Research conducted by EY reveals that constant market disruption is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. As many as 82% percent of CEOs and board members believe that market disruptions are becoming more frequent and impactful, while 65% of Forbes 2000 companies plan to increase transformation spending over the next three years. For many organizations, transformation is an ongoing process of adaptation and reinvention.

Yet despite significant investment, transformation success remains elusive. Studies consistently show that only 10% to 30% of transformation initiatives achieves their intended outcomes. EY’s global research further found that 67% of senior leaders have experienced at least one under-performing transformation in the past five years. The findings suggest that organizations often focus heavily on processes, technology, and strategy while under-estimating the human and emotional dimensions of change.

The research identifies transformation fundamentally as a human challenge. Both leaders and employees experience emotional journeys during significant change, and these journeys can determine whether transformation succeeds or fails. Employees who have experienced unsuccessful change initiatives are more likely to associate transformation with job insecurity, layoffs, and uncertainty, resulting in lower trust, reduced engagement, and diminished productivity.

The human-centered approach

To address this challenge, the research proposes a human-centered approach to transformation. Rather than viewing people as a single component within a broader program, successful organizations place humans at the center of their transformation agenda. This requires leaders to balance a business objective with a deep understanding of employee needs, emotions, and experiences.

The study highlights critical leadership actions that drive transformation success. Leaders must first lead by demonstrating inclusive leadership and aligning diverse stakeholders around a common purpose. They must inspire through a clear and compelling narrative that helps employees understand why change is necessary and what role they play in the journey. They need to care by fostering trust, psychological safety, and participation, ensuring people feel heard and valued throughout the process.

Equally important, leaders must empower employees by encouraging creativity, experimentation, and innovation. They must build by leveraging technology that enhances both organizational performance and employee experience. Finally, they have to collaborate, breaking down silos and enabling teams to co-create new ways of working that support success.

Paradoxes and challenges

The research also highlights several paradoxes leaders must navigate. They must deliver results today while disrupting business for tomorrow. They need a clear vision while simultaneously remaining humble enough to embrace uncertainty. They have to foster broad engagement while managing the emotional isolation that often accompanies leadership decisions, and they need to balance disciplined execution with the freedom that fuels innovation.

The consequences of getting transformation wrong can be significant. Among employees who have experienced an under-performing transformation, 50% agree that transformation is simply another word for layoffs, while 49% say it creates concerns about job security. In addition, 42% believe their organization does not really need to transform and is already performing well.

In the near term, these perceptions can erode trust in the organization, reduce psychological safety, and contribute to disengagement, attrition, and lower productivity. Over the long term, the effects can carry into future transformation efforts, making it more difficult to improve employee satisfaction, secure stakeholder buy-in, and achieve business objectives.

Creating the conditions to deliver long-term value

In an environment of constant disruption, transformation is no longer simply about changing processes or adopting new technologies. It is about building an organizational culture that can continuously evolve to deliver long-term value. The ability to transform repeatedly, effectively, and at speed is becoming a core determinant of business resilience and growth.

Organizations that place humans at the center of transformation are better positioned to adapt, innovate, and thrive. In the new normal of continuous change, transformative leadership is not just about managing transformation. It is about creating the conditions for people to embrace it, sustain it, and ultimately drive it forward.

(This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional advice where the facts and circumstances warrant. The views and opinions expressed above are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of SGV & Co. and the MAP. The author is a member of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP). She is the Chairman and Country Managing Partner of SGV & Co. This article was co-written with Jan Ray G. Manlapaz, Consulting Partner of SGV & Co.  Feedback at <map@map.org.ph> and <rossana.a.fajardo@ph.ey.com>).

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The trade agreements past and present guaranteed market access to every firm. What we want to explore is what happens between the day the market opened, and the day a firm starts earning something from it. In that space is where most trade agreements die quietly – not in the negotiating room but in that gap between a legal right and an operating capability. Market access is a condition; market advantage is a capability. Access is granted but advantage is built.

RCEP cannot build that advantage for businesses. It cannot find the customers, develop products, create trust, or decide where they should compete. It cannot execute the strategy. Those remain the job of business. How then can we convert access into advantage? It starts by not assuming that access means a jump into immediate growth – a mistake we often make with large regional initiatives.  There is no flying leap; we need to climb stairs made up of small, even slow and unglamorous but sequential steps — something that even an ordinary firm with ordinary resources should be able to do. Let us go through these five steps.

SEE. First, see where the real opportunities are – not just in market size but where demand is growing, where capabilities are complementary, where supply chains are reorganizing, where technology, capital and talent are moving, and where a company, an industry or an economy has something distinctive to contribute. Opportunity is not evenly distributed, and the first competitive advantage is knowing where to look.

CHOOSE. We cannot pursue everything – we must choose our battles. We do not run after every market, or every sector, not even after every opportunity. We look at where we can actually win because we have the capabilities and capacities. Strategies require these choices.

CONNECT. Then, connect because opportunity requires relationships, customers, partners, distributors, investors, suppliers, technology providers, financial and other institutions, and governments. Regional integration does not happen because countries sign agreements. It happens because people and businesses begin doing things together. No company—and for that matter, no economy—creates competitive advantage entirely by itself.

INTEGRATE. Connection is not enough, however. The greater opportunity is to participate in the regional value chain – be a part of the system, shifting and moving up and across trade routes to value networks.

SCALE. Finally, scale. One successful transaction can be merely opportunistic, but repeated transactions create a business. A business that can replicate its model across several markets begins to create competitive advantage. When something works, replicate it, deepen it, invest in it, expand into adjacent markets. We keep participating, whether in bigger or smaller roles, until participation becomes an advantage, and that advantage begins generating the next opportunity.

In other words, there are no quick fixes; only a painstaking equation until we arrive at better solutions. Access means we can enter. Participation means we are doing business. Integration means we have become part of the system. Scale means we can replicate and deepen that position, and advantage means what we have accumulated make it easier for us to compete again.

We now see an impressive regional architecture waiting to be used – but access does not automatically ensure participation. While underutilization is a symptom, it is not necessarily the root problem. Procedures can be cumbersome and rules can be too difficult to understand. Information does not reach the businesses that need it and regulatory differences remain. Compliance can cost more than it saves, and smaller companies simply do not have the resources to navigate the system.

