Nadj Villaver | Negosentro.com
Aside from celebrating ‘Buwan ng Wika’ during the month of August, did you know that we also celebrate a significant event for Filipino entrepreneurs?
In Proclamation No. 76, declared by former president Manuel L. Quezon, he dedicated August 17-23 as a national observance of Made in the Philippines Week. This proclamation is a way to show support to our homegrown industries.
Love your own: Proclamation No. 76, s. 1936
It is a natural trait among the peoples of all enlightened countries to love and to feel a special regard for the things that they consider their own. Economic protectionism that is animated by a sane and sound spirit of nationalism is a universally accepted rule of national conduct. The observance of this spirit has been a potent factor in the development of many strong and progressive nations.
The people of the Philippine Islands would do well to cultivate and develop this same spirit of economic nationalism among themselves for their own welfare and benefit and for the greater progress and development of this Archipelago. The expansion and great development of local industries will bring more wealth, prosperity, and happiness to all the people living in these Islands.
The Philippines is richly endowed with the precious gifts of nature. We have here an abundance of the basic materials of industry. To a certain extent we have begun to avail ourselves of these natural facilities and advantages for industrial growth, but our local industries are still comparatively few and relatively undeveloped. Most of them remain in their earlier stages of growth. In the meantime, many of our domestic needs that could be fully supplied with local products have to be provided for with considerable importations of foreign articles.
I, therefore, proclaim the week from August seventeenth to August twenty-third, nineteen hundred and thirty-three to be ‘Made-in-the-Philippines Products Week’ and I hereby request all the people of these islands to observe it as a week in which products of the Philippines will be used by them for their home and personal needs. I hope this spirit of cultivating and encouraging home industries will be maintained all the coming years so that it will mark the rise in this country of a vigorous and healthy spirit of economic progressiveness.
