I'm baaack!

HEY there folks! Sorry I've neglected this blog for quite some time. I had to focus on the elections and informing the voters about voting procedures and all news about their favorite candidates. The counting may not yet be over esp for the Presidential and Vice Presidential slots, but at least the pressure to publish timely news for my readers over there has eased.

In fact, it's been quite a sleepless period for me since I put up Pulitika2010 in January as I had to upload news and opinion pieces from various newspapers and broadcasting networks from 12 midnight until close to 5 a.m. If I happen to nod off in between those times, w/c I sometimes do as my brain just automatically shuts off, my work sometimes ends at 7 am instead. The effect was a really crabby me (okay, more than the usual crabbiness), and a persistent cough that didn't go away 'til I finally got my 8 hours of straight sleep last weekend.

Many readers have asked me if I intend to continue that blog, but I'm not inclined to as I'm still super tired. I need a vacation quick. Besides I put up that blog merely to inform the public about their candidates and other electoral issues. And since the elections are now over...well, let's see. There is a need to keep a close watch on the new President after all. Ach. Btw, I did enjoy learning how to tweet the news, although it can be quite obsessive. I don't know if I should use Twitter for this blog as well, but lemme assess in the next few days if it's necessary.

Anyhoo, I'm back (key in Poltergeist theme here), and I promise to resume writing about my favorite topics like food and travel soon enough. Meanwhile, here's a cute video from Glee (yay Glee!). Try to spot a favorite Filipino brand in the background. Enjoy!

dream 1 @ Yahoo! Video

Jollibee invades New York!

“This is the taste of my childhood,” said Emma Ilagan, a 36-year-old customer service representative for Verizon Wireless who left the Philippines when she was 21.

“Until now, you have to go to California for Chickenjoy,” she added, referring to the chain’s popular dish of fried chicken, gravy and rice.

Or as Natasha Starkey, a conservatory student, said last month when she dropped off an application for a part-time job, “This is Filipino soul food.” (Read the rest at NYT)

I dunno about it being Pinoy "soul food", but Jollibee is truly a phenomenon. You have to hand it to Tony Tan Caktiong, beginning with just two ice cream parlors back in 1975, Jollibee now has 600 stores nationwide and 30 overseas. It also owns Deli-France, Greenwich Pizza, and Chowking. It is only here in the Philippines where McDonald's has been beaten by a homegrown burger company.

And while I'm not a total fan of Jollibee's food, it still makes me proud that a purely Pinoy brand, has just landed in New York. What a great way to start the week, isn't it? Clap for them!

That bee is gonna sting

Sign of the times: Jollibee hiking
prices on soaring costs

By Dennis Estopace
Reporter, BusinessMirror
May 14, 2008

NOW you know times are really hard. The iconic fast food that offers “distinctly Filipino” spaghetti and fried chicken has been bitten by the inflation bug.

Jollibee Foods Corp., the country’s largest fastfood operator, would be hiking prices “any time soon,” chief executive Tony Tan Caktiong told the BusinessMirror.

However, Tan Caktiong said he doesn’t expect such increase to impact sales. (Read on at Jollibee.)

OH crap, now we're in real trouble! Various economists from different banks are already projecting a 9% inflation rate this year. With this announcement from Jollibee, that makes the inflation projection even more credible. After all, about 50 percent the consumer price index (which is the basis of the inflation rate) is composed of food, beverages and tobacco items.

Jollibee's products have become an index of sorts for the country in terms of food prices. Its burgers, spaghetti, and fries are standard fare especially for the lower middle income market. (I personally like the nacho fries.) These are the clerks, the sales ladies, tellers, patrolling cops, and janitors, etc. who comprise the bulk the of country's working force.

These folks don't even earn enough to pay for all their needs, an uptick in food prices will just burden them further. (What's more, transport groups are agitating for higher fares.) With Jollibee raising its prices, I am pretty sure other food staples like canned sardines and instant noodles will soon follow. It's bad enough we have a rice crisis and surging electric bills.

I can't imagine how we Pinoys can take more of this.

* * * *

ON the other hand, a higher inflation rate spells good news to depositors as this usually means, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (central bank) will need to increase its overnight rates to sop up the extra liquidity in the market.

