Sojourns & Perspectives

Year of Change

2012-01-23T16:46:00.001+08:00

Today is the Chinese Lunar New Year, ushering the most popular of the 12 cyclical years in the Chinese Lunar calendar - the Year of the Dragon.

For the Chinese, this is probably the most important and most auspicious year - usually portending significant changes in their lives and the fate of their society.

For me, this Year of the Dragon is similarly significant but hopefully not ominous of anything untoward that might happen, but of something that is better and more life fulfilling journey into another work realm.

It is in this year that I am changing into a different role in my job in my current firm as well as moving into another country - Spain.

I have mixed feelings of excitement as well as nervousness - that I have not felt in a long while. Though I feel it should be natural given the new environment, the new faces and personalities, I can't help but be unnerved just imagining what would work and life be in this new beginning.

It is indeed a new beginning as I feel that that I have to start from scratch again. It's a new group that I will be working with, and though within the same company - it is a completely different play for me in terms of what I am positioned to do. From managing quite a number of subordinates and projects these past years, I am back to being on my own and purely operating as an advisor rather than a manager.

If I list down all the things that make me nervous - egos and new superiors are at the top of list of my concerns. It is typically the most and difficult to manage especially if you are joining a new group. Not to mention, I am the only Asian in the group. But then again, as they say, I will never have control over these as I have never have even in my current group - so no use fretting over it. However, experience with familiar egos and superiors make it easier to manage. In my new assignment, I am not familiar at all with any.

Let me see if the I Ching has something to say on this. It has been awhile since I consulted that ancient Chinese Book of Changes.

Death in My Dream

2012-01-10T16:16:00.004+08:00

Image via Wikipedia

I had a dream last night. It was a scary dream. Those types that wake you up because it was such an unsettling event in your head. It was a dream that most people would liken to a nightmare - like any dream involving death in the family.

Believe me, it would indeed be a nightmare dreaming of death knowing that there has been several in the family these past years, and almost every year.

Dreams that involve death creates worries both in the experiencing and perceiving selves that unsettle the stability of how one currently manages his emotional state.

The inability to process or understand the meaning of dreams such as those that have deaths in it, especially for those who are superstitious and believe dreams to be omens of the what's to come (sometimes they are - for clairvoyant people), becomes a source of emotional stress that is difficult to manage.

Start of dream. My mother has died apparently and I was told about it by a colleague or a friend (I could not put a face as to who, but certainly a person I either work with everyday or a friend - who could be both), who was apparently conveying his condolences. I was surprised that I did not know.

So I called my sisters and my brother and in the dream, they too confirmed that they came to know about it from others. I was vividly remembering that I was worried about the news. But I was not particularly sure of its certainty.

I decided to check and went to my family's ancestral home, where my parents stay, to see for myself. But then, I was pleasantly relieved to see my mother casually greeting me by the doorstep. End of dream.

The dream initially scared the shit out of me this morning that I immediately called my mother. Of course, I did not tell her about the dream. We had our usual conversation of how she is and also papa, and their state of health. She said they are fine and ask me the same. We went on discussing briefly how our other loved ones are doing and I ended the call shortly afterwards. But I was a bit calmer already.

I knew by then that my dream was not about an omen of another death in the family. (Though my worry lingered on for a while - knowing that my parents are old and frail and not as physically strong as they used to be .)

Thankfully, I do remember my lessons in Dream Interpretation from my mentor Dr. Eduardo Morato, during my MBA days in the Asian Institute of Management. I was able to process the dream quickly right after.

The dream was actually symbolical of my the state of limbo that I am currently in, here in office. In December, I have been released from my current unit to transfer to another unit in the company. I am to be based in an European country. I have turned over my responsibilities to another person in the first week of January and was waiting for the formalities of the transfer papers to come.

My stint was supposed to start this month, but due to bureaucratic processes that have delayed the formalization of my transfer, I am now sitting in office with no formal role and responsibility. While it seems a pleasant situation being free of the usual stress in the work place, going to office these past 2 weeks is becoming a very uncomfortable experience. Here I am trying my best to be busy and being involved as much as possible in relevant conversations and work, just to keep my sanity in check and feel wanted or useful.

Image by hey skinny via Flickr

But as days go by - I have to contend with incessant inquiries from friends and colleagues - asking on when I am starting in my new role and when am I relocating.

Such inquiries are causing me some discomfort being unable to reply on a date as nobody seems to be able to advise me from my company's vendor on how long it will take for my work permit to be processed. 1-2 months is what they say, which for me is a painfully long wait especially when you have nothing to do and there are plans (i.e. when are the kids going to quit schools and transfer, how and when do we rent out the house, etc.) that are on hold because of the uncertainty.

My Interpretation of this Dream

The mother represented by my subconscious, I believe, is my unit in the company. Her death represents the confirmation of my release from my role and responsibility.

Learning the "news of death" from a colleague and "conveying condolences" seems to relate to the last few days of my actual interactions with colleagues who have started to direct their usual requests for approval and help to my replacement instead of me. It was sort of a confirmation of the death of the responsibilities and roles that I have in my unit.

While I should expect that as I was the one who formalized the turn over of responsibilities and notified people in the unit, I was still "surprised" to experience it.

My mother being "in the house, alive and not gone and acknowledging me" , I believe, is actually also reference to my colleagues providing me their usual accommodation and recognition that I am still part of the unit and hence, are ok to continuously involve me in telecom work conversations. This was symbolized by the "casual greeting" of the mother - as the unit represented by colleagues.

As I process this dream and understand the symbolisms that my subconscious convey to my rational self in the waking world, I can only hope for better news to come so I can have nicer dreams ... :-)

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Don't Quit

2011-12-25T12:42:00.001+08:00

I love this poem.... going home this Christmas, got me to read this once again on the library's wall, but this time I got to read it to my daughter.
I hope she remembers always how important the message of this poem for her and her brother.

Don't Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometime will,
When the road you're trudging seem all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many failures turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow --
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
it seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the Victor's Cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the Golden Crown.

Success is a Failure turned Inside Out --
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit --

It's things seem worst that you must not Quit!

what is mid-life crisis?

2011-10-13T22:24:00.003+08:00

Woody Allen and I

A friend and I were having an interesting chat at Suvarnabhumi airport, while waiting for our flights back to Singapore. Believe me we were wondering whether we are already experiencing mid-life crisis, as we cannot stop thinking of a life after work.

I was telling him that I wanted to retire in a farm close to the city and be able to till the land and harvest produce from fruit-bearing trees...not be bothered about these mindless worries we beat ourselves up everyday - when will I close this deal, where will I get the resource for the next project or is my job safe...

But I feel that I have not achieved enough and saved enough to say that my family will be fine if my wife and I decide to settle back in Manila...

For my friend, he wants to focus on his dad's business and is wondering how things will be when he moves back with his family to his home country next year... what would life be after having been overseas for a long time. What about his son? Will his wife like it?

His thoughts were meandering on what could be.... if he stays a little bit longer in the company or if he comes back after a year or two....instead of resigning, just take a sabbatical from work and check whether being self employed is what he really wanted.

We have been having these conversations quite frequently of late, and we seem to feel that this might indeed be the mid-life crisis that old folks talk about. A point when you are at a cross road in life and you seem to feel stuck on how to move ahead, questioning everything you have done, suddenly unsure of what you really want after having gone full speed ahead trying to realize dreams of making more money, travelling the world...

