YELLOW PAD
No matter how big the efforts are in national planning and no matter how comprehensive policies and programs are designed, things are different on the ground where most of the micro-enterprises are.
just three regions in Luzon, they also push for dispersion by setting up an ecological industrial zone in Region 8 within and around the facilities where the smelting plant Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corp. (PASAR) is located. This is envisioned as a start to recover a missing middle and to promote the integration of the upstream , the midstream and the downstream.
At the local level, AER’s work with the fifth-class municipalities in the Yolanda Corridor – Salcedo in Eastern Samar headed by Mayor Melchor Mergal, and Tolosa in Leyte led by Mayor Erwin Ocaña, offers good examples. It cannot be denied that no matter how big the efforts are in national planning, and no matter how comprehensive policies and programs are designed, things are different on the ground. There’s a big ground that these efforts are not able to reach, and this is where most of the micro-enterprises are.
These micro-enterprises face similar constraints as SMEs, with the added dimension that they are located in areas that are distant and not organically linked to the national. They need an integrated approach because they face much smaller markets where it does not make sense to talk about specialization at the outset.
The challenge is in linking primary agriculture, agro-industry, light processing, nascent services in tourism and infrastructure.
The National Economic and Development Authority Eastern Visayas Regional Office, headed by Atty. Bonifacio Uy, Visayas State University led by Dr. Edgardo Tulin, and AER recently hosted the presentation by the two LGUs of their modest but earnest and determined attempts at integrated strategic planning aimed at enterprise development and planting the seeds for eventual industrial transformation.
The primary purposes of industrial policy and planning are integration, the graduation from micro to small to medium, the linkages among them, and the creation of larger sectors through this integration. These will generate more quality jobs and employment and enable Filipinos to enjoy higher quality life.
It goes without saying that the roles of government, the academe, labor and the private sector are all significant. The market is a primary mechanism and allocator of resources, but it need not be the only one. Government plays a big role in discovering talents and opportunities, and in taking care of them. Government’s role in coordinating players, in linking them to capital, infrastructure and each other, is crucial. It has been seen, time and again, that where government is, the market also follows.
It is industrial policy thinking and consciousness that will help the country surmount many of the obstacles it faces.
By connecting industrial policy to AmBisyon 2040, which is now by mandate going to be part of the framework for the next Philippine Development Plan, a totally new vision emerges.
Beyond seeing what the Filipino household will be consuming (a roof over their heads, a car, college education for the kids, a comfortable life) as an aspiration, industrial policy thinking injects the equally important ambition of dreaming what the Filipino can build as an economy and a country. �