MAPping a future of inclusive growth with good governance

Let me first express my thanks to outgoing MAP President Melito Salazar Jr. and his team of governors for their outstanding service to MAP. Your 2014 Board stands on the shoulders of all the past leadership of MAP from its founders to the immediate past Board of Governors.

We acknowledge with much appreciation the unselfish contributions to the object of MAP by all the committees and their chairs. We cannot and will not thrive without their hard work and dedication. I also wish to express our gratitude to the MAP Secretariat for their continuing assistance to the Board and all the active committees to help us achieve what we sought out to do.

But the work of MAP is not finished, it is a work-in-progress, as we continue to strive to attain our vision, our mission and our objectives.

Your 2014 Board of Governors commit to continue all the significant programs and projects of MAP. We will continue to address the needs of our members and our activities will abide by the MAP thrusts in Member Benefits; Advocacies for Good Governance, Global Competitiveness, Inclusive and Sustainable Growth and Climate Change; as well as Programs for Management Excellence.

We have chosen a very relevant and consistent theme for 2014, a theme that resonates with our very clear aspirations for our country and our people:

MAP promotes management excellence and continues to serve as a dynamic partner of business, government and civil society. The significant fiscal reforms and economic strides the country is currently enjoying have to be sustained and expanded to benefit  all sectors of society, particularly the poorest of the poor. Hence, our 2014 theme seeks to encourage more meaningful reforms and economic policies that will promote investments, create more jobs and assure inclusive growth while continuing our advocacy for good governance.

In the interest of time, I will not spell out in detail all our planned programs and activities, suffice it is to say that the 2014 Board and the various Committees have already met and have mapped 2014 as a year of making a difference, of much hard and focused work  to address a number of unfinished business, continue with all our worthwhile and significant projects clustered around:

1. Good Governance and Anti-corruption

2. Human Development and Poverty Reduction

3. Economic Development

4. Security, Justice and Peace

5. Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation

6. Member Benefits, and

7. Management Excellence

In addition, our CSR focus will be in the much needed area of Disaster Preparedness, Relief and Rehabilitation. You will hear much about the particulars of these activities as the various committees call on your individual expertise, your time, your talent, maybe even your treasure to further our aims and objectives.

Our three-year preparatory program for the 2016 Asean Economic Community is now on its second year. We started last year with the AEC Exchange: An awareness-building exercise for our members. This year, we appropriately themed our program as AEC-Engaged which aims to develop and enhance our capabilities to be a regional market player, which will lead us to the 2015 theme: AEC-Empowered. We all should thereafter, in 2016, start enjoying the benefits of the AEC. In pursuit of this very important milestone in Asean cooperation and integration, our September 9 MAP International CEO Conference 2014 will have as its overall theme:

“The Integration Momentum: Waves of Change, Oceans of Opportunity”

I submit to you that we can achieve all our lofty goals and aspirations if we all together Map a Future of Inclusive Growth with Good Governance.

We, all MAPpers, are in this together. We all strive for management excellence. We all struggle to have successful businesses. We all strive for good corporate and public governance, for integrity, for transparency, for accountability. We all strive to be good corporate citizens.  We struggle to raise the standards of living of our workers, to be model members of the community, to alleviate the plight of the poor. We also all strive to have good leaders for our nation.

In short, we strive and we struggle for a just and a much improved life for our people, for the sustainable development of the country, to have nurturing leaders that the Filipino deserve so much. This is our duty and our responsibility, this is our commitment, this is our charge: To have a better Philippines. (To paraphrase one famous person…) This is a charge that we bear. And this is a charge that we at MAP intend to keep.

(This article is lifted from the inaugural address delivered by the author during the 65th Inaugural Meeting and Induction of the 2014 Board of Governors of the Management Association of the Philippines.  The author is the MAP president for 2014, and the managing partner and CEO of the Navarro Amper & Co.,/Deloitte Philippines. Feedback at <[email protected]> and <[email protected]>. For previous articles, please visit www.map.org.ph)