RP needs more entrepreneurs, and it pays to start young

by Ryan Edward Chua 

QUEZON CITY, Philippines—When the Chinese meet a few years after graduating from college, they would often ask each other, “What business are you into?” Filipinos, on the other hand, would ask, “Where do you work?” if not “Do you have work?”

More than being a racial issue, this classic anecdote points to something many Filipinos are said to lack: an entrepreneurial spirit. In a country where the economy is unstable and many are unemployed, this may be unfortunate.

“Pretty soon,” said the tycoon John Gokongwei in his commencement speech before the Ateneo de Manila University’s class of 2004, “we will become a nation that buys everything and produces practically nothing.”

To this grim vision, Gokongwei’s solution, and that of others as well, is that the country should have more entrepreneurs, people bold enough to take risks in setting up businesses that will create jobs—people brave enough to be their own boss.

Starting young

“We need more entrepreneurs and more positive mindset, because that is what will bring hope to many people,” says Philippine Center for Entrepreneurship (PCE) Executive Director Ramon Lopez.

And the best place to foster entrepreneurship, Lopez says, is nowhere else but school. Students should be encouraged to be entrepreneurs early on.

“It pays to start young,” Lopez says. “You’ve got nothing to lose, [just] everything to gain.”

Lopez, who holds a top position at RFM Corporation, a food and beverage company, defines entrepreneurship as a mindset or attitude of finding opportunities in all things. This does not necessarily mean setting up a business, although doing so is the commonest and most concrete expression of what Lopez calls the “entrepreneurial spirit.”

“Setting up new businesses can create more jobs for our country,” says Michael Tan, director of the Ateneo’s Management program, in an e-mail interview. “With more jobs available, the supply of money and our economy will improve.”

Ervin Jader, a Management senior at the Ateneo, plans to work for a multinational company when he graduates. But this will just be his stepping stone “to learn the tricks of the trade,” as he still aims to build his own business after three to five years.

This is what Gokongwei emphasized in his speech. “If you dream of creating something great, do not let a 9-to-5 job—even a high-paying one—lull you into a complacent, comfortable life. Let that high-paying job propel you toward entrepreneurship instead,” he said.

As president of the Ateneo Management Association (AMA), the Ateneo’s home organization for Management majors, Jader observes that many students have the entrepreneurial spirit and are able to come up with brilliant business ideas. Rarely do these ideas get implemented, however.

“There are really many good proposals and ideas, but the sad thing is, they remain in the library, they get stacked in a shelf,” he says. “A few people have the courage to really go into it.”

At the Ateneo

Various efforts to encourage entrepreneurship among students—from creating business proposals to actually implementing them—have been in place at the Ateneo de Manila.

Jader says that AMA, for its part, has adopted entrepreneurship as a new vision two years ago. One of their projects, in fact, is the AMA Entrepreneurial Challenge, a yearlong competition among aspiring student entrepreneurs.

The John Gokongwei School of Management (JGSOM) also has the SOM Business Accelerator, a business incubation facility that gives students the chance to design and implement their own businesses guided by business educators and practitioners.

Perhaps the biggest testament to the University’s efforts in promoting student entrepreneurship, Ateneans say, is the so-called “entrepreneurial laboratory”—the John Gokongwei Student Enterprise Center, popularly known as the SOM Mall.

Formally opened in February 2007, this student mall, the first of its kind, has 12 stalls exclusively for student-owned businesses. Students are allowed to lease a stall from one semester to a school year, and may renew their contract depending on different conditions.

This proves that the University is serious in promoting and supporting student entrepreneurship, says Tan. And doing so is not that hard, he adds, because “[students] have the entrepreneurial spirit within themselves.”

Improving trends

This spirit may just be within many Filipinos today, if a worldwide survey is to be believed.

Lopez cites the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, whose initial results show that Filipinos rank third among 40 nationalities when it comes to having the desire to start a business.

“Filipinos are not anymore contented with just a secure job with benefits,” Tan says. “Filipinos now understand and believe in the power of entrepreneurship.”

It might not take too long, after all, before Filipinos, a few years after college graduation, would start asking each other, “How’s your business, big boss?”