This also means the rate on government securities like Treasury Bills and Bonds will go up. Depositors will be sure to check with their banker the latest rates for special deposit accounts and investment instruments.

Already I got a call from my bank which is offering 8.5% interest per annum on its Tier 2 notes. (Earlier this year, the notes were only offered at 7%.) Of course, the catch is, you have to hold on to this basically unsecured debt for 5 years and the interest is paid out every six months. But it's a good deal especially if it's a strong solid bank. Also try to look ask your bank if it offers 5-year tax-free accounts. These special accounts normally accept deposits as low as P50,000. Interest is paid every month but like the Tier 2 notes, you must keep your money in the account for five years.

And btw, just in case you've bought into the whole economic miracle that is RP crap promoted by the presidentita, a high inflation rate is one of the signs the economy is heading for the dumps.

Cebu Pacific causes airport bedlam

UPDATE (11 am): I got a text message from my friend Miggy who's supposed to fly to Cebu today w/ her hubby for the weekend. But guess what? All Cebu Pacific flights are delayed today because their computers melted down! The domestic terminal is just in total chaos!

I RECEIVED a text message close to 2 a.m. today from my fab ex-editor who's now based in Singapore. James was mightily pissed that he got stuck at the airport on the way home to Manila because Cebu Pacific had apparently overbooked its flight. He and 49 others. What's more, the ground crew seemed to have all disappeared with no promise of even a light snack or anything to make the unlucky passengers feel comfortable while waiting for the next flight.

UPDATE: According to James, they were just given another round-trip voucher and promised seats in tonight's flight to Manila. I guess that means another 50 booked passengers in tonight's flight will get bumped off again. Common airline practice is when a carrier overbooks or for some reason, can't make its scheduled flight, it should book its passengers on the next available flight in another airline. Why didn't Cebu Pac do this? Sobrang pagtitipid naman 'yan Papa Lance! Shouldn't customer service come first?

What's more, Cebu Pac's external PR Gatchie Reyes told James that they were told by Cebu Pac that the 50 bumped off passengers last night were booked in a hotel. O da va, nag-creative writing course pa ang mga lokah?!

This is probably the Nth time I have heard this complaint about Cebu Pac. Last year, galpal Francine also got stuck for more than five hours at the Mactan International Airport after her flight to Manila was super-delayed for undisclosed reasons. She was at airport by 5 pm but flew past 10 pm. Buti nalang pinakain sila ng isang hita ng Jollibee chickenjoy. (We learned later that one plane had engine trouble thus necessitating a scramble for aircraft plying other routes and trying to catch up with scheduled departures elsewhere. But like, this is also the Nth time I've heard this reason.)

So what's up with Cebu Pac really? It boasts of new planes and yet can't keep a simple promise of flying out all their booked passengers on time? I've been covering the business beat for the longest time, especially the travel/aviation beat, I still don't understand why airlines have to overbook their flights. Surely Cebu Pac's reservations people can see in their computers if they've reached the seating limit already for their flights? And at this time of the year, the peak of the summer season, there are just too many travelers going on vacation so it really is imperative for them to make their flights. I would understand overbooking during the lean season when flights are no longer that much in demand.

And these cases of overbooking and delayed departures are happening everywhere Cebu Pac flies. Over in Caticlan, the joke is Cebu Pac is virtually using Asian Spirit as its GSA (general service agent) because they always pass on passengers to the latter (well, so much the better for AS I suppose. This is extra income for them.) But duh, why boast about now flying to the gateway of Boracay when it can't even deliver the minimum service required of a carrier?

Sure Cebu Pac can say that passengers choose the carrier because they want to fly cheap, sans any frills. So magtiis kayo! But I think no matter how cheap or pricey a passenger's ticket is, he is supposed to be accorded some amount of courtesy and respect as a paying consumer. Porke't cheap fare, cheap service din? Ang cheap mo naman Papa Lance! Kya nga ba I don't crush you anymore e.

