Last Monday evening, we had a simple 55th year RFM anniversary celebration and I decided just to invite our employees and family. My dad, who is now 82 years, is still strong and healthy and at times, is an endorser for stem cell. We paid tribute to him for his passion to serve the country and our company and how it has inspired so many people including myself. The talk I gave turned out to be one of the most emotional talks that I have ever done, and I tried hard to hold back but I guess in everyone of us, we have our own weakness especially when we pay tribute to those we love.

In the column last week entitled A Passion to Serve, I felt that it was time to recognize my father through his idealism of wanting to see Filipinos move up in life, and the importance of democracy and how he did his share in helping bring back democracy. Like the mission of many others who died fighting to restore democracy, my father is lucky to be alive after leading NAMFREL during the darkest times in 20th-century Philippines. The NAMFREL movement in a way was the beginning, and the assassination of former Senator Ninoy Aquino and other developments all led to the People Power Revolution.

Unknowingly, my father has somehow passed on this passion to me and some of his children using the company we own to serve the Filipino people with passion, through the quality products at affordable prices possible. And specially now, the advocacies which RFM supports towards youth formation, the Ten Outstanding Student of the Philippines (TOSP) and the foundation I started with many other entrepreneurs, Go Negosyo. We see this passion also in so many others out there in their negosyo using it to serve the Filipino people. Entrepreneurs have this unique role that as we succeed, we in return have to push for inclusive growth within our own ecosystem.

Last week, the Go Negosyo team joined me in a meeting with Puregold to help pool our resources to help the sari-sari stores level up. We are not saying more people should set up sari-sari stores but we would like to see at least those who are part of the 800,000+ sari-sari stores to go beyond the survival entrepreneurship by helping them with entrepreneurial concepts and financial literacy among other things. We also have the carinderias, junk shops, wet markets stall owners, etc. If we extend this passion to serve, it should go down ultimately to our own respective ecosystem.

Today, we launch the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), in partnership with the British Embassy, with the objective of promoting entrepreneurship as a way to fight poverty and for entrepreneurs to push for inclusive growth within their own ecosystem. Different countries across the globe celebrates one week in November to promote activities towards setting up a business or sharing about ways to go from local to global. At tonight’s launch, I have invited Go Negosyo’s entrepreneurs and bossings and partner institutions who will be part of the many activities that will take place in November, like the PLDT SME Nation-Smart-Meralco group, Villar Foundation, PCCI, AFFI and PFA. This collaboration will put the Philippines in the map of the United Kingdom’s plans for their investments.

The GEW will inform entrepreneurs and prime movers of our country that United Kingdom is supportive in the development of small to medium entrepreneurial investments as well as large-scale business ventures. Go Negosyo, on the other hand, will be the bridge to make these dreams happen. The First Philippines Global Entrepreneurship Week has lined-up 15 programs to be attended by 10,000 people at different areas in the Metro.

Last Thursday, we had the soft launch of a new online marketplace particularly created for Filipino online entrepreneurs. This was initiated by GoNegosyo’s long standing partner, Smart Communication through its subsidiary Voyager Innovation. The e-commerce platform is called Tackthis (tackthis.com) that allows online merchants to ‘tack’ their stores in their social media accounts and even in blogs such as Blogger and WordPress. It basically provides online entrepreneurs a storefront where they can post – and showcase – their product inventories.

The good thing about this is that the entrepreneur does not have to go back to zero as far marketing the site is concerned, as he or she can already have it promoted to an already existing network of friends – thousands of them – in Facebook as an example. As a matter of fact, the buyer can already order items where the storefront was ‘tacked’ without the hassle of going to the actual platform.

I think this is really very relevant especially now that e-commerce is really booming. This is a big help to many start-ups and micro entrepreneurs who would be able to show their wares at almost no cost and avoid huge rental costs in commercial areas. It will also have exposures in the global market as this is online. Whenever we conduct our NEGOSEMs and provincial caravans, we are frequently asked about e-commerce platforms we could recommend, and tackthis.com is exactly it. If you want to try it, you may readily sign up – in one sitting – for free. Soon enough, Go Negosyo books may also be ordered and sold online, as one of the featured stores in Tackthis.

Meantime, one of the – if not the most – popular and trusted online sellers these days is Kim Lato of Kimstore. A Go Negosyo Young Entrepreneur awardee, Kim sells consumer electronic gadgets which started as a hobby when she was still a high school student. Now, she has grown and expanded her business, and even opened her physical store in Ortigas that serves as a showroom for her items. Kim is the featured ambassador for tackthis.com for the electronics, and we are happy to have her on board and really see her growing.