Song of consolation - appropriate for the times

2011-08-31T23:12:00.002+08:00

Teach me to trust in You with all of my heart...to lean not on my own understanding.

Just what is it in me?
Sometimes I just don't know
What keeps me in Your love,
Why you never let me go

And though you're in me now,
I fall and hurt you still
My Lord, please show me how
To know just how you feel

You have forgiven me
Too many times it seems
I feel I'm not what you might call
A worthy Christian after all

And though I love You so
Temptation finds its way to me

Teach me to trust in You
With all my heart
To lean not on my own understanding
I just forget
You won't give me what I can't bear

Take me out of the dark, my Lord
I don't wanna be there

You've never left my side
You gave Your hand to me to hold
Oh Jesus, I'm no longer in the cold

And yet, I leave You there
When I feel satisfied
I'd like to thank You every day
Not only when I feel that way

I've never known a Man
Who'd give His life for sinners like me
And yet, because He loves us so
He's promised us eternity
And we can have that promise
And be His if we have faith
And just believe

Teach us to trust in you
With all my heart
To lean not on my own understanding
We just forget
You won't give us what we can't bear

Take us out of the dark, My Lord
'Cause we don't want to be alone
Take me out of the dark, My Lord
We don't wanna be there, My Lord

Trust in You with all my heart
Lean not on my own understanding
I just forget
You won't give me what I can't bear

Take me out of the dark, My Lord
Cause we don't want to be alone
Take me out of the dark, My Lord
I don't want to be there

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2011-02-17T22:18:00.000+08:00

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6 Things for 2011

2011-01-23T10:09:00.002+08:00

We were in the middle of our strategic planning. One of the things that was on the plate on the personal front is to think of 3 things / behaviors that each one of us should encourage and discourage this 2011. Here is mine :

3 Things / Behaviors I will encourage

1. Encourage sense of ownership in the team and trust more that guidance and coaching will resolve capabilities gaps than micro-management

2. Show more initiative and strategic thinking in owning issues ad challenges than being reactive and tactical

3. Learn more to respect weekends as time for the family

3 Things / Behaviors I will discourage

1. Unhealthy work habits (i.e. late night/weekend works) and vices (i.e.smoking) that adversely impact work life balance

2. Shooting from the hip when dealing with difficult situations and seemingly unreasonable colleagues

3. Unnecessary and unproductive travels

My 12 Months of 2010

2010-12-30T01:30:00.039+08:00

January

I had my 36th birthday at an airport in Chongqing, China. Believe me I was so busy I almost forgot it. The work for me was a prelude of what is to come, when the boutique consulting firm I have been working for in the last 3 years, just got acquired 3 months back by a global company.

Image via Wikipedia

I was very active in looking for our first analytics project in the Middle Kingdom and everyone had their hands full doing the rounds with various operators in several provinces. We seemed to be getting lucky with one.

The work was getting stressful though but everyone else from the erstwhile boutique firm were just too happy to notice it yet, while enjoying the cash rewards they got from the acquisition.

China was freezing cold and the cold outfits were not helping. My colleagues and I were hopping from hotel to another spending 1-2 days in each.

I made my 2nd trip to Bangalore this month, meeting colleagues from various India offices for the first time. Jo, our strategy head, was conducting Consulting 101. It was a nice time meeting them for the first time and the personal interactions with our India-based colleagues would do me well in the coming months.

I remember my colleague Bhaskar, who was supposed to be in that same workshop, had a car accident on his way from a shop, where he bought the souvenir books for the workshop. He had a terrible accident as he had to be confined in the hospital with cuts on the back. He went back to office afterwards wearing a neck brace.

February

I met and get to present to various folks engaged in the telecom sector in ASEAN especially the country sales folks who I would be interacting in the coming months on opportunities around analytics.

Bintan was the venue and Nirwana Gardens was awesome. I never really got a good look until a week after when I brought along my family for a 3 day holiday for the Chinese New Year celebrations. It was a nice and relaxing time for the kids. While it was a working holiday for me, I still had fun.

I also got to present, albeit remotely, to telco folks gathered in Belgium, from the European operations. I did not have enough time to get a Schengen visa for the trip, which I regret as I have not been to Belgium. The connections and the acquaintances I have made in that forum would do me well in the succeeding months in evangelizing my work to the telco communities in Europe and US markets.

This was also the time when my wife and I finally found the flat we so wanted in Simei. We immediately latched on to it and paid the commitment fee. We applied for a loan aftewards. We were lucky to be among the last few who qualified for the 10% DP requirement, as the Singapore government decided to hike the DP requirement to 20% to stave off speculative buying of HDB flats.

March

China opportunities were progressing fast after the massive roadshows we did in the past 3 months. My colleagues from China got a deal for the team to conduct an assessment work on analytics for an operator.

Two of my better analytics consultants were the ones who delivered the project and they did a good job. We convinced the operator with the value add of analytics to their business with our insightful recommendations and generous revenue estimates (which we would later regret that we were not conservative with our numbers).

It was a 5-week exercise and with CNY celebrations right in the middle of it. As expected, the customer was impressed with the results.

This was the start of a long and winding negotiation for a bigger analytics project that would drag on for a couple of months but would end in a big win for us. Our first taste of authentic Chinese negotiation.

I remembered this was also the time when my boss first asked me "What will it take for YOU to move to China and take on a leadership role?"

Meanwhile, the work in the office was getting a bit more stressful as Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia got added to the weekly itinerary. Add to it were increasingly demanding colleagues who seemed to think that I was pulling out SOWs and solutions from my ass! Not to mention the deluge of processes that everyone was trying to navigate in the new system.

In this month, my wife and I had our first appointment with HDB officials for the flat we were buying. We just realized that the government has to approve the sale first before it can be consummated given some rules that need to be complied with. It went well though and we did not have to attend the succeeding appointments. Our agent said that we should get the keys to the flat in no time. We were so looking forward to it. We were finally getting a flat of our own after 4 years of renting here in Singapore.

April

My family and I went to Manila for a few days. We had a good excuse as the College of Economics and Management of the University of the Philippines - Los Banos recognized me as one of its Outstanding Alumni for 2010. It was a pleasant surprise!

But more importantly, it was another fun time for the kids as they had a small reunion with their cousins from both sides of the family in a small resort in Los Banos, Laguna. It was a bit nostalgic going around the huge UPLB campus and the Old Econsoc Tambayan. My wife and I had spent 4 of our formative years in this University and its good to be back. The kids were so amazed to see such a spacious ground of greenery.

We started a 6 month project for an Indian operator this month. Never really understood the kind of outputs expected by the customer for this project. On the China front, we were still negotiating. The customer has repeatedly said that they want a long term engagement with us, but it seemed their position indicated the opposite.

In Thailand, we were also able to close a small project with an operator for a 6 week engagement. It was a marketing project, interesting and provided a lot of insights into the VAS market in Thailand. It was another opportunity for a goodworking time with the erstwhile Thailand team : Kamlarp, Wichote and Kitima. I was pretty sure, I was going to get fed well.

On the health front, this was the time when I experienced heart palpitations due to stress. There was one fine night when I thought I was going to faint in the middle of a concall. I could not breathe for a few seconds and almost blacked out. That really freaked me out. The day after, when everyone heard about it (me and my big mouth), I got sent home by the boss and forcibly made to rest the day after. That week was so stressful. I remembered losing it that week sending those rare nasty mails to few colleagues in response to their gobbledygook and "taichi" attempts at passing back work.