(Disclosure: The last time I rode a Cebu Pac flight was three years ago. Nothing untoward happened then. It's plane was old, but I left and arrived on time. No incident. Which is why it behooves me that despite its massive refleeting, the airline's service has just deteriorated instead of improved. Or shouldn't there be any correlation at all between the two?)

Ok, so I couldn't resist writing about it either...

Something Like Life
Sept. 7, 2007

BY now, I’m pretty sure all of you have the Malu Fernandez topic coming out of your mouths and ears. Don’t worry, I’m not going to add any more fuel to the fire and endorse any sort of “harpooning” of Ms. Fernandez, even if she did unwittingly ruffle the feathers of close to half of the population of the Philippines and their hundreds of relatives abroad. (Yes, I still give Ms. Fernandez the benefit of the doubt because I think no one in his right mind would deliberately insult another human being in print unless he is begging for a libel case. Of course, if she was channeling shock jock Howard Stern, then what she did was unforgivable.)

What I do want to address, however, are the realities of an overseas Filipino worker’s life, because once upon a time I was one of them, although my colleague Marvic and I would jokingly dub ourselves “expats.” Although I hardly contributed in boosting the country’s gross international reserves because I rarely remitted any monies to my parents here (honey, I needed it more than them), I only had to look at my colleagues and hear their sob stories to realize the difficulties of leaving one’s home and family to try to carve out a bright future they don’t think would ever have in the Philippines.

The opportunity to work in Saipan (the capital of the Northern Marianas, a tiny group of islands south of Guam) came up because of Marvic, who recommended me to her publisher. I was to be business editor of a daily newspaper (actually a community paper by our standards, where a victim of a hit and run could be the day’s biggest headline), and while the job did pay a lot more than I was receiving in my former paper back then, the attraction to me was actually the opportunity to live in another country and mingle with other nationalities. I also thought that Saipan being a mere three hours away from Manila, it wouldn’t make me so homesick, unlike the situation with OFWs who live in the Middle East, Europe or the US. I could always easily come home to Manila even for a weekend. So, actually, I was not your typical expat...er, OFW desperate to earn a higher wage to feed my entire family back home.

The first shock of any OFW upon landing in his new host country is always cultural. There are just too many new ways of behaving and thinking that our kababayans have to get used to. First of all, in a US-style country like the Northern Marianas, you had to follow the traffic rules. No tail-gating, no overtaking, no weaving in and out of traffic.

And while I could get away with wearing Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt to Sunday Mass once in a while, the Chamorros (the locals who live on Saipan) actually encourage churchgoers to don proper church attire, i.e., a modest clothes which do not show off one’s legs, bare arms, or cleavage. I also realized that Filipinos were more Western in thinking than the locals, as I would get flak for being outspoken and frank in discussing issues (although the mainland Americans living on Saipan appreciated the banter). Still, the Chamorros are a generous lot and will always invite anyone to their parties and fiestas, and basically share the good times, which is a trait they share with us Filipinos.

But more than the culture and traditions, I think the biggest shock for most OFWs is the realization that being away from their families means a lot of heartaches. I remember a young colleague, J, who I would always notice to be crying after every phone call with her mother. She told me her mother would always berate her for sending “so little” money for the family’s needs. (She was sending half of her monthly $700 salary, and her mother still thought this was still not enough?! That was close to P18,000 back then!) J was not even the eldest in the family but her mother was now relying on her daughter’s earnings for the family’s needs. J said she had, in fact, other siblings, none of whom were apparently working, and her parents were out of work as well.

As I began speaking to other colleagues and other kababayans over the year I was in Saipan, I realized that quite a number of them had relatives who became virtual mendicants, stopping work and just waiting for the usual monthly remittance. Like J, my heart bled for them because there they were working their asses off under a foreign boss who treated them sometimes rather poorly, and yet their difficulties were not even close to being appreciated by their families back home. Parents didn’t call their OFW children to ask how they were, but rather to ask when their next remittance would arrive. Children didn’t bother to write to their hardworking parents, or send them a card to say how much they were missed, but rather to make sure they were sent the newest PlayStation for their birthdays. I could only nod in understanding when an Ate started narrating her life’s travails.

