CSRs pour P1.1 billion into Mindanao

DAVAO CITY—Corporate funding for social development efforts In Mindanao reached P1.1 billion and the organization encouraging corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending said it was setting its sight at pouring these resources to the small farm communities to increase chances of bringing the marginal families into the cycle of economic growth.

Paul G. Dominguez, vice chairman of the board of trustees of the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), said the amount would give an insight into the magnitude of corporate spending on social development of the communities as he also disclosed the group’s new model to give meat to what he said would be an effort to achieve inclusive growth for the marginal sectors.

President Aquino, who said he had first job at the PBSP, said he would carry the development strides of Mindanao in his coming visit to the US and Europe.

Dominguez said the amount was the aggregate total spending since the creation of PBSP, which the founding corporations formed to increase more corporate advocates for social development funding. Of this amount, the PBSP member-corporations directed some P210 million to finance the needs and operation of 1,828 micro, small and medium enterprises across Mindanao. Its spending on training Filipinos for vocation and technical skills benefited 6,046 individuals.

The corporate founders have agreed to allocate one percent of their gross profit to CSR spending, and to encourage member companies to do the same, as the funnel their resources to the four focus areas of health, education, environment and livelihood.

Since its presence in Mindanao began 15 years ago, CSR spending went largely to treatment and management of tuberculosis, which was supposed to have been contained in the Philippines but which was making a comeback among many blighted communities.

CSR spending in education went also to building classrooms and desks, training of teachers and assisting parents-teachers associations.

With the increasing frequency and ferocity of typhoons, flash floods and landslides in Mindanao, the CSR spending directed and tracked by PBSP shows that spending was concentrated in ensuring rehabilitation of the 1,478 hectares of critical watershed, planting of mangroves, training of families in waste management, as well as training more than 200 families in disaster-risk reduction.

The PBSP also plowed some CSR money to 220 community-based microenterprises. Rafael C. Lopa, PBSP executive director, said the organization has developed a new approach to CSR ventures, setting its social-development binoculars to the small farming communities to lengthen the reach of the fruits of the growth of the economy to as far as the blighted communities.

The PBSP launched on Monday its Mindanao Inclusive Agribusiness Program, which President Aquino witnessed as the group signed an agreement with Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) to help them address bottlenecks and challenges in targetting the agriculture sector for growth inclusion.

The MinDA said the PBSP wanted “to incorporate the poor within the company’s value chain as suppliers, consumers, distributors and employees.” Dominguez told the BusinessMirror that targetting the agibusiness sector was intentional “because of the activities now in Mindanao are in agribusiness, and that’s where many of Filipino households needing assistance are also found making a living.”

He said the initial steps at “operationalizing the concept would be done by MinDA.” Janet M. Lopoz, MinDA executive director, also told the BusinessMirror that the data held by MinDA would be presented to PBSP in a meeting that they have yet to agree on.

But she said that their partnership has created a joint steering committee “that would address bottlenecks and hindrances in the side of the government bureaucracy.”

“It would take on the experience and good results generated by our organizing the power sector [at the height of the energy crisis in the last two years],” she said, referring to the formation of the Mindanao Power Industry Alliance, which helped advocate to government for quick channeling of available power and addressing financial and government policy gaps.

Dominguez said the issue of entry of the Philippines into the Asean single market integration next year was not factored yet in the growth program but added that the focus of PBSP would be not gravely affected by it because of its bid to improve the economic standing of Filipinos in the farm sector.

The PBSP program also came in a more opportune moment when the agriculture sector absorbed more number of Filipinos into the work force in the second quarter of the year.

Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) economist Nicholas Mapa told the BusinessMirror that this week he expects the employment base to expand more than in the previous quarter, citing improvement in the n of both agriculture and the industry. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that agriculture grew during the period by 3.6 percent in the second quarter of the year, from the previous year’s 0.2 percent. The agriculture sector accounts for 9.2 percent of the total GDP during the period and employs about 30 percent of the country’s work force.

President Aquino said the Department of Agriculture’s High Value Crops Development Program, “continues to help build post-harvest facilities and provide equipment for the production of coffee, cacao and rubber for the region.”

He said these crops were the current popular cash crops that still need a lot of work force to meet the immediate demand from global business partners.

The Department of Trade and Industry also chipped in its support with its “Shared Services Facilities (SSF) project to give the micro, small and medium enterprises, who are often the first consumers of agricultural produce and raw materials, better access to technology and equipment.”

This would allow benefiting cooperatives and farm community associations “to move even higher up on the value chain.” “I am told that 190 facilities of this nature have been set up in Mindanao, making greater efficiency possible in processing products like coco coir, coco-twine and rubber. These shared services facilities in turn have assisted 1,795 small and micro enterprises and have generated over 7,100 jobs in Mindanao alone to date,” he told the PBSP meeting at the SMX Convention Center here that was attended by 500 corporate owners and CEO’s officials of foreign and donor organizations and members of the non-governmental and business organizations.

“These interventions are on top of our government’s call for farmers to pursue intercropping, as a measure that has the potential of vastly increasing the income of this sector. Growing coffee, bananas, or cacao, alongside coconuts, will not only diversify the produce of a community, but will more important enable the farmer to earn more, support his family more and, thus, contribute more to spurring economic activity, not only in the short term,” he said. “This would go a long way in ensuring that farming remains an attractive, viable livelihood for succeeding generations.”

He said he was elated “to see that government is not alone through this endeavor.” “Through the Mindanao Inclusive Agribusiness Program, PBSP and its member companies and supporting agencies seek to engage the private sector to invest in Mindanao by helping build the capacities of its small farming communities, thus enabling them to capitalize on the rich resources and the many opportunities available in the region. The objective for all of us: Build a Mindanao that can catch up in the soonest possible time and, by so doing, create a regime of opportunities where no Filipino is left behind,” he added. –Manuel T. Cayon | Mindanao Bureau Chief, Businessmirror