By Katrina C. Wy*

I started running my own business at the age of 19. It was an online shop at a website called Multiply. All of my friends visit this site everyday and getting an account is free so I decided to try posting stuff for sale and see how my friends (my potential clients) would react.

I chose to sell trendy but really affordable clothes. It was a low-risk business as the only capital I needed was for my inventory. I figured that if I fail to sell anything, I can still keep the clothes for myself and it wouldn’t be such a waste of money. I was shocked, however, by the response I got from my friends. They really liked the clothes I was selling and was extremely happy at the price I was selling it to them.

My clientele increased as the months went by mainly thru referrals and other people who usually do their shopping online. After a month, I was already shipping my clothes all over the country and I even got inquiries about shipping my products to the US! I expanded to include luxury items and electronic goods to my product line. I was earning a lot, enough actually for me to not ask money from my parents to pay my condo, my bills, my shopping and living allowance. It was such a great experience for me as I was earning money through something that I was really passionate about.

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Some jobs are really hard to fill. Just ask employers in the country who have difficulty finding the right person for jobs such as:
* accountant and auditor
* computer professional
* commercial and technical sales representative
* mechanical engineer
* professional nurse

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In the past three days, I have been following Doris Dumlao’s three-part story on Negros-based Victorias Milling Corporation (VMC), the largest sugar company in the Philippines.

This was the sugar company started in 1919 by Don Miguel Ossorio. In the decades that followed, VMC pursued expansion, going into non-core businesses such as engineering products and services, food processing, organic fertilizers, shipping, management and consultancy, real estate, and agribusiness. Most of these were financed by borrowing funds from banks.

But then came the 1990s and there was a slump in sugar prices. The Asian currency crisis wreaked havoc on the economy. Add to that a case of irresponsible management which plundered VMC and the company soon found itself in hot water. In July 1997, VMC defaulted on its debts.
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WITH gas prices increasing weekly and everything else shooting up (blood pressure included), businessmen are on the lookout for ways to cut costs.

I came across one new venture that will help micro-businesses and small businesses save on admin expenses. Great for start-ups too.

It’s virtual business services. A new company called The Back Office just started offering this, taking a cue from the virtual assistant service offered in other countries.

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By Tony La Viña
Philippine Representative, Ashoka: Innovators for the Public

Sometime in early 2006, after eight years working for an environmental think tank in Washington DC, I decided to come home to the Philippines. It was clear why I (and my family) wanted to do this – we felt we could contribute something to make the Philippines a better place – but I was not as sure about what I could actually do to make a difference.

I had accepted a job as the Dean of the Ateneo School of Government, a post that would allow me to work with national and local leaders in building a prosperous and just country. But that was not enough.

Government was only half, maybe less than half of the solution. If we are to overcome our history of “uncreative repetition” (where the politics of blame ensured unaccountability and inability to solve long standing problems from poverty to social injustice), it was important to do something that would foster, catalyze, and enable social innovation. I wanted to get out of the default mode of blaming others for the country’s problems and finding ways to actually solve these problems.

It was while I was pondering on this challenge that I stumbled upon Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, the world’s oldest and largest supporter and enabler of social entrepreneurs. These are dynamic individuals who use innovation and private-sector-style entrepreneurship to create systemic solutions for complex social problems. I was introduced to Ashoka by Terri Jayme, a Filipina working for the Arlington, Virginia-based international organization. Terri, whose sister Denni once worked for me and whose uncles and aunts I went to school with in college at the Ateneo de Manila, was asked by Ashoka to study whether or not it should launch a program in the Philippines and Terri interviewed me for this assignment.
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