DTI 7 supports social entrepreneurs

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI-7) expressed support to social entrepreneurs in the region, especially those helping farmers and rural producers uplift their economic status.

DTI Central Visayas regional director Asteria Caberte said yesterday that although her office had been helping social entrepreneurs over the years, she reiterated the call for newly established socially responsible businesses to link with DTI to avail of the government's support.

A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being, rather than maximizing profits for external shareholders.

These kinds of enterprises can be structured as a for-profit or non-profit, and may take the form of a co-operative, mutual organization, a disregarded entity, a social business, or a charity organization.

Recently, social enterprise advocate Dylan Wilk was in Cebu to promote a strong movement of socially responsible businesses.

The former Brit billionaire Wilk said that business has the power to alleviate poverty in the Philippines, more than the government, if big and small Filipino corporations were to make social entrepreneurship their business model.

In 2015, Caberte mounted a program which helped farmers and producers in the communities to participate in the actual commercial value chain.

"There are plenty of communities across the country whose products have the big potential to be known in the local and global markets with the right intervention by the government as well as private sector," said Caberte.

A report published by British Council supported Overseas Development Institute (ODI) revealed that as of 2007 there were 30,000 social enterprises in the Philippines, a majority of which were cooperative or associations of some form.

There are pending bills in Congress that seek to provide support for social enterprises. Among these is the Poverty Reduction through Social Entrepreneurship (PRESENT) Bill, the Senate version of which was filed by Sen. Bam Aquino.

According to the bill, a social enterprise purposefully renders “both transactional and transformational services” for the benefit of the marginalized sectors such as farmers, fishers, persons with disabilities, and indigenous peoples.

The bill also aims to provide special credit windows that can be used by social enterprises for buying assets or for augmenting their working capital.