PEOPLE who built their business from working abroad are moving to form Chamber of Commerce to lure more overseas Filipino workers into becoming entrepreneurs.

“Instead of going to greedy local businessmen, fellow OFWs can go to themselves and make arrangements to supply some raw materials, or even provide discounts to some of their products to fellow OFW entrepreneurs,” businessman Miguel Bolos told the OFW Journalism Consortium (OFWJC).

Bolos spoke about the moves to form an organization after a meeting of former overseas Filipino workers-turned-entrepreneurs early March.
That meeting was attended by Filipinos who successfully built a business using what they earned and learned from working abroad. There’s the garments export business couple Alberto and Liza Perez.

Alberto used to work as a steel fabricator in Saudi Arabia, Aruba and Malta before going into business with hundred thousand pesos (US$2,083.30 at current exchange rates) and 17 sewing machines as capital. Before it was Perezes who went overseas; now it’s their Apryl and Aira’s Apparel brand, which they claim are bought by Wal-Mart in New York, United States.

There’s also former Saudi Arabia contract worker Eduardo Callera who owns Canor Express International Brokerage Inc., a customs brokerage firm. Before, the boxes of products Callera sent home to his family in the Philippines were the ones transported in trucks. Now, Callera’s business —his trucks— moves these boxes to both domestic and international senders.

Bolos believes that an OFW chamber of commerce will enable fellow migrant entrepreneurs to talk among themselves and be suppliers of needed raw materials for their products.

It just might work because, as he said: “We need it.”

No OFW chamber of commerce based in the Philippines exists, although Bolos said he, fellow returning OFW Francisco Aguilar and fellow migrant workers in Saudi Arabia have tried —and currently moves to— forming such an organization.

Filipino immigrants in the United States have formed county-level and a US-wide chamber of commerce. The biggest of these chambers is the Federation of Philippine-American Chambers of Commerce (FPACC), a network of some 46 chapter chambers of commerce that have over-5,000 member-enterprises run by Filipino-Americans.

There is even no inventory of existing small, medium and large-scale enterprises run by former OFWs in the country that, Bolos thinks, can be linked together as members of a chamber of commerce.

Chambers of commerce are organizations that group businesses in town, though not usually associated with government, on a common interest. It could also include economic development groups, as well as tourism and visitors bureaus, according to a Wikipedia entry.

Bolos said he believes this group can help arm OFWs with skills in enterprise development by giving training and business development services. This can gradually address the failure of many enterprises run by returning migrant workers whose businesses are part of their reintegration into the country, he added.

Likewise, the blueprint for the OFW Chamber of Commerce includes determining local markets for Filipinos still working abroad. An example of such is Donsol’s Motor Works, based in Laguindingan, Misamis Oriental and owned by 16-year Saudi Arabia-based contract worker Vivencia Ellorina.

The enterprise assembles and manufactures passenger jeepneys, and has produced some 800 total jeepney units for clients based in Cagayan de Oro City and the provinces of Cebu, Negros Occidental, Bukidnon, and Misamis Oriental. Most of Donsol’s Motor Works’ clients are seafarers and overseas performing artists, a brochure cited.

Another example is David’s Well Crafts & More, based in Bauang, La Union and owned by Lowell and Eden de Castro Villa. They sell home décor services like topiaries (shrub trimming), wreaths, swags (curtain window treatments that can be hung on a rod or attached to a mounting board), candle holders, wooden clocks, among others, and markets those to four branches of SM Department Store and at a provincial trade center.

Since their products and services are considered niche, the De Castro Valle couple also put up a store for photocopying services and sells school and office supplies. owell told the OFWJC that sans a chamber of commerce, they put up their business relying on each other.

“I design, my husband is in charge of production,” Eden added. She said an organization of OFWs-turned-entrepreneurs could help since one of the biggest challenges they faced in growing their business was penetrating the mainstream market.

“If we did not manage to enter the SM malls system, we wouldn’t have a market,” De Castro Villa added. Bolos said a chamber of commerce could also be instrumental in giving OFWs a chance to buy public utility firms like water and power distribution, especially in provinces.

“There are public utilities owned by the government that can be sold to overseas Filipinos,” Bolos said. These, he added, could be safely farmed out to a business organization of overseas Filipinos. “Owing to being migrant workers in the past, an OFW chamber of commerce can lead to mutual business benefits for them,” Bolos said.