On the flipside, there is something less visible but equally important – the economics of confidence. A business will tolerate complexity if the opportunity is sufficiently attractive. It will invest across borders if it has confidence in the market, the partners and the operating environment. If the opportunity is uncertain, even the most beautifully designed agreement may remain underused; so, the challenge is not simply to make RCEP easier to use. It is to make participation valuable enough that businesses want to use it. When accessed, we begin fueling the regional growth engine.

This is NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME. Regional integration does not have to mean every economy competing for the same piece of the pie. It can mean creating a larger pie by connecting complementary strengths. A market gives us somewhere to sell. An engine gives us a system that keeps generating opportunities. Businesses do not invest in agreements. They invest in opportunities.

INTEGRATION DOES NOT HAPPEN AUTOMATICALLY.

One cautionary note is that we should recognize the danger in becoming too enthusiastic about the opportunity just because we have seen regional initiatives elsewhere that promised enormous potential. We should ask the question: did they fully realize the intended benefits? These experiences matter not because they tell us integration does not work, but because they tell us what can prevent it from failing. Experience, after all, is an economic asset.

Five lessons stand out:

Access without utilization creates very little value. An agreement can exist, but if businesses do not understand it or cannot navigate it, its potential remains largely theoretical.

Integration without competitiveness is fragile. Connecting businesses does not automatically make them competitive. If the economics do not work, the relationship will not last.

Cooperation without commercial logic can become ceremonial. We can have forums, memoranda, delegations and announcements but eventually, somebody has to buy something. Somebody has to invest. Somebody has to produce. Somebody has to create value. That is where integration becomes real.

Regional integration must not become an exclusive club for the largest companies. If MSMEs and smaller businesses cannot participate, then we may create integration—but not necessarily broad-based development.

And finally, efficiency alone is not enough. We need resilience as well, because time and again we have been shown that the most efficient value chain is not necessarily the most resilient one. In a world of geopolitical tensions, disruptions, climate events and rapidly changing technologies, the regional growth engine must be designed to absorb shocks as well as generate growth.

EAST ASIA: WHERE THE OPPORTUNITY IS

RCEP can be a genuine moment in this region’s trade evolution, but it is not the answer, and it is not the opportunity. It is the infrastructure that allows us to pursue the opportunity. The opportunity is East Asia itself, with its enormous markets, inter-connected supply chains, investment flows, technology and complementary economies. The goal is to become more deeply connected to how East Asia produces, consumes, invests, innovates and grows — and in doing so, to transform market access into market advantage, and market advantage into sustained and shared growth.

As had been said, RCEP opens the door, but it does not walk us through it. It creates a common framework within which businesses can increasingly think across markets. It does not create the whole chain, but it lowers some barriers and creates a platform. Businesses have to build the rest.

RCEP requires work.  We must understand the rules, the documentation, the standards and the market requirements. That same work can likewise turn bureaucracy from an obstacle into capability, but only when we stop thinking of it as the cost of RCEP and start treating it as the price of learning how to play in a much larger economic system. For governments, that means creating the conditions for businesses to connect and compete. For institutions, it means turning the agreement into usable knowledge, relationships and opportunities. For companies, it means going beyond what markets can we enter, to asking what role we can play in this regional system.

I believe we are ready to build the engine and for RCEP to become much more than an agreement that gives us access. RCEP must become the platform on which we build something much bigger – an integrated East Asian growth engine capable of generating opportunity, creating value, building resilience and compounding growth across the region. We should share the aspiration that if we can do this right this time, or at least, give it a serious try – that success will create the conditions for the next frontier — a borderless trade.●

(The author is Co-Vice Chair of the ���Ĵ�ýTrade, Investments and Tourism Committee; Chair of the ���Ĵ�ýCEO Conference Committee; President and CEO of Health Solutions Corporation; and former Undersecretary of the Department of Tourism. Feedback at map@map.org.ph)

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On June 22, gunfire erupted at San Jose National High School in Tacloban. In August, another shooting took place at Ateneo de Zamboanga University. Then on Sept. 18, the country woke up to another tragedy, this time at Banga National High School in South Cotabato, where two students were killed, several others were wounded, and the student gunman took his own life. School shootings remain rare in the Philippines, but three deadly incidents in such a short period should force us to ask whether we are seeing warning signs of a much deeper problem.

Our instinct after an incident like this is understandably to focus on physical security. Schools tighten their gates, guards inspect bags, students are checked for weapons, and police visibility is increased. There will inevitably be proposals for metal detectors, CCTV cameras and more stringent security procedures. Some of these measures may be necessary, but if our principal solution is to find the gun before it enters the classroom, then we are already intervening too late. We need to reach the young person before he ever decides to pick up the gun.

This is why I believe the recent shootings should force us to confront the state of mental health and well-being among our young people. This is not to suggest that mental illness causes violence. Most people struggling with mental health conditions will never harm another person, and we should be careful not to reinforce that stigma. Violence has many possible causes, including family circumstances, bullying, social isolation, access to firearms, exposure to violent material and other factors. What we cannot afford to ignore, however, are warning signs that someone may be in serious distress or contemplating harm to himself or others.

Reports on the South Cotabato shooting indicate that the student had told friends about what he intended to do. Authorities are also investigating his online activities and possible exposure to violent content and online communities. The firearm used in the attack reportedly belonged to his father. These matters are still under investigation, and we should resist jumping to conclusions about what ultimately caused the attack, but they raise questions every parent in this country should be asking: How well do we really know what our children are going through?

Parents need to check on their children — and not just their bags. Talk to them, know their friends, understand what they are doing online and pay attention to when their behavior changes dramatically. Listen when they talk about hopelessness, anger, self-harm or violence. And if there is a firearm at home, keeping it inaccessible to children is a fundamental responsibility.

Teachers occupy an equally important position because they see our children for hours every day and may notice changes that families do not. A student who suddenly withdraws, becomes severely distressed, repeatedly talks about death or violence, is being badly bullied or makes threats should not simply be dismissed as a difficult child. Teachers are not mental health professionals, but they should know what to do, whom to inform and where to refer that student.

The same principle applies beyond schools. Bosses need to check on their teams. Managers are not psychologists and should never pretend to diagnose their employees, but responsible organizations should create environments where asking for help is acceptable and where employees in distress can be referred to professionals. Mental health is not only an education or health issue; it is also a workplace, productivity and ultimately national issue.

