With the stock market closed for three days now due to the monsoon rains and the holiday yesterday to commemorate Ninoy Aquino’s death, this week has turned out to be a very irregular week. Rains like this are never good for business and somehow the ghost month of August to early September is blamed for all these. Even the unfortunate tragedy of two boats colliding in Cebu should never have happened considering boats of that size have radars. We love to sail the Philippine seas and our travel is always at night, but we make sure that the captain is with someone when he drives the boat and our radars are always on. With all these tragedies and the PDAF-Napoles cases taking center stage, August is surely living up to its name.

As Go Negosyo celebrates its eighth year of entrepreneurship advocacy, we will be honoring and thanking the partners, Angelpreneurs and entrepreneur advocates with a simple gathering next week. We are fortunate to have a supportive community of enablers wanting to improve the lives of fellow Filipinos. The Philippines, despite all the good news in the economy and the good reforms being started by this administration, life for the poor has yet to improve and it will as it takes time for the growth to filter down. The developed economies experienced 8-10 percent of consistent growth for over 10 years before the development gets to be felt by the majority. Yes, many listed companies have increased in value, some even ten-fold. Companies are rapidly expanding and this will create more employment. Wages may not necessarily go up as this is market-driven, but job creation will happen. More and more people will also want to start a business as the awareness on entrepreneurship increases.

For people who may not have a business model in mind, they can look at a franchise concept that would be of interest to them. It must be a concept that they would love to operate, or where their passion is. They must also be the negosyantes who would be a good franchise operator, following set procedures and franchise rules and is different from those who would rather develop their own concepts and procedures.

More importantly, we would also caution them to select only from reputable franchise organizations which have strict systems and rules and would self-police their member-franchisors. Dealing with these groups like the Philippine Franchise Association (PFA) and the Association of Filipino Franchisors Inc. (AFFI) would be an assurance that you are dealing with legitimate franchisors who would ensure you have a continuing technical and marketing support to increase the chance of your success as a franchisee. We are partners with both associations. PFA in fact recently had their huge Franchise Asia Expo last July at the SMX, and congratulations to their leaders Samie Lim, Bing Limjoco, Yvette Pardo Orbeta and Robert Trota. I was out of the country then but I heard it was a big success and a global standard indeed.

Meanwhile, we also sealed last week our annual partnership with the AFFI group led by its current president Armando ‘Butz’ Bartolome, who is also one of our active Angelpreneurs/ lecturers in Negosyo seminars. He was joined by past presidents Tess Ngan Tian (Lot’s A Pizza) and Richie Cuna (Fiorgelato). In fact, I remember that in the very early days of Go Negosyo eight years ago, we were already working with both Tess and Richie on how we can help build a country of many entrepreneurs.

The AFFI-GoNegosyo collaboration is made even stronger with the very active Board that also empowers Filipinos to be enterprising. AFFI members would also serve as panelists in many of our Negosyo seminar forums that we hold prior to the lecture part of our seminars. This year, we also started to offer our Magandang Business Advice (MBA) Program on Franchising, which is led by Angelpreneur Butz. MBA Franchising is a level up training that discusses the fundamentals of getting a franchise and helps participants in determining if and when a business is franchisable. AFFI member-franchisers also shared their experiences and practical tips regarding the topic. Another MBA Franchising program will be rolled out sometime in October.

Indeed, the AFFI and GoNegosyo partnership has gone a long way, and we are happy to have them as our consistent partner in the advocacy in the years to come.

Speaking of the SME advocacy, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is once again promoting micro SMEs which have progressed to become competitive market players, where some have even become exporters. They opened yesterday the Sikat Pinoy National Food Fair at Megamall. It will run from Aug. 21-25. I am glad that 250 food entrepreneurs and their products are now being showcased by DTI Bureau of Domestic Trade and in partnership with the DA.

About half of our country’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) belong to the food and beverage sector, according to DTI. That is why they have focused this trade fair to food and beverage SMEs. Its tagline is “Piling-piling Pagkaing Pilipino.” The fair underscores the goal of bringing together home-grown products, regional specialties and delicacies from all over the country in one venue.

I am also inviting everyone to check this national fair and be amazed on what our kababayans could offer. With four more days, the fair also offers free cooking demonstrations and training seminars on basics of exporting, food handling, meat processing and other seminars that are helpful to our SMSEs.

Congratulations to Secretary Greg Domingo, and his team usec. Ponciano Manalo Jr., usec. Zeny Maglaya, director Dodit Leano and assistant director Marivic Bonoan for giving the necessary market exposures to the SMEs.

RFM Foundation believes that the youth is our future. For the past 52 years, it has supported the search for the Ten Outstanding Student of the Philippines (TOSP). This year, the national formation of the 30 national finalists starts tomorrow and the national awarding would be on August 29 at the Malacanang Palace.