The pioneering Filipino pride movement, through PHmade, yet again encourages Filipinos to support Filipino ideas, business concepts, products, and services. The campaign aims to educate Filipinos, through videos, print materials and events, on the availability and viability of Filipino brands, and on the positive impact that going local contributes to the economy.

PHmade’s tagline “It’s Worth Buying For” encourages each Filipino to think twice before spending: is it really worth buying for? Yabang Pinoy believes that small things, when done together, can create a big difference. If each Filipino became conscious of where he spends one peso, he will understand how each choice affects himself, fellow Filipinos, and the country. PHmade also aspires to influence Filipino entrepreneurs into supporting local natural and human resources.

Indeed, patronage of locally made goods and services should be a lifestyle. It enables homegrown brands to improve and compete against foreign brands. The local economy also improves as money goes back and forth between consumer and business, employee and employer. And as more entrepreneurs create, develop, and expand their businesses, more job opportunities are generated. PHmade recognizes Filipino ingenuity and the role of each Filipino in nation-building.

PHmade focuses on seven categories: Produce, Home, Footwear, Fashion, Personal and Home Care, Food and Beverage, and Entertainment. The campaign will continue to collaborate with Filipino entrepreneurs and encourage them to continue to improve their products and services and to always aim for Filipino brands to be global brands.

PHmade is a project of Yabang Pinoy, the pioneering Filipino pride movement that started in 2005. As it celebrates its 8^th anniversary, the organization includes it among numerous Filipino pride projects, such as the Y.A.B.A.N.G. Camp (Youth Achievers Building A Nation of Greatness Camp), Yabang Pinoy Goes to School, Pinaka-mahabang Todo Patintero, Global Pinoy Bazaar, and many more. In the 8 years that Yabang Pinoy has immersed itself in various nation-building activities, it re-affirms its belief that true progress and development in our country will start once Filipinos begin living a proudly Filipino lifestyle.

Yabang Pinoy invites every Filipino to be part of the PHmade movement. As early as now, save November 10- 11 2012 for the 8^th Global Pinoy Bazaar – a showcase of Filipino products made with 100% Filipino Love and Pride.

For more information on Yabang Pinoy, visit www.yabangpinoy.com or email yabangpinoy@gmail.com.

In 2005, when it was still uncommon to talk about nationalism, a group of young Filipino idealists formed Yabang Pinoy to make Filipinos realize that a strong sense of national pride is the key to real progressive change in the country. It aimed to spark nationalism, to convert each Pinoy into not just a proud Pinoy but a shouting proud Pinoy from inside out–sa isip, sa salita, sa gawa. Its signature abaca band, a visible reminder and a conversation piece, has since been on the wrists of some 70,000 Filipinos here and abroad. The pioneering movement has implemented programs that educated countless schoolchildren about Philippine biodiversity, history, culture and the arts, language, and myriad more topics. It emboldened entrepreneurs to create original ideas, concepts, products, and services that elevate the standards of being tagged “Filipino.” It also encouraged Filipino consumers to complete the virtuous cycle by being mindful of where they spend their every peso. Throughout all of these, Yabang Pinoy has constantly believed that progress starts not from drastic changes in the political system, but in changing every Filipino’s mindset.

Five years have passed since the establishment of Yabang Pinoy and a lot has changed. The movement has steadily driven the momentum and inspired other groups to join the cause. Now, it is suddenly fashionable for people to literally wear their national pride, so that many don the colors of the national flag in many forms and interpretations. But at the end of the day, is that the best you can do?

Nationality is an unavoidable, indispensable aspect of one’s own identity. To be part of a nation is to feel a sense of accountability over its fate, to rejoice with our countrymen’s victories, and share the burden of their hardships. Our individual sense of self is, and should be, inseparable from how we define ourselves as a people.

Sadly, few are conscious of this invisible thread between man and country. The Philippines’ long history is a severe narrative of colonization, subjugation, and domestication, dulling our senses and sensitivities. Against this condition even Jose Rizal cautions in The Indolence of the Filipino: “The lack of national sentiment brings (an) evil…which is the absence of all opposition to measures prejudicial to the people and the absence of any initiative in whatever may redound to its good.”

More than a century thus passed; obsolete and unconvincing already is the excuse of colonial mentality. Now is the time to take ownership and responsibility for our own fate and the fate of the whole country. Yabang Pinoy again poses a challenge to all Filipinos: integrate the “May Yabang Ako” battle cry of nationalism into everything you do, let it define your existence and manners, and make nation-building a daily habit and lifestyle. In today’s highly globalized world, it has never been more important for Filipinos to act with an inherent national pride in doing things, from the littlest to the most ground-breaking, from crossing the street to paying taxes, from being the best in school or at work to engaging in social entrepreneurship. Only when people attach being Filipino within themselves will they realize their vital role in continuously defining and re-defining what Filipino means and what it stands for.

We are Filipinos. Our country is the Philippines. Let’s make its progress and development happen now.