Colayco |
Entrepreneurs are often born but can also be taught. The best teaching is by example — let’s publicize success, particularly by people who started with nothing or surmounted great obstacles on the way to building their businesses. Let’s show how they helped other people while making money for themselves. And by so doing, begin teaching our young people that there are many roads to a meaningful life. The "good" job with a big company is only one of them. A better one may be the road less traveled — of personal risk with no safety net, that may lead after much sacrifice and hard work, to the creation of value and jobs and wealth where there was none before.
| Joey Gurango |
To succeed in any field of endeavor, we need role models. We need someone, whether we know them personally or from a distance, who we can look up to, edify, and emulate. To develop a culture of entrepreneurship among Filipinos, we need to see more successful Filipino entrepreneurs held up as role models by organizations such as the PCE. We need to see examples of seemingly ordinary Filipinos becoming successful entrepreneurs, so that we can believe that we can do it, too.
| Ardy Roberto |
Let’s start them young! Expose grade school and high school kids to entrepreneurs by integrating entrepreneurship into the curriculum. The government can also give special tax incentives to starting entrepreneurs (instead of harassing them!) by giving them tax holidays for the first two or three years of operations.
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[For feedback, you can email me at joey@gonegosyo.net or thru sms at 09175591245. For free business advice, visit www.gonegosyo.org or watch the GoNegosyo Bigtime TV Show every Monday, 10:30 p.m. in RPN9.]
Bizlinks: BPO: A mistaken priority?
BIZLINKS By Rey Gamboa
The Philippine Star 04/02/2007
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has essentially thrown cold water on the Philippine government’s euphoria over the growing business process outsourcing (BPO) sector.
In its Asian Development Outlook 2007 (released March 27), the ADB says that the industry’s positive features need to be kept in perspective, particularly because "it is highly unlikely that the advent of BPO services signals a paradigm shift that will put the economy on a higher trajectory."
Yes, while the BPO industry indeed has brought tangible benefits to the country, generating about $2.4 billion in revenues and employing 163,000 workers in 2005, its contribution to national growth merely shadows the input of, say, our overseas Filipino workers.
The ADB comments that if considered in relation to the size of the economy, the BPO sector’s revenues were just about 2.4 percent of total gross domestic product (GDP), and its employment not even a fraction of the country’s 36 million workforce.
Even probing deeper, 70 percent of the workers in BPO services are in call centers, which is the least knowledge-intensive part of the industry, and only about 13 percent are in IT-related industries, in contrast to India ’s 70 percent.
The ADB, citing the findings of the 2006 Workforce Development Summit, also notes mismatches between labor supply and industrial demand. While there are opportunities for expansion as far as the Philippine BPO is concerned, the supply-demand disparity should to be taken against a backdrop of the kind of workers and graduates we have.
| Putting BPOs in the right perspective |
But before we get the ADB all wrong, this is not say that the agency is urging government to drop the BPO sector like a hot potato and walk away with its commitment to support the growing industry.
Estimates show that by 2010, the Philippine BPO sector could create 500,000 to 600,000 jobs, and possibly another 300,000 jobs in retail trade and other areas as the sector pays well, and salaries of much of those working in call centers are relatively on the higher side.
What the ADB simply wants to stress is that the services sector alone cannot provide the kind of growth that would substantially lift the economy. As such, developing other sectors need to be prioritized.
On top of the ADB list is the industry and manufacturing sector, which since the 1990s had posted a flat, if not declining, share to both total economic output and employment.
The Philippines cannot simply bypass industrialization, stresses the ADB, since countries that have embraced industrialization and increased its share to both output and jobs are the ones which grew more quickly. These are the likes of China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand .
| Looking at RP’s manufacturing sector |
The ADB laments the fact that while a sophisticated manufacturing sector emerged in the Philippines in the 1950s, it is now lagging behind compared to its regional peers. Perhaps, the ADB suggests, it is now time for government to focus on boosting investments in the manufacturing sector.
But would this be the best tack for the Philippines now? Shouldn’t government instead look at new sectors to focus on, such as those where our neighbors still do not have a dominant hold?
With China, Thailand, Korea, even Indonesia already far ahead in terms of putting up manufacturing plants and building related industries, it would be extremely difficult for the Philippines – or for any developing country, for that matter – to play catch-up.