The troubling thing is that the Philippines is not starting from zero. We already have laws intended to build much of this system. Republic Act (RA) No. 11036, or the Mental Health Act, has been law since 2018. RA 12080, the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act, became law in 2024. The latter provides for school-based mental health programs, Care Centers in schools, Mental Health and Well-Being Offices in Schools Division Offices, and the hiring and deployment of qualified personnel. Its implementing rules are already in place.

The question, therefore, is no longer whether we need another law. The more urgent question is whether we are implementing the laws that we already have.

After these three shootings, the House of Representatives and the Senate should make this an urgent oversight agenda. They should require the responsible agencies to report publicly on implementation. How much has been appropriated and how much has actually been spent? How many schools have functioning Care Centers? How many counselors and counselor associates have been hired? What is our counselor-to-student ratio? How many cities and municipalities have functioning referral networks and accessible mental health services? We need numbers and measurable outcomes, not assurances.

DepEd should be able to tell parents how far we have progressed in implementing RA 12080 across the country. DOH should show where professional mental health services are available and whether families outside major urban centers can actually access them. DILG should work with governors, mayors and barangays to ensure that local mental health systems and referral mechanisms work on the ground, while DSWD should be part of the intervention network for vulnerable children and families. The Philippine Council for Mental Health should be able to show us how all these moving parts are being coordinated.

DICT has an increasingly important role because a significant part of our children’s lives now takes place online. Government needs better mechanisms for responding to credible online threats, cyberbullying and potentially harmful online communities. It should work with schools, parents, law enforcement and technology platforms to improve digital safety and literacy. At the same time, protecting children cannot become an excuse for indiscriminate surveillance. Any system must protect privacy and due process while providing a clear way to escalate credible threats of serious harm.

DOLE and the Civil Service Commission should similarly examine whether workplace mental health requirements are actually being implemented. DTI can help mobilize businesses and industry groups to participate in a national response. The private sector employs millions of Filipinos and has resources, technologies and networks that can support mental health programs in workplaces and communities. This cannot remain a collection of separate government programs operating independently of one another. We need one national system.

I propose that government undertake a 90-day national audit of the implementation of RA 11036 and RA 12080. The results should be public and should identify gaps by region, province and school division. From that audit, government should create a national mental health implementation dashboard showing where counselors, care centers, crisis services and referral facilities are available. If we can build dashboards for economic indicators, weather disturbances and infrastructure projects, surely we can track something as important as the mental well-being of our people.

We also need a clear national early-intervention protocol for schools. When a student makes a credible threat to harm himself or others, teachers and administrators should not have to improvise. There should be a defined process for assessment, parental notification when appropriate, professional intervention, referral and follow-through, with safeguards for confidentiality and the rights of the student. Most importantly, identifying a person at risk is useless if there is nowhere to send that person. Schools, LGUs, hospitals, social workers and mental health professionals need to be connected through a functioning referral network.

Congress should use the national budget process to determine whether we are putting enough resources behind the promises contained in our laws. It should also require an annual public accounting of our progress: what we promised, what we funded, what we implemented, what worked and what did not. Mental health cannot be something government remembers only after a tragedy and then forgets when the headlines disappear.

As President of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), I believe the business community should also be part of this effort. Companies can strengthen workplace mental health programs, support community initiatives, provide technology and resources, and help make seeking professional help normal rather than shameful. But this requires a coordinated national response in which government, business, schools, families and communities understand their respective responsibilities.

Parents must check on their children. Teachers must check on their students. Bosses must check on their teams. Friends must check on each other. And government must check itself.

We already have the Mental Health Act. We already have the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act. We have government agencies with defined responsibilities, the House and the Senate exercising oversight and controlling the national purse, and LGUs responsible for delivering services in our communities. The laws are there and the institutions are there. The question we should now be asking is simple: Where are we in implementing them?

Tacloban, Zamboanga and South Cotabato should be enough. We should not wait for another school to become a headline before we act.

(The author is President of the MAP. He is also President and COO of DITO CME Holdings Corporation. Feedback at <map@map.org.ph> and <donaldpatricklim@gmail.com>).

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Much has been said about enabling policy environment in trade, but we need to ask what that environment means from the perspective of the people and businesses who must live with the policies. When the world changes, the first question for them is not ‘what agreement do we have’ but what has changed—and what does that change make possible?’ Then, let us ask what we do with the opportunities made possible by these changes.

This is an important conversation because the world is changing faster, and the global economy is rewiring, trade routes are being reconfigured, capital is moving differently, and technology is changing not only what we produce, but where and how value is created. These fundamentally challenges many of our traditional assumptions about markets, supply chains and competitiveness.

Our questions should go beyond where can we sell to where should we produce, who should we partner with, where should we invest, and more importantly, where do we belong in the system that creates value? Nowhere is this more consequential than in East Asia – a region that has become much more than a collection of national markets. It is an inter-connected economic system where capital, technology, components, services, talent and investments move across the borders of fifteen countries.  Each bring different capabilities, resources, markets and strengths. That economic system did not emerge overnight but was built layer by layer over decades.

FROM AGREEMENTS TO AN ECONOMIC ARCHITECTURE

AFTA is the beginning when it reduced tariff barriers within ASEAN. Then came the ASEAN+1 agreements, extending the region’s connections to major economic partners. It continued with trade facilitation, customs cooperation, digitalization and the ASEAN Single Window – all adding another layer because they recognized that lowering tariffs will not mean much if goods still cannot move easily.

While every layer addressed a problem, it also revealed the next ones. AFTA showed us that tariffs are not the only barrier to trade. The ASEAN+1 agreements expanded our connections, but multiple agreements with different rules of origin created complexities of their own. That look at trade agreements’ history matters, because it tells us the problem was never lack of market access. It had been utilization, connectivity, rules, capabilities and actual business integration. They opened the growth corridors yet remained less effective in realizing the potential inside them.

This is not because they were flawed, but because the environment is a moving bus, not a stationary bike. The cycle of changes and remedies constantly outpace each other. The opportunity before us is to think bigger than trading across border and to create value across them, because competition itself is shifting from within individual markets to within inter-connected networks.

This is where the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) becomes strategically important. My perspective is that RCEP is less about creating another FTA, and more about bringing the existing architecture into one broader framework. Its potential is greater integration, achieved not by everyone doing the same thing, but by an assembly line of strengths becoming more valuable because they are connected. A component does not have to originate entirely in one country. A company does not have to do everything by itself. That complementarity is where the productive conversion of opportunity lies.