May

We concluded the negotiations for the first ever analytics project in China and we got a contract signed for 24 months by the customer. Everyone was ecstatic! I was wondering though if we had just sold the souls of the consultants with revenue commitments we made.

My China-based colleagues committed on a June first start for the project. Everyone in our group was scrambling to find the resources to put in the project. Not only that, everyone was also clueless how to get the India-based guys to China. I was not very happy with the entire team, as I only have the PM with the most experienced required. He was himself reluctant to take on the project realizing that he might not be able to take his wife and baby. But well, I had to do with what we have.

I went to Ireland in this month, Dublin actually. It was a cold place, and I was lucky that I came when it was the least cold. It was a good experience for me. Interesting it was to meet colleagues and I felt proud being able to showcase a different brand of analytics to my Irish colleagues. Everyone seemed to enjoy Stout in that place. As for me, I couldn't take it, too bitter and a bit too dark for my drink.

I was suppose to go Dubai too, but the flight got cancelled. I was hoping to see it better this next time but somehow it was not meant to be.

I finally got my Gold status for my Krisflyer.

I remembered this was also the time when Chintan, one of the younger and arguably the among the more intelligent consultants from our group, decided to take a study leave for his master's degree in New York. I missed the guy and the intellectual conversations and the once in a while visits at home. Not to mention the regular updates I get on what's on TED for the month.

My family and I commemorated the death of my eldest brother this month, who was murdered 2 years back. He was the first of my 2 elder brothers who had passed away in the last 2 years.

June

My wife and I finally got the keys to our new flat. We were ecstatic! Finally, a place we own. We were dillydallying whether to get the place renovated and was looking at spending only Sgd30K for the renovation. But the quotations for the construction and repairs were costing us double than we budgeted. We were thinking, can we afford to borrow money from the banks again?

We kick started the China project on the 1st of June. The first few weeks were quite a stressful one, with the team yet to be completed and all sorts of challenges were just popping up every day. There were data problems, delays in the arrival of the India-based consultants, and too many conductors.

By the end of the month, we concluded the Thailand project. We concluded the project but no contract has been signed yet with the customer. The lawyers seemed more concerned with legal terminologies than actually getting paid by the customer, who was all too willing to pay already given that the project has been delivered.

July

There was a re-org in the group. Two units have been merged and what used to be a large delivery group was broken up by vertical. I got to head the Telecom Vertical and continued as the designated Delivery leader for China. Everyone thought, including me that I am set to move to China. I was waiting for the financial package for my move to be formalized and then I can pack my bags and move to Shanghai.

While everyone was congratulating me with my new designation/s in the org structure, I was not sure if I should be happy having 2 jobs - I knew that it only meant more work. True enough, the prelude of the kind of work that was to come, happened quite early. Travels went crazier and at some point I traversed 3 countries in one week - China, Thailand and Malaysia.

In Malaysia, I was involved in conducting a proof of concept for an operator. It was probably the fastest time I have seen a predictive model being built in barely 2 weeks time. But amazingly, the work went well and the customer was impressed with the work.

Meanwhile, more and more opportunities were coming up and I was struggling to quickly leverage the newly formed telecom team for solutioning while handling big egos and listening to complaints on unkept promises of discontented consultants.

August

The financial package for the China move finally came. Seeing it, I guessed I was both sad but also relieved at the same time that I had to say NO. The package was not I expected and I was not happy with the total value. I could not believe though that the company could not provide enough financial incentive to talents from whom they expect to build millions of business.

Well, its my side of the story though.

My boss seemed to think that it was such a generous package. Well, maybe. But it was still not enough to support my 2 kids going to an international school in Shanghai and still leave me with my savings intact.

I was relieved that I said NO because I knew deep in my heart my wife was having misgivings of moving to a country like China. She knew that it will be a big adjustment for her and most especially the kids. Knowing that there will be a huge language difficulty when we move there, our concern was for our son, who requires understanding and tolerance in the formal school system given his learning delays. We were unsure of how he can cope up with the change and the new environment.

My decision did not make my boss happy. Over many lunches with select colleagues in the office, he had made it sure that I felt his disappointment. I did feel that in the succeeding interactions with him in the coming months. For him, I made a big big big mistake passing up the opportunity to head the China delivery.

No regrets.

September

September is the happiest and oftentimes the luckiest month for me and my family. It is the month when my wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversary, her birthday, my daughter's and my dad's , and yes, RedPill's acquisition.

It is also the month of festivities for my favorite image of Mother Mary, Our Lady of Penafrancia of Bicolandia, who I have not missed visiting since 10 years ago, except for this year. I made that promise to visit Ina (Mother) every year some 10 years ago, when somehow a miracle happened, which I believed was due to Her Grace, that I got to save my dad from a heart attack. Call it coincidence, but I knew it was because of Her that I was there at the right time.

In this month, we finally got a go ahead for the construction in our new flat to commence. My wife and I took another loan for the renovation. The construction went on full swing and we liked what was being recreated with our new flat. Glad to have a home that you want considering that this is our first real home here in Singapore.

My wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary and managed to get a reunion trip to HK with the rest of her family from Manila as a gift to ourselves. We went to Disneyland and the kids and us had a grand time.

Coming back to office after the vacation, stress seemed to abate a bit. The frequency of travels also went down. However, some problems in the China project was brewing as quality of delivery outputs were being put to a test. Revenues too don't seem to improve and the team could not get to launch campaigns as projected. Our Chinese customer was beginning to get unhappy, and so were our China-based colleagues from the account team.

Not only that, the project in India was also having problems. The project sponsors were also not happy with my team's outputs.

Everyone was looking at me. Oh you mean, its my fault?

So much for so called Lucky Month. May be September is not a lucky month for work, only for my family.

October

I spent 3 successive weeks in China, working with the project team and working furiously to salvage whatever campaign we can launch and improve whatever revenues we can generate to justify our existence to the customer. Relations improved a bit though, with impressive account management from the newly designated China Delivery leader. The customer suddenly does not seem to mind that we have not reached even half of the revenue targets. My boss did, however. Quite a few nasty mails and sermons I got for the state we were in the project.

The new China delivery head is a capable person. In fact, he should be the only choice in the first place, being the one who has helped a lot in selling projects in China and is experienced enough to manage a Chinese customer. He himself is a local Chinese.

We were suppose to start another project in Indonesia this month, but the project got delayed due to some changes in the scope in the project.

Meanwhile, I was happy with the way things were shaping up in my team. I was beginning to see capabilities I have tried so hard to build in the past few months finally helping in easing up the volume of work. I could breathe a bit now as there are more shoulders to the wheel now.

There were still challenges with new recruits. For some, adjustments take time and there were big gaps in their skill sets when it comes to business analysis and project management - both had nothing to do with telecom experience. Nonetheless, at least things were progressing. The team was also gelling well and I can sense that they were appreciative of the personal touch and teamwork that they see around them.

A lot of other projects have not happened. Although there were few bright spots in the vertical with a few projects that may happen in the next 2 months. If things happen as expected.

Our new home was finally completed. My family moved in to new flat and we were very happy with the way it turned out. It was exactly the way we imagined it and the furnitures and appliances we purchased were exactly the right match for the space and color. More importantly, my wife and the kids liked the place so much.

