Good and bad news on PHL economy

Ateneo Professor on Entrepreneurship

From Satur Ocampo's column "At Ground Level" by Satur Ocampo

The good news:

l.  Moody's has upgraded PHL debt from Ba2 to Ba1 (one notch below investment grade)

2.  Goldman Sach's has considered PHL as one of the 11 emerging economies (the others are Bangladesh, Indonesia, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Korea and Vietnam)

3.  PHL ranks 4th (moving from 6th) in terms of most favorable environment for micro enterprise, according to Economic Intelligence Unit.

4.  According to Nielsen, PHL ranks third in consumer confidence given the expansion of business at BPO

The bad news:

l. At 7% rate, PHL has one of the highest unemployment rate in the region.  Most countries have moved from heavy dependence on agriculture to manufacturing to industries and services sector.

2.  PHL has continuously slid down in WB list of doing business from l36 to 138.  What is the public sector doing. (And yet PHL is improving on its competitiveness)

3.   PHL has failed in 4 out of 7 MTD of the UN

What can we do to improve our country?

Women Starpreneurs Awardees At Go Negosyo Summit

Promoting Entrepreneurial Revolution

This morning I read that that three of the awardees at the forthcoming Go Negosyo Summit were published at Philstar front page.  They are: Antuza Refalda for promoting civet coffee for Kalinga coffee growers, Elma Arbolera for the iBus invention (of course she did it with Rodel and other scientists from UP and elsewhere), and Lourdes Ragas of  Asia Embroidery. 

In the case of Antuza, it is noteworthy she got support from the SB Corp, and later on a substantial financial aid from DOST amounting to P900,000.00 for facilities to process coffee. We had MBA students who did work for SB and DOST, helping entrepreneurs:   one was EA of the SB President, and the other one was ARD of DOST for NCR.  We thank these agencies for helping Antuza become a success.

We salute these women (who in the GEM survey run more than 50% of start ups in the Phil;  when they are big, men take over!) for dreaming big and pursuing them.

Former Entrepreneurship Student

Ms. Arboleras who is a TOSP awardee, was a former entrep student;  I did  some advisory work to her and Rodel at the early stages.  Congratulations to them and may they be outstanding successes in their field.

The starpreneur award is a joint project of Philstar and Go Negosyo for the latters women entrepreneurs summit this March 2.

Congratulations

On Friday Clubs of B of P, and B o C

Our generation needs an ENTREPRENEURIAL REVOLUTION.

I just read at Philstar this morning when I had my breakfast with our officers at Calamba  City on page l4 about the presence of Friday club at Pasay office of B of P.  And it is not just  B of P, but also B o C.  It is called  Friday club because that is the time they collect their "take" and split it amongst themselves. From the looks of it and tenor of the news article, the head of the govt units are helpless in eradicating this syndicate.

The traders I know who are victims of the the two offices told me the collection is done really every Friday.

But what is going to happen to this club? Shall it go and on to the detriment of business entrepreneurship?

It is one thing to promote entrepreneurship programs lending programs;  but takes real guts to fight cancer to entrepreneurship like this.  And hard work and political will?  Do we have them now?