In the first place, the Philippines lacks the basic ingredients that would ensure the competitiveness of its existing and new industries. We need good roads, bridges, ports and other similar vital infrastructures. We still have to improve on our telecommunications services.
And don’t forget the most important element: power. We continue to have one of the highest electricity rates in the region, not to mention the continued threat of a power shortage likely to happen several years from now.
| Our greatest asset |
While recognizing ADB’s research expertise and capability, I cannot make myself fully accept their prognosis that a revitalized manufacturing sector, and the need to encourage more direct foreign investments in this field, is still top priority for the long-term solution to our anemic economy.
Yes, I agree that government must not rely solely on the BPO sector to liven up the economy to grow at a pace that will alleviate poverty. In the same breath, over-reliance on earnings remitted by overseas working Filipinos should not lull our bureaucrats into a false sense of economic stability.
As I have harped over and over again, the key to the future stability of the country’s economy is a stronger agricultural base. While those in the agri sector may lack the glamour and the sophistication of those in BPOs or those working on high-tech modern manufacturing complexes, agri workers and producers are the ones that will bring food to the tables of every Filipino, and keep prices of basic commodities at a relatively stable keeling.
We have to take things one step at a time. Let’s get back to basics. Only then can we move to bigger things.
| Poker satellite matches take a break |
Satellite/qualifying competitions for the 3rd Philippine Poker Tour (PPT) Million-Peso Hold’Em Philippine Championship will resume next week as poker tournament enthusiasts take a five-day holiday break in observance of the Holy Week and Bataan Day on April 9.
For the month of April, the following are the venues and schedules of satellite/qualifying tournaments: every Wednesday and Friday at San Mig Alabang Town Center; every Thursday at Elbow Room, Metro-Walk, Pasig; April 14 at Airport Casino Filipino; April 21 at Hyatt Manila Hotel and Casino; April 29 at CF Cebu-Lahug and at CF Angeles.
Details of prize structure and tournament rules for the 3rd PPT Million-Peso Hold’Em Championship are posted in the official PPT website, www.PhilippinePokerTour.com. Interested parties may also call the PPT secretariat (c/o Cindy) at 817-9092 or 812-0153.
Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 4th Floor, 156 Valero Street , Salcedo Village , 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at reydgamboa@yahoo.com or at reygamboa@linkedge.biz. For previous columns, you may visit my website at http://bizlinks.linkedge.biz.
God's greatest gift
ASK GONEGOSYO By Joey Concepcion
The Philippine Star 03/29/2007
For the past six months since I started writing this column, I have shared part of my family stories with our readers. One of the most touching and widely read was "My father, the Entrepreneur" which I wrote for my dad, Joecon’s 75th birthday. From time to time, this column will also try to share stories of how entrepreneurs prevailed over challenges in their lives. I think this is how we all get inspired, thru reading stories in the GoNegosyo book and in the book written by Butch Jimenez and Flor Gozon "Blessings in Disguise".
Talking about blessings, last March 20 at 1:30 p.m., Maria Isabella Alexandra Concepcion was born. She is truly God’s greatest gift to us. My wife and I have been married for 24 years, we have four children and prior to Maria Isabella, our youngest is 10 years old. We are not a young couple and had almost given up on having our 5th child years ago when suddenly months back, my wife complained of a stomach ache. She was rushed to the hospital for a series of tests including an MRI. We still did not know she was pregnant which we only found out after a week thru a pregnancy kit. At first we could not believe that she was pregnant so we went to the hospital again to have her tested, this time thru an ultrasound and there she was…a miracle baby.
We are in our middle age (will not reveal our true ages) but the funniest part is that my own father could not believe who was pregnant in the family after being asked by my sisters. Even our own kids were shocked to hear that their mother was going to have a baby. "Yuck, aren’t you too old for that mom?" was the question they asked. As we went thru dinner with friends and attended cocktail events, her pregnancy was being more apparent and people joked saying how could I, did I not pity my wife? All I could say was we did not expect this. Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala was most encouraging with his statements having gone thru same with Lizzie giving birth in her early 40s. Recently Sandy Prieto also gave birth at about the same age. We could say these are blessings in disguise.
