The Department of Trade and Industry – Competitiveness Bureau (DTI-CB) started its series of learning sessions on the Philippine Quality Award (PQA) last February 23 at Oriental Hotel, Legazpi City in a bid to promote the national recognition for quality to  organizations in Bicol region. 

PQA is an integrated approach for performance management that sets the standard of excellence to help Philippine organizations achieve world-class performance. It is deemed as the highest level of recognition for quality given to organizations, based on a global standard to assist local businesses attain world-class performance excellence. It is the local version of the US Baldrige Performance Excellence Program (BPEP) and other national quality awards abroad.

A similar program, the Philippine Quality Challenge (PQC), is the simplified version of the PQA criteria that focuses on companies interested to start their quality initiatives towards organizational excellence. Both the PQA and PQC serves as framework for competitiveness based on the principles of Total Quality Management (TQM).

‘We encourage businesses to take part in the learning session, being an excellent opportunity to know more about the PQA. We are hoping that an organization from the Bicol region will join the roster of globally-competitive firms recognized by PQA.” Competitiveness Bureau Executive Director Virgilio Fulgencio said.

The Legazpi City leg is one of the six learning sessions to be conducted in major cities in the country. The DTI-Competitiveness Bureau is the PQA Award Manager and Implementing Agency.