The state of the nation’s MSMEs

Today will be President Marcos Jr.’s third State of the Nation Address and I will be following the events from Bali, where I flew this weekend to attend the wedding of Patricia, the daughter of my close friend Butch Prieto.

I had several interesting conversations with the groom’s father, Mark Cojuangco, about business, entrepreneurship and his advocacy, nuclear power. I will share more of that in my next column. But foremost on our minds is the present course of our country’s economy, which no doubt will be discussed at length in today’s SONA.

As a longtime champion of entrepreneurship in the Philippines, I follow closely every development in the MSME sector, especially the direction being set by the government. The policy-setting and support from the nation’s leaders are crucial and affect the lives of millions of Filipinos. After all, more than half of them are employed by these enterprises; even the largest corporations are dependent on the sector’s overall health.

Therefore I was thrilled to listen to DTI Sec. Pascual and Usec. Cris Roque’s speeches during the National MSME Summit last week, where they unveiled the many programs that will help our MSMEs. One is the OTOP Retail and Learning Center, a dynamic hub offering mentoring and educational sessions alongside its retail offerings. OTOP stands for One Town, One Product, the highly successful program of DTI to promote unique local products based on their geographical origins and reflective of local culture and resources.

Usec. Roque introduced us to the DTI-Bagong Pilipinas Marketplace, the largest B2B e-commerce platform showcasing products and services from Filipino MSMEs. It further broadened the scope and concept of OTOP, and now encompasses all locally produced offerings across the country.

What surely piqued everyone’s interest were the programs like the AI Strategy Roadmap 2.0 and the establishment of the Center for AI Research, which are to accelerate the digital transformation of MSMEs. These are in keeping with the President’s direction to embed AI and digital technologies to increase MSME capabilities, not just to keep up with global trends and potential international marketplaces, but to break