Before this happened, I used to find it strange to see old couples attending whenever I go to my children’s PTA meetings. Sometimes I thought these couples attend for their grandchildren only later to find out it was for their own child. Now I would fall under this category! Kidding aside, going thru your wife’s pregnancy after 10 years was truly an experience. It was like starting all over again and sometimes we forget what it felt like. It’s also a bit funny when people would ask you how many kids do we now have? Since we don’t look that old (even if we are), they would get shocked to see the number of kids we already have.
My wife decided to give birth here in San Francisco not by choice as I wanted my daughter to be a Filipina and to be born in the Philippines. But the procedure she wanted to do was a VBAC which is a natural delivery after having a caesarian delivery. Many doctors would choose not to do this in Manila since the process is very risky and there is a possibility that both mother and child could die. It’s safer here in the US where the doctors have the latest equipment and skills. Dr. Hamilton is one of them and I would say he is one of the best I have met since he took great care of my wife all throughout the labor. Considering her age, the labor lasted for half a day and they had to induce her with a procedure called the balloon.
Dr. Hamilton is part of the annual missions in the Philippines who help a lot of poor patients who need difficult operations. They do this once a year and they go all around the Philippines with returning Filipino doctors to provide medical services for charity. They were in Legazpi, Bicol this year and also went to the resort of Gov. Lray Villafuerte for wake- and ski-boarding and he was shocked to see his clients there. They too were shocked to see him wake boarding at the age of 60 plus.
Another reason for my wife to give birth in San Francisco was her father, a truly inspiring and persistent entrepreneur in his own way who started House of Rugs and a furniture export business then when he was in his 40s. He was diagnosed to have cancer and is currently being treated in Stanford. Like a true eldest daughter, she did not want to leave her father alone. Her mother at the age of 47 passed away with breast cancer. I had to give in to her request despite the fact that our kids and I will be away from her for sometime before March 18. Our kids had to finish the schoolyear and I had to make sure that things back home in Manila were running well, including the well-attended Tourism Negosyo last March 2 to 4 and the book signing event we had last March 16 with PGMA present in both events (see last week’s column). I also had to attend my grandmother’s centennial celebration at White Cross. My grandmother Doña Victoria Lopez Araneta is a true entrepreneur as she founded the country’s first civil airline flying the Iloilo-Manila-Hong Kong route called the Far Eastern Air Transport Inc. which later became FEATI University. She also founded Araneta University, but most of all, she started White Cross Society, an institution that gives shelter to orphans until they get adopted by a long waiting list of couples who cannot have children. We grew up being exposed to this institution either by inviting the children to celebrate our birthdays or going to White Cross and celebrating our birthdays there. So in memory of my grandmother, what could be more fitting and touching than to have her centennial celebration at the very institution that she helped establish.
I barely made it in time for my wife’s delivery. I arrived here on Sunday and by Monday, we were already in the hospital. My wife would have killed me if I were late but thank God I made it on time. In a way, we feel very blessed. When we least expected it, God has given us a great gift, not another acquisition of a business but a child at this time of our life. As entrepreneurs or negosyantes sometimes we fail to pause and look at our life. What have we accomplished? Sometimes we determine success by the amount of wealth or power we have achieved. Believe me, it is not easy and we are all guilty of this. It is a challenge to put our life in the proper perspective. As Stephen Covey says, to have a balanced life is what determines success and I am a true believer of this. The temptation that comes about to achieve material wealth and power is sometimes what draws a lot of successful entrepreneurs astray to what is important in life. Giving time for family, health and a spiritual life is equally important.
Giving back what one has achieved is equally important and I am glad that the 50 GoNegosyo entrepreneurs and the others who have joined this advocacy to inspire Filipinos that our country has a bright future have decided to give back thru mentorship and share their inspiring stories to everyone. We all want to achieve happiness and the constant challenge is indeed to try to achieve a balanced life, giving time to family, health, work and of course our spiritual life, which binds it all together. Among all of my achievements in life, I would say my family is still God’s greatest gift to me and now with Maria Isabella Alexandra, what could even be greater?