My wife and I managed a weekend trip to Manila to attend our alma mater's Loyalty Day celebrations. by the way, I got another recognition from my university as one of its Outstanding Alumni for 2010 for Enterprise Development. Thank you UPLB!

November

We closed the India project in this month. I was so glad that project finally got over . We started a new one in Malaysia. It was probably the project where preparations took longer than the actual project duration. At least, we have a project which means the team has some revenues they were working for - a reason for existence.

The new project was not without issues though. Like the experience in the past 10 months, we were scrambling for resources when we kicked it off. I even had to kick start it myself because my PM was on vacation due to Deepavali Celebrations in India.

The China project was due for a checkpoint meeting in this month too. The project team was preparing for a big negotiation with the customer. I knew that with the dismal revenues we had compared to what has been committed, it will be a difficult negotiation to crack with the customer. Luckily, the meeting got postponed and the customer elected for the next month to discuss the checkpoint on the project.

In the home front, kid's school just got over and they went to Philippines for a vacation. My kids were accompanied by my mother in law and my wife's cousin from Canada on the way to Manila. Both of them were in Singapore for a few days vacation.

For the remainder of the month, my wife and I and our house help were alone in the house, and we were looking forward to an an easy and less stressful weeks to come, now that the kids were on vacation....

So my wife and I thought.

One fine night, my wife and I got the shock of our life. At 2 am in the morning after hearing some noise in the living room, I went out of our bedroom and found a man inside the house! He was standing by our main door. I was not sure whether he was on his way in or out. I screamed and ran after him, but he escaped. I immediately looked for my maid in her room and my initial gutfeel was confirmed when I did not see her in the room...

I knew my wife and I had locked the main door that night before going to our room and the only way it could be opened if somebody went out. And our maid was out in her sleeping clothes without her keys to the flat.

My wife and I could not confirm whether the man I saw in the flat had anything to do with her but we knew that somehow he had. My wife believed that it was the same man we saw with her a year back in the elevator a year back in our old flat at the other block.

My maid never admitted to anything, then and even that night. So to cut the long story short, we sent her back to the Philippines. We changed the door lock that day and spent the rest of the month thinking, we had been harboring a stranger for a company these past years that she had been with us - especially when we were not around or probably when we were already asleep. I cringed, imagining my wife and kids in the room, when I was overseas....

December

It's Christmas time. This is the month my family (and most Christian families) always look forward to, being reunited with loved ones and friends back in Manila. This time, we spent our Christmas day here in Singapore and we will also be welcoming the New Year together here.

The kids are back. My mother-in-law took them back. They had an excellent Christmas fun time with their cousins and my family back in the Philippines.

Meantime, work continues for most in the office, a few RFPs were being responded to and while most colleagues were on vacation, there were still a few activities happening.

Evaluation time is over and I have submitted my recommended ratings for my team. I hope I have fairly given most of them the rightful assessments they deserved.

I was in Thailand for a few days at the start of the month, on the account of Kiti's insistence that the team wanted me to handle the presentations with the customers myself. I obliged, actually I enjoy going Bangkok any day. It is always a joy to be with the Thai friends. I finally met the rest of Kamlarp's family. I was invited to a family dinner and there I finally met his parents and his youngest sister. I got a tour of the much talked-about house, which took 4 years in the making and wow, it was indeed worth the wait for the family. Awesome 5-storey house, with elevator and rooms complete with office desk and there was one which i thought has a conference room area. Larp's dad certainly made sure that all the logistical requirements of his children both for work and play are provided for, and with style!

On the China front, the checkpoint meeting with the customer did not happen this month as scheduled. The team though has managed to salvage the remainder of the 24 month contract and the project team shall be continuing into 2011 with their work in China.

My wife resigned from her job, finally deciding that instead of replacing our househelp, she herself will focus on the kids. Now that they are a bit older and more independent, we hope that somehow we can manage without househelp. Hopefully.

Happy New Year!

Philippines is my country, Singapore is my hometown

2010-10-18T07:05:00.006+08:00

Sentiments i identify with, expressed in an Open Letter of an Expatriate to Filipinos in reference to a viral video of esteemed economics professor Winnie Monsod's lecture. Read on.

No Winnie, Filipinos who go overseas are not traitors
By JOY ANTONELLE DE MARCAIDA M.D.
10/17/2010 | 07:16 AM

I am a Filipino. I live and work in the United States. I have established myself as a physician of some stature in my community. American physicians acknowledge me as an esteemed colleague, students look up to me as their mentor, patients respect me as their doctor. They do not question the color of my skin. They do not treat me any differently from any other respected member of their community. I have been integrated into their lifestyle and have adapted to their culture. I speak as they speak. But I am Filipino. And I am proud of it.

The Lost Generation of Americans from the 1920s includes some of the most easily recognizable names in American literature: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, E.E. Cummings, and T.S. Eliot. Why are they the lost generation? Because they chose to live the life of expatriates in Europe, Central America, and other places in the world at that time. They expressed the thoughts and feelings of young Americans from that period when there was a general exodus of the intellectual elite, recent graduates, artists, war veterans and the independently wealthy. They spoke American in those foreign lands, and yes, they became fluent in French or Spanish as well. But they remained American, and to this day, America loves them.

Gertrude Stein characterized the expatriates’ sentiment in these words, “America is my country, and Paris is my home town." This is the essence of every expatriate’s attitude towards their country of origin, whatever it may be; there is a place that we consider home, but this is not our homeland. And the country we have adopted acknowledges in no small measure that whatever beauty or knowledge or skill we have brought in to their soil remains rooted in the land from whence we first came.

Whenever I receive the occasional compliment for a medical paper I write or a patient I make better, and the person who speaks my praise describes me to another, invariably the narrative would include, “that Filipino doctor from Connecticut". I have never denied my ethnicity, but it does not define me in my career. I stand successful and respected for who I am and what I do, regardless of race, color or accent. Americans delight in the success of a well-established immigrant. They celebrate the courage and tenacity and sacrifice it took for someone to succeed in self-exile. They accept them as fellow Americans, yet appreciate too the ethnic background that makes them different.

But in my country of origin, in my homeland, they apparently speak of me and think of me as a traitor. Professor Solita Monsod of the University of the Philippines, in a video of a lecture to her students currently being circulated by unquestionably well-meaning Filipinos to expatriates they know and love, expressed her anger towards those who have chosen to leave their home and their people to find work, sustenance and success in another land. How is this different from a Manileño who chooses to re-establish himself and his family in Cagayan de Oro because the business opportunities there turned out to be more conducive to his success? How is it a betrayal of the Filipino people for a Filipino in another country to be recognized and applauded for the good that he does on a global scale?

How am I a traitor when the dollars I earn here translate into businesses and consumer confidence and local spending by the family and people I still support back home? How is it that I am a fool when I have wrought only respect and admiration and love in this country for a Filipino? Professor Monsod suggested that Filipinos abroad “pay back" what is owed to the country. In my lifetime, I hope I have done a lot of good, and have paid forward.

