JOBS AND BUSINESS

The Regional Technical Education and Skills Development Committee (RTESDC) is the highest policy making body whose members come from both the private and public sector . This body is mandated to focus on the technical vocational education and training of human resource of the region together with Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) The members of the committee are appointed by the President upon the recommendation of the sector they represent. So you will have business/industry, labor, academe, Local Government Unit , Departments of Trade and Labor, TESDA in the said body.

I had been chairing these committee for the past two (2) years and in yesterday’s meeting , we were given a presentation by TESDA X1 , headed now by OIC Urbano Budtan. The report was impressive – it clearly showed t that they had surpassed their targets significantly; but what is worth mentioning – is that they did all of these by using up only 60-65% of their budget. I believe that credit should be given to the TESDA regional and provincial leadership as well as to the personnel for their commitment , dedication and efficiency. Seldom can we find such accomplishments among our government agencies !

For the record, TESDA had trained over 70,000 people; assessed 14, 200 and had certified over 3,000. These figures simply informs us that these are the people who are “job-ready” and who will be out in the field in the search of companies and industries who will need their skills.

The World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland had just ended and one of the more important issues that was taken up was the mobility of labor or job seekers. Our overseas Filipino workers are fast increasing in numbers - from household work , entertainment, care-giving to infants and elderly to the field of nursing and medicine. Even our farmers , carpenters and fishermen are finding high-paying work in Japan.

The basic problem common to all under developed countries is job creation . And we all know that to achieve this – there must be investments and business . And for these economic activity to happen – transparent and supportive governance must be present.

One of the major reasons why people leave their country is when they could no longer find economic security; when workers are not empowered; and when they see that the “fields are greener “ on the other side. This is not solely a Philippine problem; this is also common to other less developing countries. Migration is one of the major political problem today. It can even pose as a security threat or risk for other countries. How then can we stop people from moving from one country to the other ?

In order to entice our people to stay and work here ; it is but logical that we have to provide them with an environment that will provide them both the economic and social security that they want. We all know that the strongest mover of the economy is private enterprise/business. They have to be allowed to grow and to expand through government policies that are business friendly; policies that are productive; open markets; reasonable taxes; sensible and relevant regulations. Honestly, this does not happen often. I really cannot understand why government , most of the time, enacts legislation, executive orders, memorandums which are irrelevant and adds more red tapes and bureaucracy. Government has a way of making something so simple – so difficult and complicated. I hope that this year of the fire dog will be better. The dog is man’s best friend ; so let’s hope government can be “friendlier” to business!

Mindanao have a vast resource of human capital that is highly skilled and educated. These can be attested by our employment rate of 92% for 2005 and a low of 8.23% unemployment rate. It was only the agriculture sector which posted a positive growth in employment ; both services and industry were on the negative trend.

It would be good to see a paradigm shift in the year(s) to come ; where Mindanawans will no longer “jump to the other side of the fence “ because the “pastures are greener” right here.