OTOPreneurs: Key to rural revitalization

As the campaign period starts, we shall be deluged with sugar-coated phrases and drowned with “life-death-rebirth” pronouncements.  Certainly, one of these century-old promises shall be jobs for everyone. Thus, anyone can surely expect that, as election fever heightens, job fairs shall be held with so much flair and publicity.  As has always been customary, politicians will take a ride.  In most of these fairs, their names and pictures shall dominate the information dissemination campaigns.  Whether the fairs shall end up with good and substantial hires or not, however, they won’t really care.    Frankly, what they are up to is visibility for election or re-election purposes.  Selfishly, that’s something they’ll make sure is done with certainty. 

Indeed, despite claims of 6.6% expansion of the economy, unemployment remained a big concern.  Though the unemployment rate decreased to 6.80% in the third quarter of 2012 from 7% in the second quarter of 2012, it is still a significant number. Adding to these woes is the apparent job and skills mismatches as the skills of the majority of the graduates of universities do not match with the demand of the industries, thus, resulting to underemployment and unemployment.

However, in our sincere efforts to satisfy our fresh graduates’ inherent preference for multinational companies and irrepressible penchants for white collar jobs, we tend to forget that most of the unemployed and underprivileged are in the countryside.  These are men and women who are skilled but are just wanting in opportunity.  They don’t have illusions to work with the urban areas known companies.  A job in the countryside is, in fact, what they only dreamed about.         

Incidentally, we are not wanting in laws and programs that are designed or passed to fulfill these simple dreams of would-be OTOPreneurs (my preferred name for entrepreneurs) or their would-be employees. To recall, the government through the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) initiated the One Town One Product (OTOP) program.   Unknown to most of us, this project is patterned after Japan’s Oita Prefecture’s very successful One Village One Product (OVOP) movement.  Undeniably, OVOP was the key to Japan’s Oita Prefecture’s rural revitalization.  In fact, it is this initiative that made the “think global, act local” a household slogan.  Until 2002, Japan’s OVOP products comprised of 338 local specialties, 148 facilities, 133 cultural items, 111 revitalized regions, and 80 items related to environment, coming to 810 products in total.

Notably, like Japan, through this undertaking, we may not just be able to promote our products but develop as well a town that could be like Yufuin (in the Oita Prefecture of Japan-where OVOP originated). A town that plays host to more than 3.8 million visitors a year despite having only less than ten thousand population.

However, like Japan’s Oita Prefecture’s One Village One Product (OVOP) movement, the ultimate objective is rural revitalization. Thus, a model is imperative and necessary.  There is an apparent need to establish a trail from conceptualization to realization. Portraying the successes of some accomplished entrepreneurs might help but will not certainly serve as the model for the rural area’s aspiring ones.  Needless to say, some are even owned by millionaires who are just recipients of these moneymaking inheritances.

The key is making use of the facilities that we already have.  Facilities could be in the form of financial support or enabling laws that may encourage would-be OTOPreneurs in harnessing available resources.  Or, could be in the kind of incentives that can push them to put to good use their inborn talents or developed skills in actualizing wild ideas and build organizations to help ensure commercial viability.

Raw materials and labor, prerequisites of OTOP, are abundant in the rural areas.  Therefore, the ingredients to this program’s success are just waiting to be tapped.

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