Acceptance Speech on behalf of the Fellows for the ESMEL Fellowships Program at the FLP Awards Ceremony held at the Manila Polo Club on September 16, 2026.
Good afternoon.
On behalf of the ESMEL Fellows for Academic Year 2025–2026, I would like to acknowledge FLP Chairman, Retired Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban; the Board of Judges for the ESMEL Fellowships Program; Metrobank Foundation; Metro Pacific Investments Corporation; and the FLP Board of Trustees.
Thank you for this recognition and for the trust you have placed in us.
As I learned more about the other ESMEL Fellows, I realized that each of us is finding our own way into entrepreneurship.
One is helping build a fuel trading business she started with her husband. Another is transforming her mother’s baking business into a formal enterprise that can grow and endure. One is carrying forward the legacy of a textile business her grandparents started more than sixty years ago, growing what one generation built into new possibilities for the next. And another hopes to use her background in economics to bring financial education to low-income households and students in community colleges.
My own path looks different. I am learning what it means to build from inside a technology and AI startup as its first employee, with the hope that one day, I will build a business of my own.
Our starting points are not the same, and I imagine our destinations will not be either.
We often talk about entrepreneurship as though it begins with a clear vision. But much of building anything meaningful happens while we are still figuring things out. We test ideas, learn something unexpected, change our minds, and sometimes end up building something very different from what we originally planned.
There is value in giving ourselves room for those experiments. Having a sense of purpose does not mean having a fixed path. We can evolve while remaining grounded in what we hope our work will contribute.
And I think this is where liberty and prosperity become especially meaningful.
Liberty gives us the freedom to explore, question, try, and change direction. Prosperity asks us what we do with that freedom, and whether what we build can create possibilities beyond ourselves.
A family business can grow to support more families. Knowledge can create opportunities for people who did not have access to it before. And an experiment that starts small can eventually become something valuable to many.
To Cindy, Mary, Ingrid, and Stephanie, congratulations. I hope we continue to give ourselves room to experiment and evolve, while staying grounded in why we chose to build in the first place.
And to everyone who made this fellowship possible, thank you for believing in what we are building today, and giving us the freedom to discover what it might become.
Thank you very much.
