Dream Philippines Fair: A nation-building event for all

[Editor’s Note: The following is a press release from the Institute for Solidarity in Asia]

We can all be nation-builders.

This was the driving idea behind the Dream Philippines Fair, held last October 18 at the Bayanihan Center in Pasig City. The event was organized by the Institute for Solidarity in Asia (ISA) to provide four key sectors – public, private, youth and schools, and individuals – a venue for sharing best practices and future actions for good governance and good citizenship.

Guests presented their nation-building initiatives through keynote speeches and roundtable discussions, where civic involvement surfaced as a recurring theme.

During the morning roundtable on Cultivating Global Competitiveness, which featured the public-private working group projects of the National Competitiveness Council (NCC), Henry Schumacher of the Integrity Initiative said, “Continuous dialogue between the public and private sectors is necessary to create change.”

Pushing for better teamwork between participants in the fair’s working groups, he added, “You have to change your behavior to change the environment.” 

During the afternoon roundtable on Building Integrity and Public Trust, Gerry Plana, CEO of Investors in People Philippines and a governance advisor of the Civil Service Commission (CSC), reinforced Schumacher’s sentiment by saying, “Multi-sector governance councils have modelled what true conversations should be like in organizations – free and full of value.”

The roundtable shed light on the need to form alliances between institutions and communities through initiatives such as setting up multi-sector governance councils, formed by a group of distinguished private citizens serving as watchdogs and guardians of transformation programs in government.

The youth, who are seldom heard from in terms of governance involvement, were also a part of the conversation through a session organized for youth representatives from the World Youth Alliance Asia Pacific (WYA), University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance (UP-NCPAG), Philippine Army, and ISA.

Mary Imbong, Regional Director of WYA, an international youth organization founded at the United Nations that advocates for the human dignity of every person, shared her position on the true goal of governance, saying: “The human person is the most valuable resource. We have to invest in ourselves, invest in our families, invest in our communities; because once we grow together we can create a better country.”

UP-NCPAG student leader RJ Belen added that young Filipinos are not apathetic to governance but simply lack opportunities to participate and appreciate it as a concept applicable to everyday life.

In a breakout “skills lab,” Camelia Bulat, a civil society leader from Romania and a Senior Consultant of the US-based Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), mentored strategists from national agencies on policy advocacy for transforming institutions. “We do not advocate for issues. We advocate for solutions,” Bulat said. 

The plenary sessions sought to give a voice to each key sector by bringing out positive dialogue and emerging ideas on issues surrounding nation-building.

Another highlight of the Dream Philippines Fair was the participation of four government institutions undergoing the Performance Governance System (PGS), ISA’s governance reform program:

• The City Government of Legazpi
• Provincial Government of La Union
• National Development Company
• Philippine Air Force

Heads of these institutions presented their governance success stories before citizen panels, and received reactions and suggestions for improvement and collaboration for future initiatives. All four presenters were awarded and recognized for their efforts to improve governance and involve citizens.

UnionBank Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Justo Ortiz was the guest of honor for the evening ceremonies. In his keynote address, Ortiz said: “The proper end of government is the promotion of its citizens’ happiness. The state exists for the goodness of the individuals who comprise it.” He commended ISA and its partners for keeping good governance relevant, value accretive, sustainable, and local.

Bolstered by the presentations he witnessed, Ortiz ended by saying, “The wherewithal is in the local government, the framework is in the ISA journey, and the path, in my humble opinion, is good governance founded on rules, solid values, empathy, and trust, and what I witnessed here today gives me so much pride and hope that our flourishing as a people and as individuals is well within our grasp.”

The Dream Philippines Fair, hatched just this year by ISA leadership, takes off from almost ten years of the group’s bringing together Filipinos and key stakeholders through a bi-annual event, the public governance forum. It is now envisioned to be held annually as a celebration of nation-building initiatives and governance programs being undertaken in the public sector.

The fair was made possible through the generous support of the National Competitiveness Council (NCC), UNILAB, and the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).