According to Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion, the country’s small entrepreneurs are pre-positioned to lead the country’s recovery following three years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If there is one sector that has been active and striving during the pandemic, it is the micro, small, and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs),” he said. “They have borne the brunt of the worst but they have also persevered and are ready to take advantage of this rebound.”
IMAGE CREDIT: https://pcw.gov.ph
Concepcion added that the pandemic even became an opportunity for some MSMEs to pivot to digital technology, even noting how some nano-preneurs were created during the pandemic.
“They quickly adapted to selling online. Thanks to platforms that were easy and accessible for them, such as the digital payments platforms, social media, as well as delivery and ride-hailing apps, they became quite fast at changing the way they did business,” he explained.
“We also saw people becoming micro-influencers and content creators — these are practically nano-preneurs because their capital is their own skills,” Concepcion added.
Go Negosyo is an advocacy of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship (PCE), a non-stock, non-profit organization that advocates for a change in mindset and attitude. It believes that Filipinos can address poverty in the country by engaging in entrepreneurship and by developing an optimistic, passionate, creative and innovative, resourceful, diligent, and persevering character.
The organization encourages every Filipino to take charge and make the most of their resources and abilities by utilizing and transforming these into viable enterprises.
Present conditions favorable to MSMEs
The Go Negosyo founder also stated that present conditions are favorable for MSMEs as the Senate and the House of Representatives have recently facilitated two crucial laws critical to MSME development and job creation.
Earlier this week, the Senate, on its third and final reading, passed Senate Bill No. 2021, or the proposed amendments to the “Magna Carta for Small Enterprises” as amended by RA 9501, otherwise known as the “Magna Carta for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs),” which seeks to institutionalize shared service facilities (SSF) for MSMEs.
The bill is also meant to allow annual funding for the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI)’s SSF Program under the General Appropriations Act (GAA).
According to its principal author, Senator Sonny Angara, the bill will help ensure continued support for micro, small, and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs), especially those in the provinces. He also said that the DTI’s SSF program deserved more government support because of the “demonstrable” success that it has garnered over the years in terms of poverty alleviation and boosting the economy.
“But as MSMEs are among the foremost job creators and income generators of the country, we are convinced that a scaled-up, well-provisioned, well-coordinated, and institutionalized SSF project will result in shared success for all Filipinos,” the senator added.
The House of Representatives, on the other hand, approved on its third and final reading House Bill 6336, or the “New Agrarian Emancipation Act,” a bill condoning the unpaid debt of farmer-beneficiaries of the
government’s agrarian reform program that the first Marcos administration started.
HB 6336, which was endorsed by Ifugao Rep. Solomon Chungalao, chair of the committee on agrarian reform, is a consolidation of 15 related measures and is meant to benefit “agrarian reform beneficiaries” or, as defined in the bill, “farmers or farmworkers granted lands under PD No. 27, RA No. 6657, and RA No. 9700 who still have outstanding loan balances payable to the Land Bank of the Philippines.”