The Department of Finance (DOF) on Tuesday stressed the importance of strengthening the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector and the role it plays in helping the marginalized rise from poverty.
Against this background, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III urged those entering the labor force to help impoverished communities develop MSMEs that will serve as catalysts for growth and save the marginalized from the poverty trap.
“Help sort out the problems there. Build social enterprises. Organize the poor. Create capacity where there seems very little. Be crusaders for ethical business practices. Protect our environment,” Dominguez said in a speech read for him by Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua at commencement exercises held at the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City.
He urged AdMU to pioneer small-business immersion programs in its graduate school curriculum and assign students to poor communities where they could help micro enterprises, small agribusinesses and similar struggling endeavors to thrive and expand.
“They [small enterprises] do not have the credit history to readily access financing. They may have excellent products, but no distribution networks for them. They need your expertise. You will need the experience working in the raw,” he said.
According to Dominguez, building a strong base of small but competently run enterprises with the help of graduates from the country’s best schools will have a dramatic impact on the country’s poverty profile.
“If we could somehow institutionalize small-business immersion programs in the curriculum of this school, that will give flesh to our University’s mission of building ‘Men for Others’. The Ateneo Graduate School of Business must be a functional asset for cultivating a culture of entrepreneurship for our society. That is the only advice I can leave you,” he said.
Dominguez’s proposed small-business immersion program was inspired by the concept of “barefoot doctors”, those young interns encouraged by their medical schools to help poor communities as paramedics.
By serving in impoverished areas, young doctors learn to appreciate what needs to be improved in the country’s health-care system, what ailments mostly afflict the poor and what nontraditional medical treatments not covered by their standard medical education can be effective in treating them, Dominguez explained.
“We might want to explore the development of parallel programs for our business schools. After all, the vast majority of our people work in microenterprises, cooperatives and small agribusinesses. They daily confront the challenges of meeting payrolls, sourcing supply, figuring out distribution channels for their products and dealing with the limitations of our microfinance networks. These are challenges that incite the imagination,” Dominguez said.
Associated Labor Union Spokesman Alan Tanjusay in March estimated some 1 million students were to graduate this year.