Great things

The world was treated to three great stories this past week: the wedding of the decade, the beatification of Pope John Paul II, and the recent death of Osama bin Laden. 

Of course, how can all the women miss the marriage of the decade, especially my daughters? Since birth, they loved all Disney movies with princes and princesses. Disney has truly marketed the fantasies of monarchy from Kings and Queens. Who can forget Cinderella?

My daughter Monica pleaded me last year to accept the ambassadorship to the court of St. James. Until now and especially during the well televised wedding, she kept badgering me that I should have accepted it so she would have been part of the crowd witnessing the Royal wedding. I guess we can’t fault how media and the movie world created a fantasy. Every girl’s dream is to marry a prince.

Not all countries with a monarchy, like the British, love their royals. In Asia, we see that with Thailand and Japan. Somehow, even if government is run independently from the monarchy, it is seen to provide some stability during crisis in government.

For the Philippines, we are quite different. Our local and national politics is also like monarchy, in a sense. We see families controlling cities. While casting votes is still the method of selecting political leaders, one can see political families still controlling different parts of the country. Leadership is being passed on from generation to generation, provided that the people in that area still believe in the leadership. This, somehow, works for our country.

This week, we are off to our annual summer vacation, which will take us to London and a cruise to Russia and the Scandinavian countries. My daughter will still get the chance to buy the wedding souvenirs at half the price. Hotels will also be much cheaper now. I am sure in our cruise; we will be greeted with over 100 Pinoys. There will be maritime OFWs who work in the cruise ship we will be taking. This will be our cruise and it has always been a great experience, since many of the Filipinos working in the ship really give an excellent service with the Pinoy touch of malasakit.

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Last week, my column discussed the Water Code of the Philippines. I also shared our experience in Batangas, while we were there with the family of both Philip Romualdez and Dennis Valdez, both married to the Prieto sisters Sandy and Tessa respectively. We were so happy with the immediate response of Tessie and Betty Sy. They are really making the shorelines of Hamilo open to boaters but with respect to the rules on the use of the beach. I am still filing my complaint regarding the Koreans who leased Fortune Island. They rudely drove away our family from swimming last Black Saturday.

Just recently, one of my friends also went to Coron and landed at the new Busuanga airport. To the shock of his life, it was called the Korea-Philippines Busuanga (Coron) Airport. It was a big marker in front of the entrance to the airport. Koreans owned the resort they stayed as well.

While foreign nationals have started to invest in our country, which is excellent, they must realize who the true owners of our land are. They are still guests of this country and they should respect the laws, especially the Water Code of the Philippines.

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We welcome all aspiring and starting entrepreneurs to attend our M.B.A. (Magandang Business Advice) Program. It is a series of “next level” output-based entrepreneurial workshops that will teach you how to start your own business. Catch the first run of the M.B.A. Lecture part on May 6 with workshops on developing a business plan and a forum featuring this country’s top entrepreneurs like R.A. Gapuz Review Center president Ray Gapuz, Mekeni president Prudencio Garcia, French Baker CEO Johnlu Koa and Folded&Hung president Ronald Pineda; with the mentoring part on May 12 at the Asian Institute of Management, Makati. For inquiries on the program and registration, visit our website (www.gonegosyo.net) or call the PCE Secretariat at 6379229 or 6379347.

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We were happy to do a run of Negosem in Valencia City, Bukidnon last Wednesday, as part of the DTI Negosyo Caravan.  It was the first of the 15 provincial negosyo seminars we will do this year with DTI, together with the Philippine Trade Training Center. This marks a continuing public-private sector partnership in pursuit of spreading entrepreneurship education. It is going to be a very busy season once again in bringing entrepreneurship education program to the remote areas of the country, which we were not able to cover last year, when we had 20 Negosems in five months. Once again, we had a jam-packed hall with over 350 attendees, who learned from the sessions of our Angelpreneurs Ping Sotto, Pax Lapid and Mon Lopez. Thanks also to the entreps who found time to share their learnings – Dr. Rey and Loreta Rafisura (Salay Hand-made paper), Roy Panes (Sir Edwards Resto), Tita Perla Rubio (Malaybalay Choice Crafts), and Chris Barrameda (Abba Orchard Montessori School).

From Bukidnon, we went back to Manila for the monthly Negosem basics done last Friday at PTTC. We had about 90 participants, and we waived the fees for the ATRIEV community of visually-impaired people. We had a good learning session with Angelpreneurs Paulo Tibig and Luis Cruz.

We are looking forward to the next run of Negosems in Abra, Antique, Oriental Mindoro, Pangasinan, Surigao and many more.

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Contact me: feedba[email protected] or Joey Concepcion Facebook account. Visit www.gonegosyo.net. Watch the top rating entrep show GO NEGOSYO: Kaya Mo! on GMA News TV, Saturday and Sunday 8-8:30 a.m. Get daily Go Negosyo Text Tips in your mobile phone by sending GONEGO to 2910.