I posted below article in my personal blog and deemed of reposting it here when I realized that I know of two wedding suppliers who did the other way around.

I know that Richie Ortega-Torres went to New York to study about fashion design. After a few experiences, she packed her bags and went back here, established a couple or two fashion-related businesses employing 50 or so people.

Roughly, i’ve gathered that Pat Pastelero also studied in New York, and later on went back here to apply and share what she has learned.

There’s a big possibility that they had others reasons of going back here; reasons that I wouldn’t know about. Still though, a number of things are certain:

• the fashion/events styling /wedding industries benefited with their return
• not only do they offer services that are world-class but that they also share their world-class knowledge
• they helped in getting more people get employed with the shops they’ve opened.

I am not pointing fingers on this though because I myself don’t want to live here in Manila for the rest of my life. Of course, I want to be with my husband in Japan! But then, given this, maybe I shouldn’t expect that I’ll ever witness the “rise of Philippine EPC”. But then again, who knows? We have enough brains here still, in the current Philippine EPC industry. Who knows indeed? Because if they can do it, why can’t we?

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A contact in Twitter retweeted the article below in Arabian Oil and Gas website about the rise of South Korean contractors. True, our company has actually lost a couple or two projects to South Korean contractors where one (or two) was a project owned by our company’s long-time Client.

Sure, they pose a threat to other competitors, especially to our company (or at least my husband’s, since I have just already recently resigned). But then foremost in my thoughts is the question: When will Philippine EPC have its own rise?

Our engineers and professionals has been highly appraised worldwide. My husband even attended a lecture recently, held by an esteemed Japanese lecturer with international credentials under his belt, where that same lecturer has talked highly of the Filipino people having a lot of potential and being very capable.

And yet, “The Rise of Philippine EPC” is near impossible at the moment. Brain drain does the job. We gather enough experience here at home and when we have enough, our wanderlust, our longing to prove our mettle in the bigger field, our wanting to have better salaries, makes us want to pack our bags and be part of the working force of other countries.

I myself am guilty of this. And if truth be told, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life working here in Manila – the city stresses me out (it’s not the same story with other cities though). But if each engineer or professional thinks in exactly the same way, give or take a few other reasons besides, then I do think we will not ever witness “the rise of Philippine EPC”. Not in our lifetime anyway.

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