LAST month, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) hosted a golf tournament. Invited were mostly journalists.
A yearly thing, it was the 10th edition of the event designed by SMC to show its appreciation to the working media persons.
It is an occasion, too, for print and broadcast journalists to renew friendship as well as forge new ones among greenhorns in the trade.
Frankly speaking, this tournament (I missed it only once) is one of my favorites if only because SMC’s bigwigs like Ramon A. Santiago, Robert Non, Mary Jane O. Llanes, Jayson B. Brizuela, Charles Owen and Jon E. Hernandez III, among others, almost make it a point to mingle with us during the luncheon and award ceremonies.
Their presence alone—not to mention their friendly tap on the shoulders of their guests as they make the rounds during lunch—does us proud.
Personally, it gives me supreme delight to brush elbows with my fellow workers on the “other side” of the fence while likewise engaging SMC’s executives in animated conversation. It’s a once-a-year gig but it is a most-awaited event, simply because the air is always filled with warmth and sincerity.
And, as in most tournaments hosted by giant corporations like SMC, it is almost very common to see a car—cars at times—being staked as a hole-in-one prize.
The SMC Media Event is no exception.
When the designated hole for the car is finally come, each member of a flight—mostly foursome—falls into funereal silence. Deep concentration.
But, as in almost always the case, nobody makes a hole-in-one.
The car remains but a dream.
Well, as I keep saying, a hole-in-one feat is something you can call a miracle that nobody will object to.
Scoring a hole-in-one is a miracle because it is but a work of God.
Without God’s intervention, you can never make a hole-in-one.
I’ll make you a bet: After one has scored a hole-in-one, my bet is I’ll give you P1 million if that hole-in-one maker can do it a second time with 1,000 balls more to hit toward the same hole.
If he fails to score a second hole-in-one, you only give me five hundred pesos.
Only God can make you win my one million bucks.
But He won’t allow that.
God does not repeat Himself. He’s no showboat, you know.
And He knows I have no one million pesos to spare. He-he-he.
Anyway, you know what happened at the SMC Media tournament after nobody scored a hole-in-one?
SMC raffled the Toyota Vios, a 1.5-liter automatic!
Of course, it was the biggest, most pleasant surprise at the start of the year for all of us, poor workers in the industry.
And, guess, whom did Dear God choose to win?
“The lucky winner’s first name starts with a letter R,” said Mon Santiago after picking the winning stub during the thrill-filled ceremonies. “And the winner is from the print media.”
That drew a collective groan from the broadcast people, including Rey Langit and Rey Pacheco of dwIZ.
“It’s a male,” Mon said. “And the last letter of his family name is ‘n’.”
That gave Ramon Tomeldan away.
Indeed, when it rains, it pours.
Just days back, Ramon “Mon” Tomeldan was appointed editor in chief of Manila Standard-Today.
I tried to extract from Mon the first words usually uttered by one winning a prize of this magnitude.
Mon paused, and next said, “Suwerte lang.”
As I was about to go, I bumped into Mon Santiago. Mon said, “This is RSA’s humble gesture of saying thank you to our friends in media.”
RSA, of course, is none other than Ramon S. Ang, the president and CEO of SMC.
“RSA celebrated his birthday on January 14,” Mon continued. “This Vios is his birthday gift to the lucky winner.”
Then someone said that in all the many other Christmas golf tournaments in 2011 that he had attended, not one host had offered to raffle off a car left unclaimed when nobody scored a hole-in-one.
When Anton Cabangon heard this, he said to me, “Hey, Al, I guess you have a column there.”
Pray, tell me, how can one dispute the boss?
A clerk’s Porsche
THE times, they are a-changin’.
If the reports are true—and PNoy seems to believe—a clerk reportedly earning only P9,000-plus a month at the Bureau of Customs was caught by CCTV cameras driving a Porsche worth P9.0 million last week at the Slex.
No problem with that.
Maybe, he just won a lotto jackpot?
Or, maybe his father owns the Porsche?
Trouble is, said clerk reportedly beat up two youngsters onboard a Toyota Innova that had allegedly struck the Porsche near the Resorts World Casino in Pasay City.
Not content, the clerk allegedly fired his gun at the Innova.
The incident, which irked Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon no end, got PNoy’s goat so that he used it as a trigger in lambasting the Customs during the very occasion marking the agency’s 110th year of founding last week.
But as a gesture of sportsmanship, the Customs officialdom and employees still offered PNoy a cake as an advance greeting to the President’s 52nd birthday on February 8.
Oh, well, it’s more fun in the Philippines, indeed.
When to gas up
SOMEONE e-mailed me this:
Only fill up your tank in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground.
The colder the ground, the more dense the gasoline. When it gets warmer, gasoline expands. So buying in the afternoon or in the evening makes your liter not exactly a liter.
All hoses at the pump have a vapor return.
If you are pumping at a fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you’re getting less worth for your money.
Fill up when your gas tank is half full. The reason is, the more gas you have in our tank the less air is stored in its empty space.
Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation.
If there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, do not fill up. Most likely, the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.
Sounds good to me.
Pee stop. Today is the 41st day of 2012 and the dismantling of the concrete traffic blockers fronting the entrance gate of Don Enrique Heights along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City has yet to begin. They are reasons for an accident waiting to happen. Paging MMDA chief Francis Tolentino.
