Industry leaders see business as ‘force for good’
Making an impact should not be an afterthought but a priority for businesses that aim for sustainable social development.
Leaders from various business organizations and civil society organizations came together to explore how businesses can operate with social responsibility at its core in the Business as a Force for Good Summit 2026, organized by the Phinma-De La Salle University (DLSU) and held on Oct. 9.
Beyond corporate social responsibility initiatives, business leaders shared how they were able to build enterprises that provide shared prosperity for both the company and the communities they seek to serve.
“Doing good is not simply about giving something away. Doing good means building something that works,” says Phinma Corp. chair and CEO Ramon del Rosario Jr.
In a dialogue with Phinma Corp. president Chito Salazar, Reese Fernandez-Ruiz—who is a 2026 Ramon V. Del Rosario Siklab Awardee and Rags2Riches president and cofounder—shared how her goal was not to establish a charity, but a business that could provide sustainable livelihood for Filipino artisans in less advantaged communities.
Having built a fashion and design house training and supporting over 1,000 community-based artisans, she emphasized that she did not want to rely on pity alone, but rather provide a platform for Filipinos in less advantaged communities to make a living.
“We wanted to have that discipline from the onset—that our products need to be desirable for the market so that the artisans can continue having a livelihood for a long time,” says Fernandez-Ruiz.
Salazar shared how the same mentality of maintaining their products’ marketability has driven Phinma to lower costs in their educational institutions.
“We know that for our schools to be accessible to the poor, our tuition fees had to be low, and for us to do that, we had to be really efficient,” Salazar says.
Better infrastructure
Key leaders in the industry also emphasized the role of the public sector in investing in every Filipino and creating better infrastructure for corporations and social delivery organizations alike to enable better private social investments in the country.
“The largest impact investor in the Philippines is supposed to be the national government. The national government has P7 trillion in budget that they’re supposed to use to impact the lives of every Filipino,” says EJ Qua Hiansen, senior vice president and chief financial officer at Phinma Corp.
In the Doing Good Index 2026 published by the Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society, the Philippines was placed at the lower end of the procurement sub-index. This indicated the lack of transparency and efficiency in the government’s procurement process may be hindering private social investment in the country.
Airon Bonifacio, manager of the Bagani: Rising Leader Development Program, sees this as a challenge not only to further develop the ecosystem for investors, but also to produce accountable leaders.
Bonifacio says the procurement process in the government becomes inefficient and difficult for businesses to navigate because of the guardrails put in place to prevent corruption.
Responsibility
“Guardrails are not a solution. The real solution is to ensure that every government official recognizes their responsibility to the people,” says Bonifacio. “It’s not wrong to earn, but it’s wrong to put profit before the needs of the people.”
Also, Del Rosario calls on government officials to heed the concerns of civil society and business groups to put the country’s resources to good use.
“It is so sad to see so much of our resources go to waste when there’s so little that is available,” del Rosario tells the Inquirer.
“But there are people going out of their way to identify the red flags and how these things can be put to good use. Little by little, I think we are being listened to,” he adds.
The Phinma-DLSU Center for Business and Society was launched in 2024 as a business research initiative centered around harnessing the power of business to address social problems and leave lasting impact. Since its establishment, it has produced numerous academic studies on ways to develop business approaches that encourage social development.
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