OUR MSMEs cannot survive two more years of this. Here are the numbers.
Inflation hit 6.1% in August and is projected to climb as high as 7.4% in September, the seventh straight month above target and the fastest in over three years. A year ago, it was just 1.7%.
Fuel has risen almost every week this year. In one recent week alone, gasoline jumped up to P5 a liter, and diesel keeps climbing with it.
And here in Central Luzon, the minimum wage has reached P600 a day, a P50 to P80 increase that small employers must now pay on every working day, sales or no sales.
Each of these alone is survivable. All of them at once is a chokehold, and it is the small business owner who feels the grip first.
From the ground, it looks like this. Fuel makes every delivery and every ingredient cost more. Inflation inflates stock costs and shrinks what customers can spend. The wage hike raises costs we pay even on the days nobody walks in. Costs rise from every direction, right as demand falls.
And capital does not avoid us because we lack talent. It hesitates because confidence is fragile and the cost of doing things the right way keeps climbing. When investment slows, jobs disappear and the local market shrinks, which is exactly the customer base our MSMEs depend on.
Here is the hard math. If these pressures hold until 2028, this is no longer a difficult season. It becomes a wave of closures. Thousands of small businesses, the backbone of our economy and the source of most of our jobs, will not make it that far on thin margins and expensive credit.
So, we are knocking on your door. Not to complain, but to ask for action while there is still something to save:
Ease the fuel burden. Revisit the taxes and costs stacked onto every liter.
Share the weight of the wage hike. Let small employers access tax relief or wage support, so a good policy does not quietly kill the businesses meant to pay it.
Open real access to affordable credit for MSMEs, not just the big and already-bankable.
Cut the red tape and restore predictability. Nothing attracts investment faster than fairness and a level playing field.
We are not asking to be rescued. We are asking not to be squeezed to death while we do our part.
To fellow business owners: add your voice. The louder and clearer we are now, the harder we are to ignore.
To government: the clock is running. Help us keep these doors open, or be ready to count the ones that close.
