This century belongs to entrepreneurs, not giant national corporations.

According to business guru Peter Drucker, Big Business and Government worldwide used to provide three out of four jobs. Today, millions of jobs have been lost since the 80s because the corporations had downsized, computerized and outsource internationally.

This gave birth to a new entrepreneurial class generating millions of jobs and businesses out of garages, old warehouses, residences and house basements. The Age of the Entrepreneur continues. This new group of imaginative and self-driven risk takers creates 12,000 jobs every week and a new industry every three months.

We must remember that South Korea and the Taiwan economic miracles started from nurturing small entrepreneurial units that are now colossal enterprises.

Entrepreneurs succeed because they possess the vision to provide products and services needed by a large segment of the populace. Henry Sy may have foreseen 80 million folks needing at least a pair of shoes when he first opened his first Shoemart near the Escolta many years ago. Manny Villar, the richest congressmen in town, found his fortune serving the poorer citizens' hunger for low-cost housing. Millionaires have been made out of persons supplying the lowly slippers, chopsticks and bicycles to the over one billion citizens of Mainland China. Can you supply them something else?

Morita, co-founder of Sony Corporation has a philosophy to "create products where no apparent demand exists and then create the demand" and among them would be the pocket radio, the digital camera, the Walkman and the Betamax, the forerunner of laser, VHS and DVD versions of today. In entrepreneurship, education is not important at times. An eighth grade drop-out tried to sell delicious pizza across his family's grocery store and is today known as your "Pizza Hut." Scores have left employment and engaged in specialized desk publishing and raked in thousands of pesos.

So some entrepreneurs are trailblazers, others follow the trail and improve on them. Jollibee, remains the classic underdog who improved on the taste of the staple of McDonalds like burgers, chicken and spaghetti and is a runaway Southeast Asian champion in food - getting various international awards.

Samie Lim, president of the Philippine Franchise Association said that with the retail trade liberalization, the way to go is "franchising," the modern day business of expansion which promises a fairly high level of returns for both the franchiser and the franchisee. It seems though that the food business is fairly saturated at this point, according to Lim.

These businesses give financial freedom to hundreds of heretofore employed individuals often described as: "those who are not frightened by the endless possibilities in life, are excellent communicators and have a deep sense of humor." Today's entrepreneurs want to solve society's problems by providing market-friendly goods and services at a reasonable price.

We were direct witness when many years ago, the indefatigable Bob Cal, was struggling between the choices of staying employed at the Department of Trade and Industry or carving his first two small boats to give tourists a ride across the Loboc River with good Filipino food and music on board. Mr. Cal is the forerunner of the famous Loboc River boat rides and the new cousins sprouting elsewhere in the province. See?

Hundreds of opportunities in the tourist trade like resorts, restaurants, transport, tour operators, souvenir gift shops, restaurants, massage joints, music lounges, golf courses and other rest and recreation are still open today. Bohol banks are now open to tie up with entrepreneurs for perhaps new sites to develop, retirement villages, housing subdivisions and exports of Bohol-made handicrafts and processed food utilizing soundly priced foreclosed bank properties.

As we welcome the hordes of TBTK visitors in our midst, let us also open our eyes and minds to the endless possibilities of entrepreneurship instead of despairing over high prices of goods and poor employment environment.

Remember one thing though. Time is gold for all entrepreneurs. They are on time for almost everything, unlike many spoiled executives today who'd probably be late even for their own funerals.

Be an entrepreneur. No age qualifications. But time waits for no one.