DEPARTMENT of Trade and Industry (DTI) 7 Director Asteria Caberte is now the newest assistant secretary of the agency’s Regional Operations Group (ROG).

Caberte confirmed her new position to SunStar Cebu, saying she will support DTI Undersecretary Blesila Lantayona of the ROG.

“I am tasked to support the Undersecretary of the DTI’s Regional Operations Group in the development of creative, smarter and innovation-oriented micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and strengthen grassroots approach in value adding of these MSMEs,” she said.

Caberte started working at the age of 21 as a project analyst for Medium and Small Scale Industries Coordinated Action Program (Masicap) where she was assigned in Baguio and Pangasinan.

“After two years, I was hired as an analyst at the Small Business Assistance Center of the DTI,” she said.

Masicap taps “the services of volunteer graduating college students who were trained to assist medium and small scale rural entrepreneurs prepare feasibility studies and also helped facilitate bank loans.”

Caberte’s stint under the DTI continued until she became the Provincial Director of Bohol, her hometown.

She then moved up the ranks to regional director of the DTI in Central Visayas.

With her new role in the agency, Caberte said she will help MSMEs flourish in the region by capacitating those at the grassroot communities.

“We have to be more inclusive by going to the grassroots level,” she said.

Recognition

In 2015, Caberte received the 2013 DTI Employee of the Year (Executive Level) prize over nine other finalists during a recognition ceremony in Manila.

She was cited for her excellent response to typhoon Yolanda by bringing the Diskwento Caravan to disaster-hit areas in Bohol and Leyte, after the Oct. 15, 2013 earthquake and typhoon Yolanda, which struck 22 days later.

A calamity survivor herself, Caberte quickly organized a DTI team to assess the damage to the business environment in Bohol and Leyte and, setting aside the need to fix her own damaged home, she led the discounts caravan “to even the playing field and monitor compliance with consumer laws, to make basic commodities accessible to all,” the DTI said in a press statement.

Her leadership has also made DTI-Central Visayas among the best performing regional agencies in the country, the press statement added.