The signing of the memorandum of agreement was held last May 29.
The project provides capacity-building training and livelihood opportunities for barangay councils and micro-entrepreneurs. The program helps participants identify potential community-based businesses and provides them with skills on strategic planning, financial management, and marketing. It encourages communities through their leaders to get actively involved in livelihood activities and promote the starting of small businesses for families and community welfare. Globe BridgeCom sa Bayan was implemented in over 450 barangays nationwide. This year, Globe targets even more barangays.
Aside from teaching communities how to start their own businesses and developing entrepreneurial skills, the program also teaches how mobile technologies, like the Globe Autoload Max, Globe’s over-the-air reloading service, and G-Cash, its electronic wallet service, can help expand micro-businesses and enable networking with consumers and fellow entrepreneurs in the community.
Globe BridgeCom sa Bayan was recognized for its accomplishments and has received the Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of the Philippines and the Gold Quill Award from the International Association of Business Communicators.
At the MOA signing, Globe Telecom president and CEO Gerardo Ablaza Jr. reiterated Globe’s commitment to help communities in maximizing their local resources and skills to develop their own enterprise, especially during these trying times. "To be able to make a difference, businesses should address the challenges of poverty with a commensurate level of response and commitment," Ablaza said. "Small entrepreneurs are today’s wealth creators and will be tomorrow’s big companies. We in Globe Telecom wish to be a significant part of that vision."
Globe Telecom consumer business group head Ferdinand dela Cruz in his speech affirmed that the Globe BridgeCom project is the company’s unique contribution to help uplift the lives of Filipinos and in the process help eradicate poverty.
"We in Globe believe that our contribution to society should go beyond traditional philanthropy. This is the reason why our corporate social responsibility initiatives are highly integrated into core business strategy," he said.
Globe BridgeCom sa Bayan has gone to hundreds of communities teaching people identify the right business, run it, and make it sustainable for them, their respective families, and their communities.
A panel discussion was held during the event with Ces Oreña Drilon as moderator. The discussion was participated in by Ablaza, ABS-CBN Bayan Foundation chairperson Regina Paz Lopez; president of ABS-CBN Bayan Foundation Eduardo Morato; executive director of the Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship Imelda Madarang, and UN resident coordinator and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) resident representative Nileema Noble.