Ten Dualtech Partner Awardees

“It’s not easy to be a partner of Dualtech for 5, 10, and 25 years. We are happy that you have trusted Dualtech”. Mr. Arnolfo Morfe, Dualtech President

On Dualtech’s 40^th founding anniversary, Dualtech Training Center organized a hybrid event to present the plaque of appreciation to Dualtech partners and to host its annual economic briefing which was participated in by other partners via Zoom and Facebook live.

Ten (10) partner companies were recognized for the 5, 10, and 25 years of partnership with Dualtech. These companies were among the resolute partners which stayed with Dualtech even at the height of pandemic and lockdown.

In an opening message, Mr. Morfe said “Our anniversary theme is Developing Character through Work and Educating through Collaboration’’. We thank you for being our partners through the years, thus you have helped us build an eco-system that we hope will stay and I hope will be here for even the next 40 years.”

The partners that were recognized were the following:

5 Years

Enchanted Kingdom, Inc.

Del Monte Philippines, Inc.

Transcend Technologies, Inc.

FEDCO Paper Corporation

Asia Global Technologies, Inc.

SIIX Coxon Precision Philippines, Inc.

10 Years

Suzuki Philippines, Inc.

Reel Service Philippines, Inc.

Szolare Company

25 Years

Swedish Match Philippines, Inc.

Ms. Maribel Umali, Manager for Human Resource of Swedish Match Philippines, shared that Dualtech was one of her first projects in the company for her almost 30 years of service. “We partner with Dualtech to support trainees to be our technical employees. We trained a lot of trainees who have been our regular employees. Some of them were sent to our sister company in Holland”. Ms. Umali cited.

The company put value on work values which she has seen evidently from the batches of scholars they accommodated for training in the plant.

In the closing remarks, Mr. Rolly Rodriguez, Dualtech Chairman thanked everybody who came over and took time from their busy day.

“We are after not only for skills training but also character development, very strong work ethic, ability to work in a team, and leadership. Mr. Rodriguez said. “Let us know what you need because the needs of the economy are changing, there are new areas that are developing. Re-training is going to be needed. We are open to that because we want to be relevant to your business. That is our win-win business model.”

Economic Briefing 2022

Dr. Bernardo Villegas gave an economic briefing to Dualtech partners. In his presentation, Dr. Villegas tackled The Philippine Economy under the New Administration

As an introduction, Dr. Villegas said that the Philippines is among the fastest growing economies in Asia according to the World Bank. He also thinks that the Philippine Peso will not become a senior citizen this year and will not breach the 60 peso-dollar exchange rate. Inflation is now at 6% and will drop between 4 to 5% before the end of December.

China is slowing down so the demand for semiconductors and electronic components is down as well. When the industrialized countries slow down, exported industrial products will also decline. But this does not apply to businesses that are selling to 112 Million Filipino especially in food and agri-business, health care, tourism, and entertainment. These are the top priorities of Filipinos.

Several sectors shall continue to lead the growth of the economy. These are the hospitality and food service activities, transportation and storage, construction, information and communication, wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, public services and defense, compulsory social activities, professional and businesses services, electricity, steam water and waste management.

Gross Regional Domestic Product Growth Rates

Metro Manila, even before the pandemic, was already being decapitated as head of the national economy. Metro Manila was growing much slower than Davao, Bicol, Calabarzon, and then Central Luzon. Incidentally, in terms of regional dispersal where industries and the population will move, the first to challenge Metro Manila is CALABARZON. Batangas is going to be the center of all the infrastructures that are to be built.

The next to compete with Calabarzon is Central Luzon, especially with that so-called Pampanga triangle. In the Western Visayas region, Iloilo will be ahead in growth because they put up some of the best infrastructures.

Davao is definitely the golden city of Mindanao. Real estate practices in Davao are almost as high as they are in Manila.

Despite the positive outlook, Dr. Villegas presented the long-term challenges in the country. These are high debt burden and fiscal imbalance, low agricultural productivity, red tapes in the local government, low quality of basic education, corruption and poor governance, high frequency of natural calamities, and shortage of skilled workers.

As to the last challenge, Dr. Villegas acknowledged the role of Dualtech Center and its industry partners in addressing the skills gap and unemployment of the Filipino youth. When more and more companies have participated in the dual training system program, industries will have its ready pool of skilled and qualified workers.