Image by www.jhongdizon.com via Flickr

Filipinos overseas are self-exiles. We chose to leave our homeland when this became intellectually, politically, financially, artistically or philosophically limiting or oppressive. We are drawn to another country because of the vitality of its intellectual, scientific or artistic scene, its support and tolerance for innovation, progress and intellectual energy, and by its high regard for the immigrant who brings in new talent and skill, allowing him or her the freedom to achieve success, find his or her identity and express his or her ideas. Self-actualization in another land is not a crime. And Filipinos back home, who seek their own success, would be well-served to rejoice in ours. We are no different. We are just far from home. - HS, GMANews.TV

Back Pains

2010-09-27T16:29:00.006+08:00

Image by estherase via FlickrThese past months i have endured severe back pains which at some point have left me almost immobile for brief moments. It's one of those pains you will willingly trade a one full day of muscle pain from playing ball or a tooth ache which you can remedy by having the tooth pulled out. These pains, you know, are something that is temporary and can somehow be addressed permanently.

Not my back pain though. The doctor says its sort of permanent and comes with the age and of course from my good old scoliosis, hitting me back with the stress i have made by spine endure these past months.

The pain is sometimes unbearable that at times there are nights when i cannot make myself sleep without the aid of a mix of medications, from those that you take orally to the topical ones.

In fact, i have taken every medication that anyone has recommended, from the doctors i have seen to the loved ones who have tried something similar and thinking it might work with my back.

Now I am still taking a few of these pain killers but am down to the most basic remedy, albeit palliative, i have had tried so far in so many years - Back Brace!

Though it really looks ridiculous on you with the bulging and protruding sections of your chest and back as well as the discomfort it brings to your skin, not to mention the curious and nervous stares you get from fellow passengers in the plane whenever I loosen the Velcro straps clasping my chest all the way to my back, this back brace is by far the most sustaining pain reliever for the lingering pains.

These past 2 weeks I have traveled straight to 3 countries and while the back pain recurs whenever I remove the brace at night time, so far i have survived 3-5 hours of sitting down in planes without the need for pain killers.

RESPOND TO CHANGE, a message to the newly minted alumni of UP College of Economics and Management (Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines)

2010-04-25T11:50:00.042+08:00

Respond to Change

View more presentations from Redoctober2.

Good morning. First of all I would like to extend my gratitude to this hallowed institution and the noble professors who have made this place an important part of every alumnus from UP (Los Banos), including me.

I distinctly remember when I first got a mail from the Economics Department Chair, Ms. Amai Bello about having to speak to you for this occasion. I was traveling and I was checking out mails at midnight and I was quite taken aback by her invitation.

First, I am neither an economist nor an academician, who I believe are the better professionals produced by our university. Second, I am no billionaire. I am neither a Manny Pangilinan nor a John Gokongwei,Jr. who has an empire to show or an inspiring entrepreneurial story to inspire you.

But she said I am fine. She wants someone who can inspire you to think out of the box. Well, I said to myself that’s my job in my profession. I make CXOs of companies think out of the box and provide ideas on how to make more money for their companies.

When I started thinking of what to say to you today a week back, I had quite a challenge. I am neither young nor old, and I cannot tell you what to do with your life as you are adults already. In fact, you may already have an idea of what you want to be.

So I said to myself, let me just tell you about the world I have seen, and tell you what is out there and what could be in store for you.

Charles Darwin once said that, it is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.

Similarly, when you leave UP, the world out there will be a place of survival from the constant change that will happen. Scholastic records are good but they will not be sufficient for you get ahead. You need to be aware and responsive to the changes around you.

How many of you have used Google or Skype? I am sure almost all of you. But how many of us have known about them in 1999.

Let us a have local example. How many of us have known LBC from our childhood? Then, we know LBC to be a courier, symbolized by the man in the motorcycle who picks up and delivers packages door to door.

A decade past, LBC has become a remittance center, no longer transporting just packages for people but also monies from across the world. A more recent past, LBC is now a bank.

You can have many examples around you. Take for example San Miguel, you may know that it has a property arm, a packaging and food manufacturing business, aside from being the manufacturer of the famous San Miguel Beer, you all mostly have had a taste of in your 4 years in this University. But did you also know that San Miguel has also become a telecom operator in the last 2 years? You may have heard about Wi-Tribe Philippines or Liberty Telecoms?

The one thing that will be constant around you is change. Change is not just in a few industries, it’s across all walks of life.

It is in media. Before, we read newspapers and magazines, now we have the ubiquitous web for everything that we want to have access on. There are podcasts, vodcasts. There is Facebook and its 400 million members we can get updates from. Live. There are 62 million blogs apart from the numerous news agencies online of the likes of CNN, BBC, or even our own ones like GMA, ABS-CBN, or Philippine Daily Inquirer.

It is in Music. Most of you may have heard about cassette tapes, or even long playing vinyl records. But I am sure that most of you if not all does not own one. Most of the formats and even gadgets in which the music or movies you listen to and watch today were unheard of 10 years ago.

It is in travel. Even in the Philippines, travel has evolved so much from airlines to railways. For air travel, the transformation has not only been limited to infrastructure, new business models have also evolved. You may have heard about buzz word promotions like 'Fly Budget, No Frills Fly. Two to Go. Zero Fares, etc.'

In Banking, amazing business models have evolved in the last 5 years and the purpose and nature of transactions have dramatically extended beyond the traditional banking transactions that we know. A small business from Vietnam or Philippines can now get a micro loan from Kiva by connecting with Kiva lenders from the US or UK. Kiva volunteers facilitate the transactions online and ensure that the transaction is legitimate.

Prosper (www.prosper.com) is a peer-to-peer lending operation in US connecting willing lenders with eager borrowers. Participants are individuals who mutually agree on an amount to lend and borrow, respectively, including the rates at which the borrower is willing to pay as interest.

According to former US Education Secretary Richard Riley, '…the top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.' Believe me in my time, when I left UP in the early 1990s, internet was just starting in the US. Neither any job nor any business model that you know now that is tied to the online world was in existence.

'We are currently preparing for jobs that don’t yet exist…' When I finished my MBA in 2004, jobs like Search Engine Optimization Expert or User Experience Specialist were unheard of. Even the concepts these job titles stand for have not been articulated yet.

'…using technologies that haven’t been invented.'

When have you heard about open source technologies or what you call Web 2.0? Most of the new technologies today are a product of collaborative ingenuity of individuals and communities (not just companies) who decided to participate in the innovation of technologies using free and open source tools now found everywhere.

'…in order to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet.'

Think about the green solutions that you see around you advertised in construction designs, in urban planning, even in the way Google has stored their servers several thousand feet below sea level to minimize emission of harmful gases. The problems they are trying to solve are things we don’t even know exist, much less consider as a problem.

Times are changing and fast. The explosion of information, of the digital world, and the technologies that pervade our lives, virtual or real continues every day.

We live in exponential times. Did you know that there are about 76 billion searches performed in Google monthly? Where do you think these questions were addressed to before? 1 week of information from the Philippine Star is greater than the entire history of information from the 19th century.

Let me give you a context.

'...3rd generation of fiber optics today have the capacity to carry 10 trillion bits per second in a single strand of fiber. In other metrics, such is the equivalent of 1,900 CDs worth of data or 150 million phone calls per second.'

Imagine the capacity for data.

There is an explosion in the digital world.
In Facebook, there are 400 million members, 100 million of whom access the community from their mobile devices. These members post 60 million updates daily and upload 5 billion items of content weekly. If it was a country it will be more than 4 times the size of our population and the 3rd largest country next to China and Ind
Laptops continue to sell briskly around the world clearly denoting the increasing need for accessing information on the go.

