LEGAZPI CITY –- A senator and a provincial governor have urged the young entrepreneurs of Bicol to engage in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) to address the problem of poverty in the country.

        Sen. Francis ‘Kiko’ Pangilinan and Albay Gov. Joey Sarte Salceda, concurrent economic adviser of the President, recently addressed the officers and members of the Young Entrepreneurs Society (YES) during their seminar at Hotel Casablanca in Legazpi City.

        Pangilinan revealed that, aside from being a senator, he is also an entrepreneur. He said that together with a friend, he set up a Filipino restaurant called La Mesa Grill. To date, he said he has already two restaurants and he plans to add two more.

        “If they (pro-Charter Change) abolish the Senate, I have a fallback position -- that of a restaurateur,” he said.

        Pangilinan further said that SMEs comprise 90 percent of all businesses throughout the country.

        About 70 percent of our labor force earn their daily bread from SMEs. And SMEs contribute about one-third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), he said.

        “If you want to address poverty, then you must generate jobs,” the senator reiterated.

        According to Pangilinan, last year the national government had allocated P10 million to all chapters of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI).

        For his part, Gov. Salceda admitted that, unlike Sen. Pangilinan, he is not an entrepreneur.

        He said that five years ago, Filipinos save 14 percent of their income but today they save 34 percent of their income for business. But the Chinese invest 48 percent of their income in business.

        “Filipino businesses don’t succeed because our political culture is so dysfunctional. It does not harness or mobilize the positive impulses within the Filipinos,” the former Albay congressman and former Presidential Chief of Staff said.

        The Philippines, the governor said, is a nation of employees. Filipinos prefer to work abroad as overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) rather than engage in business.

        Salceda further said that, according to the World Bank, the second most potent force to get out of poverty is through the Small and Medium Enterprises. The first is through rural development or agricultural resurgence.