President's Message

Welcome to the Filipino American Chamber of Commerce of Orange County Home!

With the New Year come new programs and projects the new board members are drumming up for our current and, new and prospective members.

This year’s main objective is to benefit each other’s businesses through referrals and networking opportunities, showcases, educational workshops and seminars in collaboration with corporate support. The mission of any corporate support assistance is also beneficial in assisting the community through important products and services they can provide to enhance the growth of their own businesses.

Public utility companies, public and privately owned companies in the industries of banking, healthcare, medical assistance, technology, telecommunications, retail and wholesale, manufacturing, commercial and residential real estate, entertainment, etc… are all invited to support the Filipino American community in growing, progressing and profiting.

Though currently the current number of Filipino Americans are widely spread throughout the United States, predominantly in Southern California, according to the Wikipedia, it is evident that most of us make our pure or already culturally mixed homes in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas and the number is growing especially in the Orange County area alongside other Asian communities. To this day, the Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County Metropolitan area has over 370,000 Filipinos, with the city of Los Angeles alone comprising of over 120,000 Filipinos according to the 2000 census.

Because Orange County is a growing county in its own right through the uniqueness of its diverse community, innovative and state-of-the-art businesses, as well as the growth of master planned communities, it is also seen that great conservative opportunities have the ability to rise to a great extent.

In May, 2006, IMDiversity.com reported through the U.S. Census Bureau that the number of Asian-owned businesses grew 24 percent between 1997 and 2002, approximately twice the national average for all businesses. Within the numbers, 188,673 industries are involved in services such as personal services, and repair and maintenance, 154, 235 are in professional, scientific and technical services, 151, 551 are in retail trade, 123,689 are in healthcare and social assistance and 104,978 are in accommodation and food services.

Nearly half (47 percent) of all Asian-owned firms were Chinese-owned (290, 197) and Asian-Indian owned (231,179), Korean-owned firms were the third largest at 158,031, followed by the Vietnamese (147,081), Filipino (128,223) and Japanese-owned (86,863).

Almost 1-in-3 of all Asian-owned firms had paid employees. These 319,300 businesses employed more than 2.2 million people and generated revenues of nearly $291 billion.

So where am I going with all these numbers? Opportunities! The opportunity for a community to make something of themselves.

I encourage you to start with our chamber if you have not started with any business league yet. And if you have, market your business products and services to the Fil-Am market and beyond. If you are an established Fil-Am business, joins us in our marketing efforts to others outside our heritage. And if you are just want to join us for our proud cultural aspects, participate and share by giving back to the community. I can guarantee you that this can impact your life and livelihood.

Join us and prosper in our passion and as the Filipino saying goes…Mabuhay!

Maria Dumatol
2007-2008 FACC-OC President