And there is much more. 'The 100$ laptop project expects to distribute from 50 to 100M of laptops a year to children in underdeveloped countries.'

Eventually, we will see a virtual world available to everyone, young and old, from developed to emerging economies, from rich to poor countries.

Consider this, young graduates. You are at the forefront of the changes around you, and with the unprecedented explosion of information and technology, the world is literally at your fingertips.

New companies today are being created by Filipinos who dared to dream. There are plenty of examples, and I can only show a few stellar names of Filipinos who dared to respond to change.

Like the visionaries ahead of them who actually made the change. You know their faces. Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, Jaime Zobel de Ayala, and John Gokongwei.

Testimony to their vision are the Filipino brands now known around the globe, and you might not know it, these are brands making inroads in markets across Asia Pacific, the Middle East and even the US and European markets.

Did you know that our economy is driven by entrepreneurs, especially small and medium businesses that employ 55% of our labor force?

We have a large and teeming consumer market. Did you know that 70% of our economy is created through consumption? In Metro Manila, there are 40 shopping malls and in every major city we have a mall to boast of.

How are we sustaining it? We have 17.1B of US dollars that gets pumped in the economy by our beloved OFWs annually.

All these positive changes are happening around you and across the world. The country is growing, expanding and changing. Our country has strong fundamentals to support a generation of graduates like you who want to ride the changing times.

The question for you is - Are you ready to respond to change?

1.Our economy is growing.
2.Literacy rates among Filipinos continue to be among the highest across developing countries.
3.We have a sizable middle class and it will only continue to grow in size.
4.A knowledge-based economy is emerging and quite healthily driving up other areas such as construction, as demand for office space increases.

Your future is in your hands. You know more about the world now than all the past generations combined. All you need to do is to start thinking... of what you want to be.

Create a personal vision for yourself. Imagine what you want to be in these changing times.

See and capture the opportunity. Be aware, take part.
Create a willingness to learn & develop. Your education does not stop here; in fact the real education for you is just beginning.

Learn to love ambiguity. What you ought to be is something you need to visualize, but embrace the possibilities no matter how ambiguous these may seem at the moment.

Focus on what you can do ……. and not what you can’t do. And most importantly, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP. UPLB alumni have never been quitters, much less Alumni from CEM, don’t be the first one.

Let me finally inspire you with a quote from John Gokongwei, Jr., who truly has a story to inspire you with.

"...As a boy, I sold peanuts from my backyard. Today, I sell snacks to the world. I want to see other Filipinos do the same... " - An excerpt from John Gokongwei, Jr.'s speech at the Ad Congress in November 2007.

Sent Home

2010-04-16T17:30:00.006+08:00

Last night, I was sent home by my boss. I was forbidden to open or respond to mails. I was asked to turn over pending work for the remainder of the week. Basically I was ordered to shut up and shut down.

I tried sneaking a few mails about midnight last night, but my boss was like a fox he called me soonest i sent the mails (i was wondering how he knew it because he was not copied) and virtually ordered me to shut down my laptop right at that moment. He knew too that I was on the phone with a colleague from Bangalore, discussing some proposal that had to go out the day after.

Nope, i wasn't fired nor did i do anything worth kicking my professional ass. I was made to rest. Sounds nice huh? Your boss asking you to rest.

I did not like the feeling of being singled out initially, when others are equally stressed out with work. But what the heck, how many times do these things happen.

Now that I have been forced to it (not to touch mails and do work when home), i seem to feel a little bit relaxed. Little intermittent chest pains are still here and there from the intense stress of the last 2 weeks, but in general the feeling is good, and breathing is not labored and especially enjoyable, knowing no one is chasing you today.

In reflection, i felt it was also necessary that someone has to pull me out from the day-to-day work, even just for a day, because I seem to be actually incapable of extricating myself from the everyday work these past 4 months.

While i seriously hate having to work on weekends and late nights and curse (a hell lot now, i believe) from the bottom of my ass every time i hear the word 'urgent' from people who use it as a standard adjective for every thing they want, i am also unable to prevent myself from saying no to work and on these requests on weekends.

Someone from Change Management actually told me that I need to say No to Work when it is not time for work (i.e. weekends, weeknights, holidays). Sound simple, but not when you think there is no one else who can do the work but you.

Which I know is not true at all! But that is what you and people around you unconsciously think when you have been doing it for quite some time and your colleagues have been pretty much dependent on your brain on anything that has to do with telecom. Which I wonder whether it is good or bad?

Ranting

2010-03-10T10:58:00.003+08:00

Wikipedia has this definition of Rant :

"A rant is a speech or text that does not present a well-researched and calm argument; rather, it is typically an attack on an idea, a person or an institution. Very often rants lack proven claims. Such attacks are usually personal attacks...."

Rant is the word that has characterized week after week of stressful work. Believe me, i have done every possible interpretation of this word in the last 2 months, and all in the context of work. More than guilty for the emotional scar i have caused people and myself, I am scared as i feel that my dark side is slowly taking over my persona.

I have gone and crossed the line and made irrational and sometimes personal attacks on colleagues, either in their face or behind their backs, all because of stress from work.

I fear of this dark side (re)emerging and i think i have been in this kind of state before several years back, and believe me it took me years of great emotional pain to mend the emotional impact and negative character that was the consequence of those dark years.

Aging

2010-01-01T14:33:00.011+08:00

You will not realize how much you have aged by just looking at yourself in the mirror.

Apart from white hairs and balding spots which will fleetingly make you feel insecure, you can certainly feel like your old young self trying to earn your spot in a dog-eat-dog world, just like when you first had work ages ago.

Apart from a different spending patterns on school books and tuition session fees as oppose to toy purchases, you can almost always feel that you are a new Dad trying to adjust to being a family man for the first time.

Apart from slightly changing destinations of where to spend more in malls such as visiting areas for PSPs, Wiis and other adolescent accessories and apparels as oppose to Toy Kingdom and ToysRUs, you can still feel the first time you took your kids in a mall to buy their stuffs as if it was yesterday.

Everything seems the same...

But stop and look around....see the people around you especially those you have not consistently seen over the years...and realize how much they have changed.

I have seen my parents recently and realized they have indeed aged far beyond i imagined them to be as old.

I have seen my sisters and my brother and realized how many of them are growing white hairs and are physically maturing fast. I have seen their teenage kids and realized how they have grown from whence i carried them in my arms when they were infants.

I have remembered friends and reminisced memories from my childhood years, and realized that a lot of them indeed are no longer playmates and schoolmates you call 'Padi' (Bicol dialect term literally means 'Pal' or 'Buddy' in the English vernacular) or 'Pare' or 'Tol' ('Pare' and 'Tol' are Tagalog dialect terms which are equivalent to 'Padi')but are 'Daddy','Father','Attorney', 'Doctor', 'Professor' or 'Congressman' to many people.

As these thoughts dawned on me, I realized too that in the last 2 years i have in fact lost 2 of my brothers to murder and heart attack and that we are no longer a brood of 4 brothers and 3 sisters but there are only 5 of us remaining.

As I looked at the mirror in this day beginning 2010, and looked at my kids and my wife, my life in the last 2 decades since i left my parents' home for the University, flashed before me like a documentary in NatGeo.

