About a couple of weeks ago I got a call from Elzadia Washington, the Acting Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) here in the Philippines. Director Washington was happy to inform me that out of a short list, I am one of the two people they have selected to represent the Philippines in the first Presidential Entrepreneurship Summit to be held in Washington DC.

I asked who the other person was and I was told that it will be Bai Sandra Basar. I told Director Washington that it will be an honor to participate and represent the Philippines. I also invited her to our Women Entrepreneurship Summit last March 8, so she can experience firsthand what we do in Go Negosyo.
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The overwhelming response last March 8 in the Women Negosyo Summit was indeed very encouraging as we realized that somehow Go Negosyo has been able to connect with a wider reach of Filipinos.

In a research we conducted to estimate the level of awareness of Go Negosyo and its entrepreneurship advocacy, 70% of the respondents answered that they are indeed aware. They have heard about Go Negosyo from our TV show, newspaper advertisements, radio announcements, and website; and through word of mouth. The result just confirms why the women entrepreneurship summit was very well attended. We now see the message of Go Negosyo, “negosyo: sagot sa kahirapan”, gradually sinking in the minds of many Filipinos.

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Last Monday, we opened the Go Negosyo: Babae, Tagumpay ka ng Bayan; Women Entrepreneurship Summit, together with the Philippine Commission on Women headed by Chair Myrna Yao. This was our second run for the summit. In fact, we made sure that we doubled the space for the venue, from one to two halls of the World Trade Center, as last year’s summit was quite scary with the huge turnout. We also doubled the number of booths from last year’s 200 to 400 exhibitors. The Go Negosyo advocates and I were truly inspired with the participation and strong interest of people. This shows the increasing consciousness and wants of people to learn more, to be inspired and be guided on how we all can be successful in life.

As early as 8 o’clock in the morning, the streets to World Trade were clogged with buses and cars entering the venue. Many had to park far and walk. As I entered, the place was so hot. I asked what was wrong with the air conditioning, and my team told me that there were just too many people. We were also asked by World Trade to close the doors because it was already full and people were barely able to move inside. But, we didn’t close because it would be unfair especially for participants coming from the provinces. Everyone must be given the chance to listen and learn from the rich array of forums and seminar topics we prepared for the day.  Aside from the plenary forums, we had two seminar rooms on how to start and grow their business and on topics related to women’s concerns and the new Magna Carta for women and development. With the jam-packed crowd, even in the seminar rooms, we felt for a while we were doing a Wowowee or an El Shaddai event.
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Last Saturday, we had to come home early from a trip out of town, as my wife and daughter bugged me to watch the Backstreet Boys’ concert. Since women can be so persuasive and persistent, I gave way and joined them. The Araneta Coliseum was jampacked, mostly by women. Luckily, Vic Del Rosario, who was the promoter of the show, was in front of me. While the performers were impressive, I was totally out of place. But then again, these are only some of the things we would do to please the women in our lives.

March 8, Monday, is our second run for the Women Entrepreneurship Summit. Last year, it was one of the biggest events Go Negosyo has ever had. This year, we have doubled the halls for the venue. To date, we have a record of almost 400 booths that will exhibit different products and business models. This is double the number of exhibitors we had last year.

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