And for all the “huge” salaries these fellow kababayans are supposed to be earning, their families don’t realize that they are also spending quite a tidy sum living in the host country. Sure, these OFWs are earning in dollars, but they are spending in dollars as well. An example: in Saipan, a Jollibee yumburger with cheese costs about $2 (almost P100 then), when it’s about P40 only here. The horror! A decent restaurant meal for one person, for example, would cost about $12 (P600) when here, the same could be had for probably P300 or less.

Aside from the food, there is also rent to pay (I used to pay about $400, or P20,000, a month for a one-bedroom apartment) and utilities ($150, or P7,500, a month) and clothes. By the end of the month, and after deducting all these “costs of living,” as well as half their salaries for the usual remittance to their families back home, my Ates and Kuyas were left with zilch. It is no wonder a number of them return home almost centavo-less and with very little savings to speak of. We Filipinos are so family-oriented, we rarely deny any requests from our relatives, even though we are already hard-up ourselves.

Some of them also told me that all the while they had been sending money to their spouses back home to put up a little sari-sari store, set up a carinderia, or make some home improvements, they find out that the money had all been spent by their spouses who have become prime candidates for Gamblers Anonymous.

Other than the financial issues, there are social issues that our kababayans have to contend with. A lot of my colleagues, pining away for their spouses or fiancées back home, have affairs with their co-workers. A number of them actually shack up with new lovers even if they have wives or husbands here and 10 children. Kuya D, for example, was already hard-pressed as it is to send money to his wife and children back home, but then he still managed to create a new family in Saipan (a lovely wife and two rambunctious boys). I don’t blame him. It can really get lonely overseas—none of the 120 channels on cable TV nor a thousand bars can ever ease that feeling. (On Saipan the six bars or so close at 10 pm…no wonder I was hardly inebriated while I was there.) On the other hand, if it wasn’t my Ate or Kuya playing around, it would be their spouses here at home doing the nasty.

So every time I would hear these stories from our kababayans, I would get depressed about their ordeal (which, by the way, actually starts at the hellish and very long queues at the POEA), only slowly to be enraged at our government which does very little in boosting economic opportunities here at home. Instead, it chooses to look for more ways to export our precious human capital to other countries, thus helping the latter to prosper. And while the government trumpets the 7.5-percent growth in the economy, I can only wonder if it is worth all the punishing choices our kababayan abroad have to make.

These are just some of the real issues plaguing our OFWs. So even if our kababayans choose to submerge themselves in a vat of Charlie, the incredible sacrifices they have to endure in the name of family and a better future are nothing to be sniffed at.

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday in the Life section of the BusinessMirror. Photo courtesy BusinessMirror)

Third ambassadors’ tour brings in 650 Fil-Am tourists, foreign investors

By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo
BusinessMirror, July 27, 2007

THE Third Ambassadors’/Consuls’ General Tour of the Philippines brought in not just eager Filipino-American tourists but also foreign businessmen looking at possible areas of investment in the country.

About 650 Fil-Ams, including a significant number of Caucasian– Americans and Canadians, were in the country from July 14 to 20, attending business and investment briefings, treated to sumptuous dinners and lunches of Philippine dishes, brought to several shopping trips, as well as entertained in various resorts and tourist destinations outside of Metro Manila.

In an interview with the BusinessMirror, Philippine Ambassador to Washington, D.C. Willy Gaa said the demand for slots in this year’s tour was overwhelming.

“So far [the tour group] has really been increasing in numbers since its start three years ago. And this year we even had to put a cap on the number of applicants for the tour. [The biggest increase came from] California, specifically, Los Angeles.... We, in fact, had more on the waiting list. We had problems with the accommodations already,” Gaa said.

In previous tours, only the Makati Shangri-La Hotel was booked for the participants, but this year, even the Peninsula Manila hosted a number of the delegations.

A number of the participants were first-time balikbayans, according to Gaa, with their Americanized children in tow, while there were some who had joined a previous tour.

Investment possibilities

Philippine Ambassador to Canada Jose Brillantes noted the growing number of American/Canadian tourists who have joined this year’s tour but also have business interests in mind.