Indeed, i have aged enough and it has been quite a while since i was a kid and trying to believe that i am about to start a journey. In fact i just realized, it has been quite a journey for a while.

I feel strong and ready for more though, and i don't think I am old. But yes, i am halfway to where i wanted to be maybe.

But life i think has a lot more to offer in the next half of my life than anything it has given me in the first half.

Nostalgia

2009-11-29T09:57:00.011+08:00

Today my kids are going for a month-long vacation in Manila. As i looked at my children in the morning, thoughts of my bachelor days came rushing back and a particular question. Would i have my life any other way?

Would i still be single today if i had not gotten married my wife at the age of 25? Or if i had married later, would have i ended marrying my wife still? Would these wonderful kids be the kids that I would have, had destiny quite made a different turn?

All i can do is smile. In my head, I could think all i want and believe in any possibilities, but i should be thankful for having been gifted with my beautiful kids. Yes, they have grown naughty and fastidious, but they remained consistently thoughtful and loving to me and my wife all these years.

I feel a fleeting emotion of loneliness and nostalgia being separated with them once again for longer than a week. And it is a different feeling when they are the ones leaving you and not the other way around. Leaving them on business trips to different countries is quite a weekly happening for me, but those trips never really produce the same intensity of longing to be with them physically always.

Just like any December that passed in the past few years, this will be another one where i will have to be away from my kids for more than 3 weeks.

On the other hand, it also becomes a time when I am reminded what it feels like if they are not in my life and what it feels like without any purpose.

Image via Wikipedia

Meantime, let me enjoy a family favorite pasttime - dancing on the bed to the tune of Mama Mia's 'Dancing Queen' with my kids - before they fly off to Manila later.

The Love and Sufferings of Parents

2009-10-25T21:26:00.005+08:00

Parents in general will do anything for their children.

They will sacrifice their own wealth, health, and even dignity to protect and save the lives of their beloved children.

It is nature. It is human.

Parents cry the most when they lose their children. They feel the most pain, to experience the beginning and end of their own flesh.

When we were young and clueless about life, we take for granted everything that our parents do for us. We don't appreciate what our parents do for us, instead we expect them to do things for us.

When we become teenagers, we get worse. Not only that we do not appreciate our parents, instead we rebel and contradict everything that they stand for.

Only when we become adults and oftentimes only upon becoming parents ourselves we realize the extent of the complex choices that our parents have made to nurture us safely and lovingly, that we begin to feel gratitude to our parents and appreciate the immensity of their capacity for love.

I would like to share a very special song that speaks of the true love of a parent to his child and dedicate this to my own parents, who have since lost 2 of their 7 children.

Entitled 'Anak' (literally means child), this classic Filipino song was sung by a famous Filipino folk singer named Freddie Aguilar. 'Anak' has been a worldwide hit since the late 1970s, having been released in 56 countries and translated in more than 26 different foreign languages. It has sold over 30 million copies to date.

Freddie Aguilar via last.fm

Anak ( Child )
by: Freddie Aguilar
(English version)

When you were born into this world
Your mom and dad saw a dream fulfilled
Dream come true
The answer to their prayers

You were to them a special child
Gave 'em joy every time you smiled
Each time you cried
They're at your side to care

Child, you don't know
You'll never know how far they'd go
To give you all their love can give
To see you through and God it's true
They'd die for you, if they must, to see you here

How many seasons came and went
So many years have now been spent
For time ran fast
And now at last you're strong

Now what has gotten over you
You seem to hate your parents too
Do speak out your mind
Why do you find them wrong

Child you don't know
You'll never know how far they'd go
To give you all their love can give
To see you through and God it's true
They'd die for you, if they must, to see you near

And now your path has gone astray
Child you ain't sure what to do or say
You're so alone
No friends are on your side

And child you now break down in tears
Let them drive away your fears
Where must you go
Their arms stay open wide

Child you don't know
You'll never know how far they'd go
To give you all their love can give
To see you through
And God it's true
They'd die for you, if they must, to see you here

Child you don't know
You'll never know how far they'd go
To give you all their love can give
To see you through and God it's true
They'd die for you, if they must, to see you here

Filipino Version
Noong isilang ka sa mundong ito,
Laking tuwa ng magulang mo.
At ang kamay nila
ang iyong ilaw.

At ang nanay at tatay mo,
'Di malaman ang gagawin.
Minamasdan pati pagtulog mo.

Sa gabi napupuyat ang iyong nanay
Sa pagtimpla ng gatas mo.
At sa umaga nama'y kalong
Ka ng iyong amang tuwang-tuwa sa iyo.

Ngayon nga'y malaki ka na,
Nais mo'y maging malaya.
'Di man sila payag,
Walang magagawa.

Ikaw nga'y biglang nagbago,
Naging matigas ang iyong ulo.
At ang payo nila'y,
Sinuway mo.

Hindi mo man lang inisip
Na ang kanilang ginagawa'y para sa iyo.
Pagka't ang nais mo masunod ang layaw mo,
'Di mo sila pinapansin.

Nagdaan pa ang mga araw
At ang landas mo'y naligaw
Ikaw ay nalulon
sa masamang bisyo.

At ang una mong nilapitan
Ang iyong inang lumuluha.
At ang tanong,
"Anak, ba't ka nagkaganyan?"

At ang iyong mga mata'y biglang lumuha
Ng 'di mo napapansin
Pagsisisi ang sa isip mo,
Nalaman mong ika'y nagkamali.

My Long Life Pedigree

2009-10-17T17:23:00.016+08:00

I have always believed that I have tenaciously healthy and fortified genes given my pedigree, of longest living grandparents and parents as well. Not even the most unhealthy of vices - smoking and drinking - can prevent them from reaching beyond the human average life expectancy of 70 years for most Filipinos.

My dad and mom are well and alive and most healthy at 79 and 73 years of ages, respectively. My mom's eldest brother is in his mid-80s, alive and drinking liquor (Whisky at that) everyday in the last 50 years.

My grandparents from both side died in their mid-80s, mid-90s, and my most beloved grandmother from my mother side, died at 99 years of age, she did so without turning senile.

I thought that in my generation in the family, average life span will be in the same range. Maybe a few years shaved off 70 years, i generally expect everyone to last that long sans any accident or evil doing that can snuff out life in an instant.

With the exception of my eldest brother, who was a banker and murdered at 48 years old in a gruesome bank heist last year, I still believed that my remaining 5 siblings are still far away from their twilight years, being in their mid-to-late 40s, and regardless of any unhealthy vices.

But I was proven wrong, maybe my generation's genes are not as tenacious and fortified as I thought. My brother Nelson had heart attack 2 days back, his 3rd and last. He died in a few hours, succumbing to cardiac arrest.

He was not in his best physical condition but my family and I never knew of any life-threatening condition that he experiences in the last few years. I may be mistaken as he had a few vices, he drinks occasionally and well, smokes like hell, probably a pack a day minimum. I will probably never know because like any of the men in my family, he has the same level of hardheadedness and phobia when it comes to seeking any medical treatment, preventive nor curative.

In retrospect, I hope now that I did the right decision to quit smoking sooner than i actually intended. With my brother's demise, I have come to realize that maybe its not just superior genes that are required to replicate the life expectancy of my pedigree.

I may never probably be able to replicate the right combination of the kind of diet, exercise regimen, the level of work stress, and most importantly, the level of environmental externalities that enabled a long life span for my elders.

