Startups need actual cash

Every summer, our universities in Iloilo mint brilliant minds. We produce coders, engineers, and quiet visionaries who know exactly how to build the next disruptive platform. And every summer, we watch them leave.

They pack their bags for Manila, Cebu, or Singapore, because staying here has historically meant letting a good idea die of starvation. Iloilo City Hall sees this hemorrhage. The planned startup center at Festive Walk is supposed to be the tourniquet — a physical bridge to keep homegrown talent from abandoning the city just to find a safety net.

But a space to park laptops is only half the battle. Putting this hub in Megaworld’s Iloilo Business Park is a heavy, deliberate signal. For two decades, the BPO industry has anchored our digital economy. We owe those locators a lot. They built the skyline, provided thousands of stable salaries, and put food on the table for families across Western Visayas. But BPOs are ultimately part of the service economy. We are maintaining and troubleshooting other countries’ technology. It is time we evolve into a creator economy where we own the intellectual property.

Tech startups — the ones writing the code and building the platforms — do not just offer a monthly paycheck. They create generational wealth and high-value careers. They dictate the actual ceiling of our digital future. Last year, StartupBlink ranked Iloilo 5th nationally and 744th globally. We will never climb out of the 700s just by answering the world’s customer service calls.

This brings us to the uncomfortable reality of the Festive Walk project. The city is handing out desks, and desks are nice. But startups run on cash and an almost irrational tolerance for risk. The true burden here falls on the PCCI, DOST, and DICT to funnel actual angel investors and seed funding into these hallways. If this initiative fails to aggressively solve the funding bottleneck, it risks becoming just a cheap office space. A real estate project masquerading as an economic engine.

And then there is the elephant in the co-working space: government red tape.

One city ordinance offers a PHP 3,000,000 enablement fund and a five-year business permit discount. On paper, it is exactly what early-stage founders need. In practice, putting four distinct bureaucratic entities in charge of “innovation” is a massive risk. Startups survive by moving fast, pivoting daily, and breaking outdated models. Governments operate on extreme caution, endless paperwork, and auditing rules.

If a young developer has to jump through three months of slow-moving bureaucratic hoops just to access a fraction of that PHP 3,000,000 fund, they won’t bother. Disruptive tech innovators do not have the runway to wait on inter-agency memorandums.

We are finally giving our brightest minds a room of their own. The tragedy would be locking them inside it with red tape.