ASSESSMENT OF BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT OF WOMEN INVOLVED IN MICRO, SMALL, AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (MSMES) IN THE PHILIPPINES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY WITH SELECT ASEAN COUNTRIES

Background of the Study The ASEAN Coordinating Committee on Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (ACCMSME) in 2020 cited that small and medium enterprises are key drivers and contributors to economic growth, account for 88.8% to 99.9% of all establishments, and generate between 51.7% and 97.2% of total employment. As such, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint 2025 stated that the region would give new emphasis on assisting and promoting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in its economic integration through a more structured and targeted MSME program. The program will be put in place to enhance MSME competitiveness, resilience, and to enable more significant benefits from ASEAN integration through various measures such as (a) promotion of productivity, use of technology, and adaption of innovation; (b) increase access to finance by developing and enhancing current framework, strengthening traditional infrastructure, enhancing policy environment and measures that foster alternative and non-traditional financing; (c) enhance market access and internationalization through the development of support schemes and integration into the global supply chains, e.g., promotion of collaboration with multinational corporations (MNCs) and large enterprises, foster the use of e-Commerce, and boost strategies to promote exports through export clinics, advisory services and rules of origin (ROO) utilization, and (d) enhance MSME policy and regulatory environment that supports intra- and inter-governmental cooperation and coordination mechanism through the involvement of MSMEs in the decision-making process to enable better representation of MSME interests, extend assistance to microenterprises in the informal sector and their integration, and streamline processes involved in obtaining permits and business registrations to enable less costly and faster business formation (ASEAN Secretariat, 2015). True to its overarching message, ASEAN: A Community of Opportunities, the region also recognizes the critical role of women in entrepreneurship. As such, the Joint Statement of the Second ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Women (AMMW) issued in October 2015 in Manila recognized that the realization of these principles requires the active engagement of all ASEAN Member States (AMS), sectoral bodies under the three (3) pillars of ASEAN, and stakeholders including civil society, academia, media, and private sectors. Further, the AEC Blueprint 2025 stated that promotion of entrepreneurship and social capital development by creating a more conducive environment for entrepreneurship. Some of the ways to realize this is through the ASEAN Online Academy and enhancing social capital development for MSMEs, with particular focus on youth and women, are among its priorities (ASEAN Secretariat, 2015). Focusing on women, Amartya Sen (2001), on his essay entitled “The Many Faces of Gender Inequality”, has identified seven (7) varieties of disparities between genders, namely (1) mortality inequality, (2) natality inequality, (3) basic-facility inequality, (4) special-opportunity inequality, (5) professional inequality, (6) ownership inequality, and (7) household inequality. Mortality inequality directly tackles life and death with women being observed to have high mortality rates than men on communities with documented gender-biased as compared to communities with little or no gender bias. Natality inequality is the preference for boys over girls, which is a characteristic of patriarchal societies. Basic-facility inequality, as the name suggests, are biases that involved basic needs such as equal opportunity to attend school and social functions. Special-opportunity inequality covers privileges such as access to higher education, training, and professional work, among others. Professional inequality is those inequalities which pertain to promotion in work and occupation. Ownership inequality relates to biases in property ownership, which was identified to affect not only the voice of women in the society but also makes it harder for women to enter and to flourish in commercial, economic, and even in some social functions. Household inequality directly tackles the unequal distribution of household roles and responsibilities, which in some societies, is to take for granted that men will naturally work outside the home. In contrast, women could do so if and only if they could combine such work with various inescapable and unequally shared household duties. Given the above scenarios, this study explored the business environment for Filipino women involved in the micro, small and medium enterprises. It drew a comparison with select ASEAN countries, namely Singapore and Myanmar, using the available published resources.Masters Thesi