PAOLO BENIGNO “BAM” AQUINO IV, a spitting image of the late Ninoy Aquino, is quietly leading a revolution of sorts. It is a concept on social enterprise that may one day be deemed the Philippines’ contribution to the world insofar as its advocacy is concerned. Dubbed “Hapinoy”—a contraction of happy Pinoy—the innovation lies in the way the movement is empowering sari-sari or variety storeowners by training them to become finance-savvy and knowledgeable about market trends.
Bam, who has had some share of failures in product selection for the empowered storeowners outside Metro Manila, has linked up with consumer giants such as Unilever and other big firms like Unilab in stacking up the merchandise inventory of these variety stores. What is unique about the Hapinoy concept is that aside from helping the storeowners get items that sell fast, Bam’s group of 20 dedicated advocates is tinkering with the idea of letting the storeowners outside of the metropolis move products native or typical to their respective areas to Metro Manila.
Hapinoy sees to it that the sari-sari stores get bulk discounts and access to microfinance. The group’s target is to initially involve in the project 150,000 out of the existing 800,000 variety stores all over the country. In a discussion with the media, Bam revealed the following:
1. Samar has higher prices for goods and commodities.
2. Women are better handlers of the purse strings
3. Smart is set to produce a low-cost cell phone (only P499 per unit) to be sold in partner stores.
4. Doughnuts and mail-package counters not good business.
Blind to Lopez family’s environmental sins
GINA LOPEZ’S advocacy on the environment falls flat on its face when one considers the ecological transgressions of her own family. Take her anti-mining stance, for instance. How, in heaven’s name, can she espouse this in the face of the environmental hazards that some firms in the Lopez business empire foist on hapless Filipinos?
The Energy Development Corp. (EDC), for one, has a geothermal steam-production facility right inside a protected forestry area in Mount Kanlaon in Negros Occidental. If Ms. Lopez applies her own stringent environmental standards, shouldn’t she be gathering 10 million signatures, too, to stop her family’s degradation of the ecology? She’s practicing double standard here, say some of her critics and we cannot but agree.
In the 1990s there was also another case involving the disposal of several tons of toxic waste consisting of cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that had been used for Rockwell’s transformers. The hazards were transferred to nearby Pasig City where they now sit in a residential community, San Joaquin, posing a great danger to the safety of its inhabitants. We wonder if the threatened neighborhood is aware of this.
The third—and most serious—transgression is the Lopez family’s failure to resolve the case of the leaking oil pipeline that is now threatening the lives of residents of Barangay Bangkal in Makati. Barangay Bangkay, a noted lawyer calls the place now, because to all intents and purposes, the residents of the condominium whose basement has become the catch basin of the leaked gasoline coming from the Batangas refinery are dead, or living dead. The toxic fumes coming from the basement of the building have driven away most of the tenants, save for a few hardy souls who intend to fight to the death, as it were. Calling Ms. Lopez. Please do something about this case before it is too late. We know you can do something to make your family listen to your advocacy, if you are sincere about it.
Loose tongue costs TV star millions
THE replacement of this beautiful endorser by an equally beautiful colleague as the “face” of a big conglomerate in its big-ticket projects did not raise eyebrows, as it appeared that it was a normal occurrence. But we learned that it was actually the loose tongue of the former, who is also a TV and movie star in her own right, that precipitated it. And it cost her millions. The story goes that the original face (let’s call her Miss Regrets because she most certainly must be regretting now) was asked an innocuous question during an interview—on whether she was “using” some of the products she was endorsing. “No, I demand cash,” she said, then went on to say in a rather disparaging way, why this was so. As is expected in showbiz, the remark reached the conglomerate owners’ ears almost immediately and, almost immediately, too, her face came tumbling down from the billboards. And that’s only for starters. It seems that her loose tongue will also jeopardize her movie career; we learned that all her future movie projects will also be “taken down” from the conglomerate’s perimeter. She must be crying a river now. Let’s hope the replacement of Miss Regrets, Another Charmer, will be more circumspect when answering even innocuous questions.
Secessions hit PCCI
DISGRUNTLED members of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), are seceding from the business federation due to what they termed “high-handed efforts” by the present leadership to cling on to power. Kapit tuko, was how they described the incumbents. At the heart of the controversy is a supposed memorandum from the PCCI’s Commission on Elections not to allow the current heads of provincial federations to run for the PCCI board.
The Davao Federation is said to have already seceded; the Mindanao Federation has threatened to follow suit. The incumbent leaders want the presidency to be limited to just the four stalwarts of the PCCI—Sergio Ortiz-Luis, Miguel Valera, Francis Chua and Donald Dee.
The young turks said they want to implement reforms in the business group. For instance, they want to stop the political stranglehold of the four business personalities on the group to allow others to become president of the group. Is the envisioned change in the PCCI in line with the tuwid na landas concept of the government of President Aquino? Or are the young turks just fed up with the current PCCI rule that the “rotating” presidency be limited to the four “old fogeys” who, they said, have become anachronisms in this modern age?
