DAP President and CEO, Atty. Engelbert C. Caronan Jr. (fourth from left), receives the Plaque of Appreciation from DTI officials (from left to right: Competitiveness Bureau Director Lilian G. Salonga, Consumers Group Protection Assistant Secretary Ann Claire C. Cabochan, and Regional Operations Group Undersecretary Blesila A. Lantayona). With him are DAP Productivity and Development Center (PDC) Managing Director Arnel D. Abanto (rightmost), and PDC-Productivity and Quality Training Office Director Ma. Theresa A. Agustin (second to right).

 

The Philippine Quality Award (PQA) celebrated its silver anniversary with the theme “Celebrating Culture of Excellence, Cultivating Competitiveness and Innovation” on October 12, 2022, at the Philippine International Convention Center.

The celebration highlighted the PQA’s achievements and recognized its stakeholders who played significant roles in its advancement, including the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP). The PQA Award Manager conferred a special recognition to DAP for its 25 years of continued support to the program and for collaborating with the Department of Trade and Industry Competitiveness Bureau’s (DTI-CB) initiative to conduct the PQA 25th Anniversary celebration.

As the Award Manager, the DTI Secretary Alfredo Pascual graced the event. During his keynote speech, he highlighted the vital role of the PQA in nation-building and fostering a culture of excellence among organizations in the Philippines, both in the public and private sectors.

During the event, Pascual also announced the regionalization of the PQA implementation as part of the DTI’s regional development strategy.  The PQA pushed for the decentralization of the assessment process to make it easier for organizations, no matter how big or small they are, to appreciate and adapt the PQA criteria and framework. Early this year, the PQA Regionalization Pilot Run was conducted, and last September, the Department Administrative Order for the implementation of the PQA Regionalization was signed.

“Using the simplified process of Quality Management System based on the PQA Framework, organizations from the regions can receive levels I and II recognitions. With PQA Regionalization, we expect SMEs to grow into competitive and future-ready organizations. What we want to happen is to see small enterprises graduate into medium-sized enterprises and medium-sized enterprises graduate into large enterprises,” Pascual added.

Moreover, one of the event’s highlights is the recognition of organizations with the highest level of excellence and have received the PQA for Performance Excellence in the past 25 years – Unilab Laboratories, Inc. and Toyota Motor Philippines.

The PQA also honored the contributions made by Dr. Luis Maria Calingo, who served as the PQA technical expert and consultant since 1997, through the launching of the Dr. Luis Maria R. Calingo Excellence Award. The award aims to recognize prominent individuals and organizations with significant long-term contributions to the advancement of the PQA.

The PQA is the highest level of national recognition for exemplary organizational performance. It is patterned after the U.S. Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. The Baldrige Performance Excellence is a major program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the United States. In the past 25 years, PQA has already conferred two  Philippine Quality Awards for Performance Excellence and 109 recognitions.

The PQA Committee is headed by the DTI-CB as the Award Manager, the DAP as the Vice-Chair of the PQA Committee for the Public Sector and the Award Administrator for the Public Sector, and the Philippine Society for Quality, Inc. as the Award Administrator for the Private Sector.