The SSF Cooperator’s Assembly was a 1-day activity organized by the Department of Trade and Industry – Rizal Provincial office and facilitated by the DTI Rizal Account officers at Blue Acacia Events Place, Antipolo City. The registration started at 10:00 A.M. and it was participated with a total of 59 participants from 17 SSF Cooperators, Meralco Biz partners, Mr. Stephen Rodriguez and the DTI-Rizal Team.

After the registration, SSF Support Staff Paolo Garrovillas acknowledged and welcomed all the participants. It was followed by the invocation of Ms. Tagumpay Panguito from Llano Farmers Multi-Purpose Cooperative. After the invocation, BDD Chief Sharon F. Dioco presented a short presentation about the SSF program. This includes the “Big Push” for MSME Development and the objective of the SSF program. Afterwards, Mr. Garrovillas introduced the 1st Speaker of the activity, Mr. Lawrence C. Abueg, Business Center Head of Meralco.

Mr. Abueg started the discussion by acknowledging the participants and introduced the Manila Electric Company. He also discussed the services they can offer to clients to help them optimize and fully utilize the use of their equipment. He then introduced his fellow resource person (Engr. Jean Michael Bustamante, Customer Sales Engineer) from Meralco to further discuss their services.

Mr. Bustamante discussed their Energy Efficiency Services and some energy saving tips and schemes on which they can apply in their existing businesses such as using LED lights, inverters in Aircon and Refrigerators, and other methods. He also discussed the implementation and improvement of energy efficiency measures, conduct of regular energy audit, and energy monitoring and control.

After the Power Coaching from Meralco, OIC Provincial Director Cleotilde M. Duran expressed her insights regarding the activity and asked the Cooperators to share their experience on the SSF program. It was amazing to hear all the positive feedback from the Cooperators.

Next, was the Ceremonial Awarding of SSF Project Ownership of KAMATA, it started with the inspirational message of PD Cleo followed by the presentation of the Certificate of Ownership headed by Ms. Dioco and then photo ops after-wards.

Mr. Stephen Rodriguez, a freelance developer and the Co-Owner of MYPS Hydroponics Garden Enterprises was the last speaker. The first part of his presentation was about Inventory Management. He started his presentation by defining what inventory actually is. He then explained the importance of inventory management by elaborating the advantages of having an inventory management system and the disadvantages of not having it.

The second part of the presentation of Mr. Rodriguez was the demonstration of the Point of Sale (POS) system. With the help of Ms. Kyle Christine Pascual, Mr. Rodriguez showed the participants what a Point-of-Sale System looks like. He demonstrated how to use it and how it functions.

He also stated that those are just some common POS functions, a higher quality POS system could do a lot more such as generating invoice, having an automated discount system, and more. After his presentation, some cooperators that still doesn’t have a POS showed interest if they could have a copy of the POS system that was used at the activity. DTI-team, which is the owner of the POS system, granted their request. Mr. Garrovillas told the participants to just send an email request.

The last part of the activity was the closing remarks of OIC PD Duran. Upon the understanding of the topics that were discussed during the activity, she challenged the SSF Cooperators of their part of how they could apply the lessons and recommendations that was discussed by the speakers. ♦

Date of Release: 15 November 2022