This is the mindset shift that RCEP invites us to consider – not competing for pieces of a regional market but building the regional market together. Businesses need to look beyond bilateral trade toward regional value chains, sourcing, partnerships and regional markets, and be part of one larger economic space. One country’s strength can become another economy’s opportunity. Just think about the possibilities of 15 economies brought together within a broader regional framework. That is what RCEP can bring to the table.

We are not lacking in examples. The automotive industry, for instance, illustrates the way Asian industries have evolved. A vehicle may carry the identity of one country, but its value is increasingly created across many – technology and capital from one economy, components from several others, assembly in another, with logistics, financing and services spread across the region. The automotive sector no longer operates as separate national industries. It operates as a regional production system.

It is not an isolated example. Electronics tells us the same story, and the list of industries with similar models is expanding. They show that creating value is no longer in just one place but through networks. That changes the question from how much can we export to this market to where do we want to sit in the growth story of East Asia.  Economies and companies combining complementary capabilities across borders create, move and capture value, and their outputs serve customers thousands of kilometers away.

Agreement by itself, does not create growth. The region provides the opportunity, businesses the capabilities, the connections, the pathways – and execution creates the advantage. Singapore did not become a powerful regional hub simply because it had access to markets. It built an ecosystem around that access – logistics, infrastructure, finance, institutions, talent and trusted relationships. RCEP in this context, is a platform – not the engine.

The trade agreements past and present guaranteed market access to every firm. What we want to explore is what happens between the day the market opened, and the day a firm starts earning something from it. In that space is where most trade agreements die quietly – not in the negotiating room but in that gap between a legal right and an operating capability. Market access is a condition; market advantage is a capability. Access is granted but advantage is built.

RCEP cannot build that advantage for businesses. It cannot find the customers, develop products, create trust, or decide where they should compete. It cannot execute the strategy. Those remain the job of business. How then can we convert access into advantage? It starts by not assuming that access means a jump into immediate growth – a mistake we often make with large regional initiatives.  There is no flying leap; we need to climb stairs made up of small, even slow and unglamorous but sequential steps — something that even an ordinary firm with ordinary resources should be able to do. Let us go through these five steps.

SEE. First, see where the real opportunities are – not just in market size but where demand is growing, where capabilities are complementary, where supply chains are reorganizing, where technology, capital and talent are moving, and where a company, an industry or an economy has something distinctive to contribute. Opportunity is not evenly distributed, and the first competitive advantage is knowing where to look.

CHOOSE. We cannot pursue everything – we must choose our battles. We do not run after every market, or every sector, not even after every opportunity. We look at where we can actually win because we have the capabilities and capacities. Strategies require these choices.

CONNECT. Then, connect because opportunity requires relationships, customers, partners, distributors, investors, suppliers, technology providers, financial and other institutions, and governments. Regional integration does not happen because countries sign agreements. It happens because people and businesses begin doing things together. No company—and for that matter, no economy—creates competitive advantage entirely by itself.

INTEGRATE. Connection is not enough, however. The greater opportunity is to participate in the regional value chain – be a part of the system, shifting and moving up and across trade routes to value networks.

SCALE. Finally, scale. One successful transaction can be merely opportunistic, but repeated transactions create a business. A business that can replicate its model across several markets begins to create competitive advantage. When something works, replicate it, deepen it, invest in it, expand into adjacent markets. We keep participating, whether in bigger or smaller roles, until participation becomes an advantage, and that advantage begins generating the next opportunity.

In other words, there are no quick fixes; only a painstaking equation until we arrive at better solutions. Access means we can enter. Participation means we are doing business. Integration means we have become part of the system. Scale means we can replicate and deepen that position, and advantage means what we have accumulated make it easier for us to compete again.

We now see an impressive regional architecture waiting to be used – but access does not automatically ensure participation. While underutilization is a symptom, it is not necessarily the root problem. Procedures can be cumbersome and rules can be too difficult to understand. Information does not reach the businesses that need it and regulatory differences remain. Compliance can cost more than it saves, and smaller companies simply do not have the resources to navigate the system.

On the flipside, there is something less visible but equally important – the economics of confidence. A business will tolerate complexity if the opportunity is sufficiently attractive. It will invest across borders if it has confidence in the market, the partners and the operating environment. If the opportunity is uncertain, even the most beautifully designed agreement may remain underused; so, the challenge is not simply to make RCEP easier to use. It is to make participation valuable enough that businesses want to use it. When accessed, we begin fueling the regional growth engine.

This is NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME. Regional integration does not have to mean every economy competing for the same piece of the pie. It can mean creating a larger pie by connecting complementary strengths. A market gives us somewhere to sell. An engine gives us a system that keeps generating opportunities. Businesses do not invest in agreements. They invest in opportunities.

INTEGRATION DOES NOT HAPPEN AUTOMATICALLY.

One cautionary note is that we should recognize the danger in becoming too enthusiastic about the opportunity just because we have seen regional initiatives elsewhere that promised enormous potential. We should ask the question: did they fully realize the intended benefits? These experiences matter not because they tell us integration does not work, but because they tell us what can prevent it from failing. Experience, after all, is an economic asset.

Five lessons stand out:

Access without utilization creates very little value. An agreement can exist, but if businesses do not understand it or cannot navigate it, its potential remains largely theoretical.

Integration without competitiveness is fragile. Connecting businesses does not automatically make them competitive. If the economics do not work, the relationship will not last.

Cooperation without commercial logic can become ceremonial. We can have forums, memoranda, delegations and announcements but eventually, somebody has to buy something. Somebody has to invest. Somebody has to produce. Somebody has to create value. That is where integration becomes real.

Regional integration must not become an exclusive club for the largest companies. If MSMEs and smaller businesses cannot participate, then we may create integration—but not necessarily broad-based development.

And finally, efficiency alone is not enough. We need resilience as well, because time and again we have been shown that the most efficient value chain is not necessarily the most resilient one. In a world of geopolitical tensions, disruptions, climate events and rapidly changing technologies, the regional growth engine must be designed to absorb shocks as well as generate growth.