He said that of the 68 members of the Canadian delegation, “10 of them are businessmen. They’re here for the tour first, but after, they have meetings set up with their counterparts. They’re going to look into investment possibilities, ranging from manpower recruitment to mining.”

Canada, where about 400,000 Filipinos live and work, is a major investor in mining around the world. Brillantes declined to name the investors pending closure of their deals with local businessmen.

Megaworld Corp., a property development company owned by Andrew Tan, apparently reaped the most benefit from the tour this year with the balikbayans sinking in their hard-earned dollars into several condominium units.

Angela Cortes, senior sales director of Megaworld, disclosed that the company received many inquiries into its township development called McKinley Hill, a 50-hectare property in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig.

She said she was optimistic she would close P50 million in sales by the tour’s end, as several of the Fil-Am buyers already “signed up for three units in Tuscany Private Estates and seven in Stamford Residences.”

She said a number of the buyers were ready to pay her “in dollars [cash]…. With the response we got from them [the balikbayans], we hope to hit the P100-million [sales target for the tour]. We expect more inquiries after their busy tour here.”

The Philippine Ambassadors’/Consuls’ General Tour is a brainchild of Albert del Rosario, conceived during his stint as ambassador to Washington, D.C. It was designed to encourage more Fil-Ams to visit their home country and spread the word on its business and travel opportunities.

The annual tour, begun in 2005, is a joint effort by the Departments of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Tourism, and Trade and Industry (DTI).

Participants from the US mainland paid at least $1,949 for a basic tour package from July 12 to 17, which included roundtrip airfare, four-night hotel stay (twin-share), three meals a day, including a special lunch and visit to Malacañan Palace, as well as city and day tours.

From July 17 to 20, optional tours to major provincial destinations were made available to the participants at an additional cost, ranging from $349 per person, twin sharing, to $764 per person.

The visit to Malacañang on July 16, and the photo opportunity with President Arroyo, proved to be the tour’s highlight. “I’ve visited the Philippines a number of times,” said one long-time Fil-Am resident of New Jersey, who requested anonymity, “but this is the first time I’ve ever been to Malacañang!” She said she hoped to have her eldest daughter enroll in a local private university by next year.

Even Dr. James Stadler, medical director of the Guam Memorial Hospital, who joined the tour with his Fil-Am wife, Virginia—a nurse and member of the Guam Symphony—described the visit as a “once–in–a–lifetime experience” to meet President Arroyo.

(President Arroyo greets Filipino-Americans visiting the Malacañan Palace as part of the Third Ambassadors/Consuls General Tour of the Philippines from July 14-20. Photo by Rhoy Cobilla)


But GMA disappoints

However, there were a few who had joined the previous tours, like Eloise Baza, president of the Guam Chamber of Commerce, who were disappointed and wondered “why the President did not give any speech.” No official explanation was given for this, but a DFA source told BusinessMirror that “it is now the President’s official policy to give only one speech a day.” At noon that day, the President had already spoken before participants of the 2007 Corporate Social Responsibility Expo at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza.

In the previous tours, President Arroyo had managed to whip the tour participants into frenzied clapping as she outlined the accomplishments of her administration and encouraged them to invest in the country. Last year, she even pushed the Fil-Ams to support her campaign for Charter change.

This time, the President merely exchanged a few pleasantries with some members of each tour delegation as she sat throughout the souvenir photo-taking with Executive Secreatry Eduardo Ermita, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, and Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila.

Before the photo opportunity with the President at the Rizal Hall, the tour participants viewed the various historical items on display at the Palace museum and then had a lunch of native Filipino dishes catered by Via Mare at the Heroes’ Hall.

Baubles, bangles and beads

On July 14, the DTI urged the tour participants to invest in the Philippine countryside during a business briefing at the Forbes Town Center, a major business/residential development of Megaworld and the Bonifacio West Development Corp. at The Fort in Taguig.

During the same briefing, Bing Limjoco, president of the Philippine Franchise Association, spoke of the opportunities in investing in local franchises. She also noted the success and continuing expansion of Jollibee Foods Corp. because of franchising, edging out the US-based McDonald’s Corp. in the local fast-food business.