Complex Made Simple: Emerging social enterprise models: Insights and issues
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| The flowering of wealth-creating organizations with a development purpose—or what have come to be called social enterprises—has pushed academe to undertake programs to study this phenomenon and serve the education requirements of a new segment of innovators and change agents in society. At the Asian Institute of Management’s Asian Center for Entrepreneurship, the Master in Entrepreneurship for Social and Development Entrepreneurs (Mesodev) Program was set up in 2002 to provide a learning opportunity for this growing segment to master the art of managing multiple bottom lines toward contributing to a broader process of democratizing the market. Democratizing the market is about enabling the poor and marginalized sectors of society to become effective market players not only as beneficiaries, but as partners, managers and owners of these social enterprises. In the process of creating these spaces, the more conscious practitioners are creating new benchmarks for wealth creation and are transforming the market into an arena for pursuing sustainable development. A continuing study of significant social-enterprise cases in various countries in Asia is yielding many insights relevant to social entrepreneurs. Validated by the experience of running Mesodev as a real-time course among Filipino social entrepreneurs, the body of knowledge being created is building a case for social entrepreneurship as a distinct field in management education. Social enterprises come in many sizes and legal forms. They range from micro to large and may be cooperatives, foundations, associations or even for-profit corporations. But it is not the size and form that differentiate social enterprises from traditional business enterprises. Social enterprises may be differentiated from traditional business enterprises in three ways—in terms of primary stakeholders, primary objectives and enterprise philosophy. Social enterprises have multiple bottom lines, primarily serve the interests of marginalized sectors and have a distributive enterprise philosophy. In contrast, traditional business enterprises, or private enterprises, have a single bottom line, primarily serve the interests of proprietors or stockholders, and have an accumulative enterprise philosophy. There are different typologies or models of social enterprises. They manifest certain differences that need to be appreciated to inform the art of managing multiple bottom lines. There are at least four models of social enterprises that have been observed in Asia: empowerment, intermediation, social inclusion and resource mobilization models. They may be differentiated in terms of the following: • the nature of the primary stakeholders • the objectives vis á vis the primary stakeholders • the extent of participation of the primary stakeholders in the enterprise • the benefits derived by the primary stakeholders and the nature of the availment process; and • the relative importance given to enterprise profits There are important implications of this differentiation between social enterprises and traditional business enterprises, as well as these four types of social enterprise models, not only for social entrepreneurs but also for management educators or mentors of social entrepreneurs. One important implication is in the measurement of social enterprise outcomes. Empowerment, social inclusion and intermediation models, given their objectives of improving the state or quality of life of a specific set of marginalized sectors, need to identify or create proxy indicators for these outcomes. Where no simple proxy indicator is appropriate, development indexing is offered as an option. Another important implication is in the area of what achieving financial sustainability means. For empowerment and social-inclusion strategies, achieving financial sustainability may mean generating enough revenues just to sustain social-enterprise operations. But for intermediation and resource-mobilization strategies, enterprise profits need to be optimized. In the area of scaling up impact, resource mobilization and intermediation models usually need and face the problem of accessing financial capital to grow. Although multiple bottom lines are pursued, the trajectory of growth may be similar to private enterprises. The idea of venture-capital funds for social enterprises could assist them greatly in this regard. But for social inclusion and empowerment models, scaling up impact may not mean growing the enterprise in the same way as private enterprises. In this sense, it may not be appropriate for venture capital funds to support them. The success of empowerment and social-inclusion models usually attract other players who are interested in replicating their model in their context. With some social entrepreneurs of these successful models, a conscious effort is made by them to engage government and the corporate sector in replicating the model among other similarly situated stakeholders. This process of replication needs to be studied closely, as there have been both failure and success stories. An important innovation to address this is the idea of social franchising, which entails developing the capability of the original social enterprise to effectively assist the process of replication by becoming quality assurance consultants to government, the corporate sector or other players interested in the replication effort. ***** This is a summary of the paper to be presented at the Scholl Forum on Social Entrepreneurship from March 27-29, 2007, at Oxford, United Kingdom. Marie Lisa M. Dacanay is Associate Professor at the Asian Institute of Management and part of the core faculty of the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship. She is Program Director and Guru of the Master in Entrepreneurship for Social and Development Entrepreneurs Program under AIM-ACE. |
