Blazing new trails

(Speech delivered at the 14th Mindanao Business Conference at the Davao Convention and Trade Center, Davao City, Sept. 15, 2005)

In a time of fear and despair, Mindanao offers hope.

As the nation gets battered by external and internally generated pressures, it needs a real winner to uplift the national spirit. Mindanao plays that role.

I need not present charts and figures to validate our optimism about Mindanao. What is more important and meaningful is the logic, the driving force behind the supporting statistics of growth.

Very few places are as richly endowed as Mindanao is with nature’s blessings. Mindanao’s soil fertility, its freedom from destructive typhoons, its good share of life-sustaining rainfall, its relatively pollution-free environment, and its abundant marine resource, among others, makes the second largest island in our archipelago the country’s food basket.

All these generous gifts from Divine Providence are gratefully received by a hardworking people whose pioneering and enterprising spirit bears eloquent witness to the greatness in the Filipino. The Land of Promise with its large frontier lured industrious migrants from the Ilocos, Central Luzon, Western and Eastern Visayas. Some came from Indonesia.

These trailblazers have since left behind a living legacy of industry and perseverance, of sipag and tiyaga which are touchtone values in the making of a strong nation. The net effect is a healthy outlook that believes everything is possible.

Take note that those who contributed major building blocks in making Mindanao what it is now have one thing in common. They are all entrepreneurs. They are self-reliant. They are visionaries. They are preserving. They were all honed and tempered in the anvil of adversity.

To these pioneering entrepreneurs, Mindanao owes a lot. Their legacy is the springboard for new initiatives to sustain the island’s growth momentum.

I am a passionate advocate of entrepreneurism, of the principle of sipag at tiyaga because I have personally experienced what an entrepreneurial outlook and practice can do not only for one’s self but also for others.

Mindanao, as the land of entrepreneurs, has what it takes to replicate even on a much limited scale the economic transformation so evident in China and India today.

These two most populous economic performers which have been saddled with the burden of poverty which is far heavier than ours started with overwhelming handicaps. And yet they are now the envy of many developing countries and of economies in transition.

Many factors can be cited by economists and political analysts for the remarkable achievements of China and India. I leave the complicated analysis to professional observers. What I find very revealing and most instructive for our own benefit is the presence in either China or India of a critical mass of entrepreneurs, both at the small and medium enterprise levels. In short, entrepreneurs are the main engine of economic growth.

Perhaps we have somehow overlooked this basic truth as we look to the National Government for help. It is not my intention to deny the need for government assistance for such requirements as infrastructure development and support to farmers, among others.

The sad truth, however, is – government with its huge debt burden and severe fiscal problems is not in a position right now to deliver on its legal and moral responsibilities to its constituents as desired. And I do not wish to create more false hopes by echoing official promises that cannot be fulfilled to match popular expectations soon.

This constraint is not a reason for pessimism. The economic horizon for Mindanao is bright.

Mindanao, more than any other part of our country, enjoys a geographical locational advantage in gaining access to the ASEAN Free Trade Area. In fact, the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area was formally ratified here in Davao City. BIMP-EAGA is the perfect bridge to trade opportunities in the sub-region and in the northern Territory in Australia.

The newly emerging halal food industry may use BIMP-EAGA as a point of entry into the Muslim population of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. Likewise, a more aggressive trade promotion campaign through the BIMP-EAGA mechanism can create additional markets not only for Mindanao products but also for those coming from the rest of the country as well.

While we acknowledge the major contribution of bananas, pineapples, coconut oil and tuna in our overall export performance, still we must seek the wider diversification of our product offerings as a strategy to cushion the impact of demand fluctuations in the market.

An improvement in the trade information gathering capability of our diplomatic missions in the European Union, North America, South America, the Middle East and the rest of Asia will give us an indication of what the various overseas markets need so that we can better tailor fit our production and marketing efforts.

Effective marketing, however, requires competitiveness. The questions, therefore, are – how competitive are we? How do we compare with the other players in the global market as to price and equality? How do we protect our own manufacturers and farmers from cheaper imports with the lifting of trade barriers?

It is time to review the competitiveness enhancement strategy defined by government, particularly in relation to the much publicized agricultural modernization program.

I now call on the business community to form a team of operations and finance specialists to make the corresponding performance evaluation in support of the necessary corrective legislation.

How much has been allocated so far for both programs? What are the key results areas? How has the budget been managed? Who are the beneficiaries? Can the output be quantified? What is the variance between outcome and expectations? What went wrong? How can mistakes be corrected? And what else must be done?

We desperately need a paradigm shift in how we try to get things done. And here is where government needs the business community as an objective evaluator of its performance.

Government for all its power and resources cannot be the main fountain of practical wisdom. It can only be the protector of its citizens, the custodian of their trust and the steward of their hopes.

Only with the humility can government learn from those it is bound to serve.