The tour group was also treated to a discussion of the local jewelry industry by Cecilia Ramos, owner of Ricel’s Jewelry and chairwoman of the Meycauayan Jewelry Industry Association Inc. Meycauayan, Bulacan, is envisioned to become the center of world-class fine jewelry in the Philippines, she said. Bulacan has long been known as the site of the country’s best manufacturers of gold jewelry, exporting millions of dollars worth of products to the world market.

Even before Ramos’s speech, however, many tour participants were observed checking out the gold and silver jewelry for sale at the ground floor of the Forbes Town Center. Nancy, a Honolulu-based Fil-Am, expressed particular interest in buying some pieces on exhibit. According to Ramos, the price of Philippine gold jewelry is 30- percent to 60-percent lower than those made in other countries like the US, Italy and Saudi Arabia.

In the evening of the same day, the tour group feasted on dishes from the Mindanao region during a welcome dinner hosted by the Department of Tourism at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza. A fashion show was also held featuring the Muslim-inspired creations of veteran Filipino designer Toni Galang, whose clientele include Fil-Ams on Guam and the mainland US. He is well-known for his intricately designed wedding gowns. The tour participants also lapped up Muslim accessories on display at the hotel.

‘Something new each year’

On July 15, the different delegations separated for day tours to Corregidor, an island off Manila Bay, which became the headquarters of the Allied forces in the Pacific and the temporary seat of the Philippine Commonwealth during World War II; Villa Escudero, a resort featuring man-made waterfalls amid a vast coconut plantation; and Tagaytay to get a glimpse of the world-famous Taal Volcano.

Businessman Frank Shimizu, president of Ambros Inc., the wholesale distributor of Budweiser, as well as Bristol Myers, Kimberly Clark and Mead Johnson products in Guam and the Northern Marianas, said, “It’s my first time [to join the tour] and it won’t be my last. . . . We went to Corregidor and it was an eye-opener. Anybody who wants to learn about World War II, I recommend that they go see Corregidor.” Shimizu was in town with his wife Fermina, the aunt of Guam’s First Lady Joann Camacho.

The most enthusiastic among tour participants appeared to be Atty. Alexander Modaber, the US Public Defender for Guam, who had joined the two previous Ambassadors/Consuls General Tour. Of his third tour, Modaber said: “They’ve added something new and each time is a new experience…. Everybody had a great opportunity when they had different trips to the various regions in the Philippines. So it’s a tremendous opportunity to see the Philippines, to see the culture and to see the things outside of Manila. Of course, what’s amazing, too, is you get to go to the museums and just learn so much. There’s always something new to see. You can always take something out of it.”

Aside from the visit to the Palace museum, the participants also toured the National Museum for Philippine artwork, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Money Museum for its coin collection, and the Metropolitan Museum for its precolonial gold exhibit.

Originally from Las Vegas, Modaber said he’s looking for investment opportunities in local condominiums “and eventually retire in the Philippines.”

The tour group was also brought to major shopping destinations in the metropolis, such as the Mall of Asia of the SM Group along Roxas Blvd., and Tiendesitas, a bazaar in Pasig City.

Jollibee tests new restaurant concept

Since it has already saturated the local fast food service market, Jollibee Foods Corporation, headed by Tony Tan Caktiong, President-CEO, is now testing the market for a new restaurant concept patterned after the roadside eateries or "karinderia" that is popular with the masses.

The firm said it is testing TIO PEPE’s Karinderia which serves Filipino food at very low price points, aimed mainly at people in the work force in urban centers. The pilot restaurant is located in Edsa Central. (from Manila Bulletin, July 25, 2007)

I don't want to steal the thunder from Tony Tan Caktiong for making Jollibee the number one fastfood chain in the Philippines. It should make every Pinoy proud that it is only in the Philippines where a Filipino-owned fastfood firm has beaten the mighty McDonald's brand, and at same time, has given jobs to a lot of Filipinos.

But must Jollibee, under the guise of business expansion, invade the provenance of thousands of carinderia owners, people in the informal economy who are just trying to help support their families? I don't want to begrudge Mr. Tan Caktiong his profit margins, but I think this carinderia plan is a step in the wrong direction for the Ernst & Young's world entrepreneur awardee.