EAST ASIA: WHERE THE OPPORTUNITY IS

RCEP can be a genuine moment in this region’s trade evolution, but it is not the answer, and it is not the opportunity. It is the infrastructure that allows us to pursue the opportunity. The opportunity is East Asia itself, with its enormous markets, inter-connected supply chains, investment flows, technology and complementary economies. The goal is to become more deeply connected to how East Asia produces, consumes, invests, innovates and grows — and in doing so, to transform market access into market advantage, and market advantage into sustained and shared growth.

As had been said, RCEP opens the door, but it does not walk us through it. It creates a common framework within which businesses can increasingly think across markets. It does not create the whole chain, but it lowers some barriers and creates a platform. Businesses have to build the rest.

RCEP requires work.  We must understand the rules, the documentation, the standards and the market requirements. That same work can likewise turn bureaucracy from an obstacle into capability, but only when we stop thinking of it as the cost of RCEP and start treating it as the price of learning how to play in a much larger economic system. For governments, that means creating the conditions for businesses to connect and compete. For institutions, it means turning the agreement into usable knowledge, relationships and opportunities. For companies, it means going beyond what markets can we enter, to asking what role we can play in this regional system.

I believe we are ready to build the engine and for RCEP to become much more than an agreement that gives us access. RCEP must become the platform on which we build something much bigger – an integrated East Asian growth engine capable of generating opportunity, creating value, building resilience and compounding growth across the region. We should share the aspiration that if we can do this right this time, or at least, give it a serious try – that success will create the conditions for the next frontier — a borderless trade.●

(The author is Co-Vice Chair of the ���Ĵ�ýTrade, Investments and Tourism Committee; Chair of the ���Ĵ�ýCEO Conference Committee; President and CEO of Health Solutions Corporation; and former Undersecretary of the Department of Tourism. Feedback at map@map.org.ph)

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Somewhere in East Asia, a buyer is choosing a supplier, and a manufacturer is deciding where to expand. For the Philippines, RCEP’s value will be measured by how often those decisions bring business here.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership connects 15 economies through rules governing trade, services, and investment. Its promise becomes tangible when a Philippine company can offer a better price, deliver more reliably, or justify a larger factory. Converting that advantage into market share requires deliberate action by companies and the government. Our regional competitors have access to the same framework. The advantage must come from how well our firms and public institutions use it.

Turning market access into advantage

I describe RCEP as an operating system for regional growth because it helps businesses coordinate activities across borders. A Philippine manufacturer can use qualifying inputs from Japan, Korea, and ASEAN partners to meet the agreement’s origin requirements for preferential tariffs. That flexibility can help it build a more competitive regional supply chain.

The commercial calculation must still be made shipment by shipment. RCEP coexists with other trade agreements, including our bilateral arrangements with Japan and Korea. Companies should compare applicable tariffs, origin requirements, and compliance costs. Another agreement may offer better terms; some products already enter duty-free. The objective is the best available arrangement for the transaction.

Management should then decide how to turn any savings into a stronger offer: a lower delivered price, better service, or greater capacity to handle more orders. Sales staff, production teams, and logistics managers must work toward the same promise to the customer.

Earning the next order

Vietnam’s Vinapro illustrates that approach. The exporter of cashews, pepper and cinnamon saw RCEP as an opening to expand formal exports to China and seek buyers at regional trade fairs. Its early account documents a commercial response to the agreement. It shows why trade facilitation must be accompanied by active selling.

For Thailand’s NC Coconut, which supplies fresh coconuts to China, that promise depends on time. Delays erode freshness and margins. RCEP provides priority treatment of perishables and, under normal circumstances and where possible, customs release within six hours of arrival and submission of required information, provided regulatory requirements are met. Philippine fruit and seafood exporters have a direct interest in ensuring these provisions work, alongside investments in storage and transport.

At home, ANTHILL Fabric Gallery connects traditional weaving communities with international buyers. Its experience highlights the challenges smaller enterprises face. Products with distinctive appeal still need competitive pricing, consistent quality, and dependable delivery. RCEP offers a new trade option to assess; converting it into sales requires capabilities that many small firms cannot build alone.

The Department of Trade and Industry and business associations (such as PCCI) should provide or arrange advice on an actual product, buyer, and order. Assistance should link tariff and origin guidance to testing, packaging, financing, and logistics. Larger exporters can help smaller firms qualify as suppliers, providing a practical route into regional markets.

Winning the next investment

Investment brings another dimension. In March 2023, I attended the inauguration of P&G’s ₱864-million Pampers production line in Cabuyao, intended to supply South Korea. It demonstrated how an established investor could expand Philippine production for regional customers. The line opened before RCEP took effect here in June 2023, and its specific RCEP savings remain unverified. Its relevance is the business model: producing here to serve markets beyond our borders.

RCEP can strengthen that model. More customers can justify greater production capacity, and a wider range of qualifying suppliers can improve costs and resilience. Yet investors still compare locations. Reliable, competitively priced power, efficient logistics, skilled workers, and predictable regulations remain decisive. Existing investors deserve particular attention: we should help them choose the Philippines for their next expansion.

Our opportunities extend from electronics and food processing to engineering, software and business services supporting regional operations. Local suppliers must develop alongside incoming investment so that Filipino firms and workers gain contracts, skills and higher-value work.

Making commitments work

Three priorities follow. First, make borders predictable. The Philippines already uses digital customs systems and accepts electronic trade documents. The government must build on that progress by connecting regulatory agencies, expanding electronic acceptance, and reducing remaining paper requirements. A delay at one agency can erase the benefit of a tariff preference.

Second, provide effective investor aftercare, with a service point empowered to coordinate agencies and resolve operational issues. Third, help suppliers meet buyers’ actual requirements through accessible testing, skills development, and advice on proving origin. Support should follow firms through delivery and repeat orders.

A partnership measured by results

The RCEP Business and Investment Summit should lead to a continuing compact between business and government. The East Asia Business Council, Management Association of the Philippines and other business associations should document recurring obstacles and work with DTI to bring them to the appropriate agencies and RCEP committees. The general review due in 2027 offers a further opportunity to pursue remedies grounded in business experience.

Business associations and DTI should jointly publish an aggregate scorecard that protects commercial confidentiality: orders completed, delivery performance, suppliers engaged, and investments operating. Announcements, approvals, and financing should be reported separately from productive capacity actually brought into use. This would make the compact accountable for results.

The next buyer and the next investor have choices. RCEP gives us additional tools to compete for their business. We must make the Philippines a country they choose with confidence—and choose again.

