gosh

Teens get crisis survival lessons


By Vincent Cabreza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:49:00 08/02/2009

Filed Under: Economy and Business and Finance


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Close this BAGUIO CITY— The rest of the country may have been occupied by President Macapagal-Arroyo’s take on the economic crisis in her State of the Nation Address last week.

But what truly interested about 1,000 students at an annual youth summit at the Teachers’ Camp here on the same day were tips on how to survive the global economic crisis.

For this year’s Go Negosyo youth summit, Ramon Lopez, vice president of RFM Corp., led a panel of businessmen whose enterprises either bounced back from a crisis or thrived despite it.

Marx Melencio, a blind information technology (IT) expert; Michelle Santiago, owner of Ineng’s Special BBQ franchise; and Joy Abaquin, who founded the Multiple Intelligence International School, all had a simple message to the students: Persevere.

Melencio operates the online consultancy firm, Grayscale Business Management, which was forced to downsize when the impact of the United States recession hit the country.

But Melencio said he was able to rehire his people when demand for his firm’s services increased due to retrenched workers who decided to set up their own businesses using their retirement or separation pay.

Lopez urged the aspiring entrepreneurs to innovate.

He said too many businesses start by imitating enterprises that clicked, in an emerging environment of extreme competition.

Lopez said youth starting any business must study the potential customers.

He said the company that started investing in skin whiteners stumbled on the idea by studying what typical Filipinos want.

“Apparently many want to [have a fair complexion]. I don’t understand why, but [skin whitening cream] is a hit,” he said.

Santiago said people are never too young to start a business.

To earn her daily allowance, Santiago said she sold sandwiches to her classmates. “I fixed up the [egg] spread myself,” she said.

Santiago’s role in the summit was to talk about enduring business failures.

She said her first venture into bangus (milkfish) production was spoiled by a con man, whose activities cost her and her husband their life savings.

“I met this man who claimed to be the son of [the late President Ferdinand] Marcos at our wedding. When we moved to Pangasinan, he asked my husband to guarantee a loan he made. Then he disappeared and we were forced to pay millions [of pesos],” Santiago told the students.

Starting literally from scratch, the couple returned to Metro Manila to eke out a living as fast-food employees, until they decided to market her family barbecue sauce recipe, she said.

The recipe helped expand her barbecue business into a small franchise, Santiago said.

Melencio was also present as a model for successful entrepreneurs from the disabled sector.

“I was still in college [with a working wife and a child] when I decided one night to come out and buy fried rice in my neighborhood [in Metro Manila]. Someone took offense at my appearance and shot me pointblank,” he said.

Melencio lost his sight because of the bullet wound.

“I went into computers because not many companies have jobs available for someone [blind or disabled] like me,” he said.

He said many firms were unaware that there was a technology that would make the disabled productive in new business fields like IT management.

Abaquin, a teacher, said aspiring young entrepreneurs must be aided by free-thinking mentors. She said the public school system was too rigid and must start incorporating lessons about good business management.



Copyright 2009 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.





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Soft drink maker to invest $1B in RP—Ermita


By Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:57:00 08/03/2009

Filed Under: Beverages, Investments, Company Information


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Close this NEW YORK—The Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. will pour in $1 billion (currently P47.9 billion) over the next five years to further cement its hold on the Philippine beverage market.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the world’s largest soft drink brand bared its investment plans during a meeting of its top officials with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Saturday at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.

Coca-Cola is making a huge capital infusion into the Philippines just two years after it reacquired control of Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines Inc. (which includes Cosmos Bottling and Philippine Beverage Partners) for $590 million from San Miguel Corp.

San Miguel was forced to sell the company after it failed to parry smaller players that were into eating its share of the soft drink market.

The investment would allow CCBPI to strengthen its core soft drink brands, especially in the low-cost segment, as well as expand into other nonalcoholic beverages.

Ermita said that aside from Coca-Cola, billionaire investor George Soros, through his top officials, conveyed to President Arroyo their plans to invest millions of dollars to upgrade the Batangas port and bring it up to par with the Subic port facilities.

Ermita, a Batangueño, said the project would benefit southern Luzon provinces and saw the Batangas port as a catalyst in the region’s economic growth.



Gov’t says unemployment down 7.5%



Agence France-Presse
First Posted 12:24:00 06/16/2009

Filed Under: Economy and Business and Finance, Economic Indicators, Unemployment


MANILA, Philippines--Unemployment fell to 7.5 percent in April from 8.0 percent a year earlier, according to the latest jobs data released Tuesday.

The rate represented a drop from 7.7 percent in January, when the last figures from the quarterly National Statistics Office's labor force survey were released.

Underemployment, defined as those working under 40 hours a week, rose to 18.9 percent from 18.2 percent in January. The figure was down from 19.8 percent in April last year, the statistics bureau said.

The size of the labor force increased to 37.8 million.

The Labor Department recently said more than 16 million of the country's workforce were either "self-employed" or working in the "informal sector," which includes people working as pedicab drivers or in family-run shops.