Speech delivering during the Partnership Signing Ceremony between Consulus and DAP
Good afternoon President Caronan and dear friends at the Development Academy of the Philippines. And a shout-out to Gino Bulan, our Country Director for Consulus Phillippines who together with Senior Consultant Len Villa initiated this conversation with DAP that has led to today.
Kinabukasan, which means – tomorrow/future – speaks to the desire of both of our organisations in seeking to shape a better tomorrow. After the series of meetings with you honourable President Caronan and your esteemed colleagues, we know that we have met kindred spirits. DAP seeks not only to provide the best training solutions, but the core of your purpose is to shape a better future for the people of the Philippines through inspired leadership that can bring about common action.
All of us at Consulus share your belief and this is at the heart of what we do throughout the world. Through our multidisciplinary solutions of innovation in helping to transform leaders, organisations and cities, we do not want to deliver just great work. We seek to shape a united world, that is hopeful and caring enough for the least, to shape a fairer economic system. Which is why we are part of the global movement of the Economy of Communion which was launched in 1991 by UNESCO Peace Prize Winner Chiara Lubich.
COVID-19 has brought the world to a halt and has forced us to face a difficult and ambiguous future in front of us. While we can spend time analyzing what went wrong, we feel strongly that this is the time for hope by boldly reimagining what can be done, how can we forge new alliances to shape a world for good. And we are so pleased to have a partner such as DAP to do this.
The Philippines as a nation is on the rise. Despite being battered by a series of economic and natural disasters over many years, the people of the Phillippines can truly claim that they understand the word resilience. While others talk about resilience, Filipinos practice it. It is also why so many talented Filipinos work in so many sectors and countries around the world. From tech to harsh environments at sea, we owe it to Filipinos to sustain healthcare institutions and keep supply chains open. I know this through Filipino friends, having come almost every year to the Philippines since 2004 and being involved in projects globally.
In this partnership with DAP, we hope to work with resilient Filipino leaders in helping to amplify their capacity to lead change through innovative approaches. We seek to help shape creative towns and cities for success so that people will find 10,000 different reasons to fall in love with the Philippines.
COVID-19 has made the work for governments even more challenging, with limited resources and increased demands. This is the time for creative ideas and alliances. At the same time, this is an opportunity to shape what we term as creative resilience. And this can only happen in three ways:
First Creative Purpose
The halt brought about by COVID-19 has pushed many people into a soul searching mode. So this is the best time to question and deepen the purpose of an organisation. But purpose alone is not enough, we need to be able to create a method that can unleash common action through creativity. The latter is the most important challenge.
Second, Creative Method
Problems are obvious but the key is how will we solve it together in a calm and methodical way. In a time of crisis, with dark clouds looming on many fronts from geopolitical conflict to climate change, there is a need to create new methods that help to guide our thinking and application processes.
Third, Creative Resourcing
Studies have shown that money alone cannot solve the deeper issues that are causing systemic failure. Our view of any given problem must be able to have a holistic view of resources from talent to networks and then material resources. Only with such a holistic approach can we hope to have a sustained impact.
We are excited to embark on this adventure to shape creative resilience with DAP to enable a better future for the people of this beautiful nation. Together with DAP, I am looking forward to a better Kinabukasan. Thank you.