[The author is former President of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP). He served as Secretary of Trade and Industry, President of UP System and director and Adviser at the Asian Development Bank. Feedback at <map@map.org.ph> and <apascual@up.edu.ph>.]

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To be sure, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reports that the distribution of income in the country has improved in recent years. However, economic inequality persists and continues to be substantial.

The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, or OXFAM, paints a much gloomier picture. Its latest report shows that the Philippines has the worst distribution of income and wealth in the ASEAN region where severe income inequality continues, despite steady macroeconomic growth. In its 2026 country report, OXFAM Pilipinas notes that the country’s recent upgrade to upper-middle-income status means very little “(to) millions of Filipinos who remain poor, excluded from public services, and highly vulnerable to climate and economic crises.”

OXFAM noted in particular that the richest 1 per cent of Filipinos earned nearly 20 per cent of the total national income, while the share of the lower 50 per cent of the population stood at just 14 per cent of the national income.

This situation is patently unsustainable, and there is an urgent need for the state to remedy this anomaly. Regrettably, the state has been unable (or worse, unwilling) to take the necessary corrective measures.  Foremost among the reasons for the state’s inaction is that many government officials have found common cause with culprits and criminal elements in the community, many of whom being prominent corporate figures, and engaged with them in various forms of corruption, the most audacious among which being the recent flood control scandals by which billions of pesos in project costs have been siphoned off from government coffers,

The Accountability of Business

Business is equally culpable, however.

The long-standing goal of business is the maximization of profits, the portion of the economic value produced by the firm that accrues to its owners, or shareholders, in the case of public corporations. All too often, business firms seek to achieve this goal by appropriating economic value from their other stakeholders by implementing what are collectively known as Shareholder Strategy.

Shareholder strategies are concerned solely with the financial interests of corporate shareholders and focused primarily on the twin goals of increasing revenues on the one hand and controlling costs on the other.

Traditional shareholder strategies emphasize maximizing returns on investment. This is done primarily by putting a lid on operating costs while maintaining a steady inflow of revenue. These business practices tend to contribute to economic inequality. Among them are the following:

• Controlling labor costs by paying workers the prevailing legal minimum wage rates;
• Scrimping on product development, quality improvement and customer services, measure that deprive customers of value for their money;
• Price gouging, a revenue-generating practice employed by monopolies that harms mainly the firm’s poor customers; and
• Ignoring costs of environmental damage resulting from the firm’s operation, a cost-avoiding practice that is more harmful to people who live in shanties than to those who live in airconditioned comfort.

An alternative strategy, one that is increasingly being pursued by progressive corporations, is called Stakeholder Strategy.

Stakeholder strategies are those that aim to maximize profits (or shareholder wealth, in the case of public corporations) by creating value for all of the firm’s other stakeholders, notably their manual workers. For example, by paying higher wages than the prevailing legal minimum rates, workers become more highly motivated and productive, and the firm more profitable in the long run.

Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is a widely practiced business model that integrates social and environmental issues into the operations of the firm. By adhering to CSR, business firms pursue their usual objectives while at the same time taking on the responsibility of addressing society’s problems of poverty, economic inequality and environmental degradation.

The doctrine of CSR obligates business firms to assume the following four types of responsibility to society.

• Ethical responsibility – the general philosophical or religious belief that business firms are morally bound to do good to others;
• Philanthropic responsibility – the firm’s commitment to render financial or material assistance to those in need – the poor, the sick and the hungry;
• Economic responsibility – an obligation consisting of the different strategies by which business firms can help hasten economic growth and promote welfare; and
• Environmental responsibility – which includes the corporate obligation to reduce global warming by minimizing carbon emission, implementing proper waste disposal, and by shifting to renewable sources of energy.

These corporate responsibilities commit the firm to do good to others by sharing economic value with them that otherwise would have been part of profits, an apparent departure from the long-standing dictum that the sole function of the firm in modern society is to maximize profits

We continue to subscribe to the traditional theory that the goal of the firm in a Capitalistic society is to maximize profits, but maintain that the most efficacious way of doing so is by creating value for all other stakeholders in the firm – its workers, its customers, its business partners, and the community.

A more revolutionary approach to addressing economic inequality and global warming is one proposed by eminent French economist Thomas Piketty.

In his landmark book, Time for Socialism: Dispatches from a World om Fire, Piketty observes that the rampant abuses of business firms in capitalistic economies stems from a free market economy that has become too free-wheeling. He advocates a hybrid economic system that combines features of Capitalism and Socialism in order to put in check the rampant abuses of business firms, and to hold erring public officials accountable for their misdeeds. In this mixed system, the state plays a more dominant role in managing the economy for the greater interest of society

This idea is intriguing, but we fear that its implementation will be too disruptive and will introduce unforeseen forces that are too difficult to control. We prefer a gradual, incremental change strategy that will bring about predictable, steady improvements, rather than one that will bring the system to the desired state in one fell swoop.

(The article reflects the personal opinion of the author and does not reflect the official stand of the Management Association of the Philippines or MAP. The author is a member of the ���Ĵ�ýShared Prosperity Committee and Retired Professor of Economics and Management at UP Diliman. Feedback at <map@map.org.ph> and <nspoblador@gmail.com>).

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The Leadership Imperative: Converting Advantage into Capability

This is precisely what makes leadership so challenging today. Whether an individual is thrust into leadership by circumstance or entrusted with authority by their constituents, the full weight of day-to-day operations and strategic survival rests on them.

We see this universal truth reflected across every field. From Arts and Music to world-class Sports, extraordinary circumstances often forge the ultimate platforms for transformation. True leaders are created when they step up to the plate—using their environment and platforms to their advantage, whether that means channeling their wealth and influence to discover the next talent or breaking boundaries in competition.

Converting circumstances into advantage requires deliberate execution. A young population is not automatically an economic dividend—it becomes one only when matched with quality education, workforce development, innovation, and productive employment. Likewise, our strategic location in Asia yields lasting benefits only when backed by modern infrastructure, reliable power systems, and efficient capital deployment.

Trust and the Horizon Ahead

The opportunity before leaders is not merely to automate existing processes or reduce operating costs. It is to fundamentally rethink how value is created, delivered, and sustained in an environment where technology, economics, and geopolitics are changing simultaneously.

Yet technology remains only an accelerator. It amplifies both the strengths and weaknesses of the institutions that deploy it. Organizations grounded in strong governance, sound leadership, and a culture of innovation will be positioned to unlock extraordinary value. Those without these foundations risk doing little more than magnifying existing inefficiencies.

This is why, even as artificial intelligence transforms how organizations operate, trust has become an increasingly scarce strategic asset. The institutions that will endure are not necessarily those that adopt technology the fastest, but those that can use it responsibly while maintaining credibility with employees, investors, regulators, customers, and the public.

For business leaders, this increasingly means operating with the sophistication of diplomats. They must navigate shifting public policy priorities, regulatory developments, geopolitical risks, stakeholder expectations, and market realities—often simultaneously. Leadership today is therefore less about having all the answers and more about understanding how these forces interact, making difficult choices amid uncertainty, and preserving institutional credibility while doing so.

MAP–SGV 7th NextGen Conference: UNCHARTED

This changing environment provides the context for the MAP-SGV 7th NextGen Conference: UNCHARTED. Preparing the leaders of tomorrow requires more than conventional management tools; it demands a fundamental shift in mindset.

To venture into uncharted territory is to confront uncertainty without the comfort of an established map. It forces both speakers and participants to reflect deeply on shifting global realities and to reconsider what leadership means when traditional assumptions no longer hold. At the Conference, these questions come together: What does it mean to lead beyond titles and traditional boundaries? How do we replace outdated playbooks with agility, cross-border collaboration, and purpose-driven influence? And how do we make decisions when the path ahead is neither certain nor clearly defined?

Leading through uncertainty is ultimately a profound exercise in self-confrontation and adaptation. As speakers share their own experiences of being tested by sudden responsibility, disruption, and unfamiliar challenges, they invite the audience to consider what it takes not merely to survive change, but to thrive through it.

The traditional blueprints for growth have begun to break down. Evolving economic forces have redefined value, cost, and competitiveness. Technology has altered the speed at which industries transform, while geopolitical and institutional shifts have made yesterday’s assumptions increasingly unreliable. Yet, even in uncharted territory, emerging leaders can consistently exceed expectations by choosing curiosity over certainty, trading rigid titles for genuine connection, and stepping forward with courage when there is no established path to follow.

The map is not coming—and that is precisely the opportunity.

The NextGen Conference will leave us with a simple but undeniable truth: navigating the uncharted is not about waiting for quiet seas or formal authority. It is about having the audacity to steer through the storm. In a landscape transformed by shifting economics, technological disruption, and broken templates, the future belongs to those who stop reaching for old playbooks and begin charting new waters.

To lead in this environment is to step beyond the comfort of titles, embrace ambiguity, build trust, and have the courage to move forward when certainty is unavailable.

Building through Uncertainty

But leadership in uncharted territory cannot end with individual courage. It must ultimately translate into the ability to build institutions that can withstand uncertainty.

For the Philippines, we possess many of the ingredients necessary for sustainable economic success—a talented and increasingly capable workforce, strategic geography, growing capital markets, entrepreneurial energy, and significant development potential. The challenge is not simply to recognize these advantages, but to transform them into enduring national capabilities.

That transformation requires institutions that can attract and deploy capital intelligently, embrace technology without abandoning trust, develop talent, and make decisions with a view toward the next generation rather than merely the next quarter.

As the global order evolves, our task is therefore not merely to navigate change. It is to shape outcomes—to strengthen our institutions, expand opportunities, deepen our economic capabilities, and create lasting national value.

The waters ahead may remain uncharted. But that does not mean we are without direction.

We chart the course by the institutions we build, the trust we earn, and the courage with which we lead.

[The author is Co-Chair of Sub-Committees on Marketing, Community and Networking of NextGen Committee of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).  Feedback at <map@map.org.ph> and <jbchen@mic.gov.ph>]. 

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For board directors in the Philippines and ASEAN, this is not abstract. It goes to the heart of governance credibility, particularly in economies where growth is rapid, ownership structures are concentrated, and public trust remains fragile.

Beyond the Word

Integrity is often equated with personal honesty. But in the boardroom, it demands far more. It means:

• Consistency between values and decisions
• Independence of mind, not just formal independence
• The courage to challenge dominant voices
• Transparency, even when uncomfortable
• Loyalty to the institution above personal or political relationships

In many ASEAN contexts, this last point is critical. Boards often operate within networks of long-standing relationships, family, business, or political which can blur lines between loyalty and objectivity. Integrity, therefore, is not simply about character. It is about discipline under pressure.

Integrity in Practice

In real terms, integrity is visible in everyday board decisions:

• Challenging Management: In hierarchical cultures, questioning leadership can be seen as disrespect. Yet effective oversight depends on it. A board that does not ask difficult questions is not governing; it is endorsing.
• Managing Conflicts of Interest: Across ASEAN, related-party transactions and cross-directorships are common. Integrity requires not only disclosure but clear boundaries and, when necessary, recusal.
• Approving Strategy: Boards must look beyond profitability. Rapid expansion common in emerging markets can expose companies to regulatory, environmental, and reputational risks, if not carefully scrutinized.
• Acting on Early Warning Signs: Whistleblower complaints, audit findings, or operational anomalies must be addressed early. Delay is often the difference between manageable risk and full-blown crisis.
• Aligning Incentives: Aggressive growth targets are frequent in developing markets and unintentionally encourage misconduct, if not balanced with ethical safeguards.

Lessons from Regional and Global Failures

Governance failures, both global and regional, reveal the cost of treating integrity as a formality.

Globally, Enron showed how passive boards and conflicts of interest can destroy an institution. Volkswagen demonstrated how weak ethical culture can override even sophisticated governance structures.

Integrity failures are not confined to corporations. They occur whenever those entrusted with stewardship of public or private resources prioritize personal gain over institutional purpose.

Closer to home, the ongoing controversy surrounding flood-control projects offers a stark reminder that integrity failures carry consequences beyond financial loss. Reports suggest that despite massive public spending, many communities remained vulnerable to flooding, raising questions about whether public resources were used effectively and for their intended purpose.

Across Southeast Asia, similar patterns recur:

• Concentrated ownership limiting independent oversight
• Boards reluctant to challenge controlling shareholders
• Cultural emphasis on harmony discouraging dissent

These cases differ in context but share one core issue: Integrity was present in policy but absent in practice.

Why Integrity becomes Lip Service in ASEAN? Why does this gap persist?

• First, cultural dynamics: In many ASEAN societies, respect for hierarchy can limit open challenge. Consensus is valued, but it can sometimes suppress necessary dissent.
• Second, ownership structures: Family-controlled and closely held companies remain common. This can blur the line between governance and management.
• Third, growth pressure: Emerging markets prioritize rapid expansion. In the process, governance discipline can lag behind business ambition.

As a result, integrity risks becoming symbolic visible in disclosures but not embedded in decisions.

From Statement to Discipline

For boards in the Philippines and ASEAN, the challenge is clear: Integrity must move from aspiration to practice.

This requires:

• Genuine independence of thought
• Safe space for dissent and challenge
• Strong oversight of related-party transactions
• Alignment between incentives and values
• Continuous reflection on board effectiveness

Most importantly, integrity must be demonstrated consistently, not selectively.

Integrity is not tested when decisions are easy. It is tested when choices are difficult, when relationships, performance, and principles collide. Boards must therefore confront a fundamental question: Is integrity something we declare or something we demonstrate? In ASEAN, where trust in institutions is still evolving, the answer matters deeply. Organizations do not fail because they lack values.

They fail because those values are not reflected in decisions. The test of governance is not what boards declare but how they decide. For boards, integrity must move beyond the annual report into the boardroom itself. Only then can directors fulfill their true role as guardians of trust in ASEAN’s growing economies.

(The author is a member of ���Ĵ�ýDiversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Committee and ���Ĵ�ýEducation Committee. She is Past Vice Chair and President of the Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD). She was the first female Chair of the Bases Conversion & Development Authority (BCDA).  She is President of Mageo Consulting Inc., a company providing corporate finance advisory services. Feedback at <map@map.org.ph> and <magg@mageo.net>.)

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From that time on, each succeeding generation has been gauged or measured against the country’s economic status during its time at the helm. After all, the country’s level of development is the sum of all its citizens’ contributions during a specific period.

After World War II, the Philippines was widely regarded as one of the Asian countries most likely to become a developed nation. We possessed formidable built-in advantages: (1) abundant natural resources, (2) a strategic location, (3) a high literacy rate, (4) proficiency in English, and (5) close ties with the U.S.A., the world’s dominant economic power then.

Indeed, the 1950s seemed to vindicate the expectation.  The economy grew by 6.5% to 7%, the currency remained stable, and the country emerged as one of region’s leading economies, behind only Japan. Filipino workers were readily absorbed by the domestic economy, and working abroad was virtually unheard of. Well-off Filipino families even employed foreign yayas (helpers). No wonder many old-timers remember this bygone era as our “Golden Age.”

The 1960s somehow tempered the optimism of the previous decade, as economic growth slowed to 5.4%, a still respectable level. Back then, our Makati Central Business District, its skyline dotted with gleaming, modern skyscrapers, was the envy of our Asian neighbors (though today their commercial and business districts dwarf ours).

The 1970s heralded the start of our economic underperformance. Ballooning foreign debt and chronic fiscal and budget deficits had started putting a heavy strain on our economy. While we still registered GDP growth of 6.4%, countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong surged ahead, posting average growth rates of 8% to 10%.

The 1980s ushered in our worst economic performance thus far as we reeled from triple whammy of severe recession, a debt crisis, and political turmoil. In contrast, other ASEAN members, like Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, registered phenomenal growth, catapulting them into tiger-economy status. The decade also signaled the start of China’s economic miracle, with double-digit annual GDP growth that would continue unimpeded into the next century.

The country’s performance in the succeeding three and a half decades can best be summed up as middling and erratic. Even if we finally attain the coveted high-middle-income status this year, we would still be the laggard as many of our regional peers had already reached that level – or surpassed it – many years ago.

Today’s senior citizens, most of them born in the 1950s and 1960s and already at the twilight of their lives, have more time to reflect on their generation’s economic contribution—or lack thereof. Although some are still active in running the country’s economic engine, many are now retired and idle.

The question troubling their minds is: Where did we go wrong?

Finger-pointing as to who or what to blame has become a favorite pastime of our seniors. The usual suspects include our more than three centuries of colonization, the inherited Spanish culture, our Christian faith, American interference, our system of government, and our corrupt politicians.

From the above list, only the last two seem valid. The rest won’t wash because other countries that are now prosperous share the same historical or cultural baggage. What is undeniable is that our leadership and system of governance have fallen severely short.

Those two problems are intertwined. Corrupt and unqualified leaders came to power and retained power because the current system is loaded in their favor. The prohibitive cost of election puts qualified but less affluent candidates at a huge disadvantage, allowing wealthy and entrenched political dynasties to remain in power.

Yet ordinary citizens cannot escape responsibility for such outcome. We elected these officials in the first place. That makes it a generational sin.

If we have to identify one major reason we failed to keep pace with our neighbors, it would be our inability to attract sufficient foreign direct investment (FDI). For whatever reason, no administration since independence has managed to significantly increase it.

Why?

Primarily because we have focused too heavily on legislative measures for solutions – enacting new economic laws or amending provisions of the Constitution – instead of fixing administrative problems that discourage investors.  These include honoring government contracts, improving inadequate infrastructure, eliminating red tape and corruption, reducing high electricity costs, and addressing bureaucratic incompetence.

Until we tackle these issues head-on, no amount of economic legislation or constitutional amendment will deliver the FDI we need.

Vietnam is a case in point. Despite enduring two decades of continuous warfare, it has overtaken us, attracting historically higher FDI and now receiving more than three times what we do.

The remnants of my generation, with diminishing ability to influence our economic trajectory, are relegated to being mere observers in our country’s unfolding saga. We impatiently await the start or completion of big-ticket government projects essential to development: airports, railways, toll ways, seaports, and other major logistics and distribution infrastructure. Many worry they won’t live long enough to see the projects’ completion and enjoy their benefits. We are quite literally living on borrowed time.

But we need not remain passive and apathetic about our country’s future. We are not totally powerless. We can join forces with the youth to demand changes in our system of government and use our votes to elect the leaders we truly deserve. We must utilize our remaining years and accumulated influence to change our country’s direction.

Giving up is not an option.

[The author is member of the Agribusiness Committee of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).  He is also the Adviser of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) and is former President of UCPB-CIIF Finance and Development Corporation, and UCPB-CIIF Foundation. Feedback at <map@map.org.ph> and <edgardo.amistad@yahoo.com>]. 

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