But may be I can lessen the bad externalities and hope that I will last beyond 47 years old. I hope I still have time to correct my diet and mitigate the ill effects of 21 years of smoking.

Meanwhile, let me bury my brother and thank him for reminding me that life is short and indeed, health is wealth.

To my brother Nelson, may you rest in the Lord's peace.

Conversations...

2009-09-30T14:38:00.010+08:00

Image via Wikipedia

May the Almighty be kind and merciful to my fellow countrymen currently languishing in pain and homelessness due to Ondoy's flash floods that drenched Manila last September 26.

...on Corporate Discontent

I am having this conversation with a colleague of mine about the recent appointments that have happened at my firm, in relation to a recent take over by another firm. For lack of anything better to do, we denigrated ourselves by cribbing about life in general, but more in particular about the rank-restructuring that have happened recently in relation to the take over.

The crux of the discussion is why a colleague is being given a higher band when he is junior in all aspects of years of experience and even in tenure in our company relative to others. Whose decision was it and why are we not given the same...blah, blah....

It is a classic case of corporate discontent, one that I have seen, and had my share of being on the side of the advantaged as well as being disadvantaged, in my 13 years of working.

Yes, disparities in the corporate are both driven by supposedly objective and HR-vetted criteria and the subjectivity of the people who are influencers and decision-makers on who gets promoted and who does not. The latter being always suspected (but never proven) as the driver of discontent breeding malcontents.

It is not to say, having experienced it before, that the disparities are easy for me to swallow nor the explanation of people who may have a hand in the decision. It is always difficult. But probably age and experience have taught me more creative (and not necessarily better, and some people may say lame or sourgraping) ways to transcend these disparities.

1. You can ignore these things and move on with life with a little bit of bitterness and hope you will forget it.

2. You fight for your own recognition, and make a case for your own, which is oftentimes a double-bladed sword.

3. You shift your mindset and stop benchmarking yourself with others and compete only with yourself and move on, either within the same firm or outside.

I tried the first 2 in my first 8 years of working, with satisfactory career results but oftentimes traumatic emotional consequences. In the last few years, I have taught myself to use only the approach #3.

It is more practical and pragmatic with my own understanding of my capabilities and aligns well with my personal life values.

I guess a better and a more eloquent way of explaining the mindset in approach #3 was well put by my colleague, and I quote (in verbatim sans the specific references)...

"Life has a path. I have a destiny. A few less dollars or more, won't count...I have to make my life worth it beyond any material...how I value family, relationships, friends, live a balanced existence, no foes, no jealousy. There is more to life than XXX or XXXXXXX or XXXXX or Band X. I have many years to go and this will be some insignificant speck in the scheme of things. Who cares? I must make an honest life out of an honest living."

How to Save a Flood Damaged Car Engine | eHow.com

2009-09-27T13:50:00.001+08:00

How to Save a Flood Damaged Car Engine | eHow.com

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65 days down, 145 days to go

2009-09-25T10:57:00.002+08:00

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When i started my quest to quit smoking in mid-July, the first 30 days were quite exciting. Then, I had 3 sticks a day quota and I can mingle pretty much with my smoker colleagues like i usually did.

On the second month, the excitement from my side as well as from my colleagues, who probably suspected i would be succumbing to temptation soon, died down. Actually, the excitement was turning into apprehension from my side as the Zero Stick a day timeline approaches. Those times, i will always thought while savoring my single stick with a colleague, that the true suffering will kick in when i no longer have the option to any cigarette at all.

Now, i have crossed the 3rd month and i am in the Zero Stick a day timeline now and will be for the next 5 months. I thought I would be experiencing anxiety, not because I want to smoke but could not, but because I don't have that option to smoke anymore when i want to. So far the anxiety attacks have not crept in. Ok, a little bit probably, but not really so much that I got restless as i imagined.

To be honest, I get tempted and at one point yesterday I even asked a collegue if i can take a puff....after getting enough sniffing the smoke from his cigarette.

(Don't worry Ariel...Chintan did not let me...By the way, I think Cigars are not included in the deal right?...Can i get that clarified please!)

So on with my 7 month struggle, mid-February is still far from today, but I think I can get there...smoke free!

Struggles of a Chronic Smoker - 30 days out, 180 days to go

2009-08-20T10:22:00.006+08:00

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Today, i conclude the first month of a 7-month deal to quit smoking.

The deal which i agreed with my colleague Ariel, is a gradual process of making me permanently kick off a 21 year old habit of smoking.

Condition for the first month was a maximum quota of 3 sticks of cigarettes a day, which I have passed with flying colors averaging 2 sticks a day for 5 days in a week. I have managed not to smoke at all on weekends in the last 30 days. I believe it's quite a feat. But of course I was also aided by fate and by my frail health, having been sidelined for a week due to flu and cough, which all the more made the thought of smoking undesirable. When you are coughing like hell and your throat is burning, smoking is probably the last thing you desire.

I am celebrating not only because i have managed to cut down my smoking drastically, but also because I have survived the first tier of penalty that the deal imposes if i violated the 3 sticks a day condition. If i did, I would have lost a new IPhone 3GS and a thousand dollars to a worthy charitable institution.

Now I am in my second month in the deal. I am down to 1 cigarette a day quota. This will be the harder part and I am hoping i will survive this in a breeze, just like I did in the past 30 days. Else, i would have to give up the IPhone and pay up 800 dollars to a charitable institution. Not that I can't give up an IPhone or don't want to donate to the needy. I am no quitter (no pun intended!). I hate losing a bet, especially if its about a commitment to a better health and probably a smoking free future.

As the old Zen Master says in the movie Charlie Wilson's War, "We shall see..."

Smoking - When You Say You Want to Quit

2009-07-21T17:49:00.014+08:00

As far as i can remember, I have been smoking since i was about 14 years old. I probably started too early but whether it is good or bad, i have actually got into that habit gradually.

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It is not that i started smoking packs of cigarettes that early. At that time, it was just experimenting with any cigarette i can steal from Papa's Hope menthol pack or any cigarette that some 'cool' friends would have in school.

But its been 21 years now, and the amount of tobacco i have smoked, excluding the cigars i have smoked in between' would have amounted to a truckload of tobacco by now.

How many times in the past did i ever get into a conversation with friends who tried convincing me that quitting means potentially avoiding a debilitating cancer that can cripple me for life. Wouldn't it be good for your kids? (hell, yeah!)

Or having a conversation that goes like this. "If one day God appear in front of you and say that one more cigarette you smoke would mean you will lose your kids? Would you quit?" And i would always say, "Of course, what kind of father in his right mind would not. But would God really appear in front of me and say that?" (The gall of a smoker can extend to blasphemy, i tell you!)

But then these conversations and the fear of the consequences of long term smoking never really sink in. There is just no will and real determination on my part to take it seriously. But did i ever think for a second that what if i actually get cancer for my years of smoking. What happens now with my life, my family, and my kids?

Of course, I do get scared. But again I have always chosen to forget about it and assured that my genes are far superior than most smokers who get cancer from smoking, taking on from the ages most of my ancestors have reached before they expired. From both sides, my grandparents have died in their late 80s and 90s. My maternal grandmother died at 99. I don't know though whether they smoked or not. :-)

There are days that I think of the consequences of my smoking. And I tell you, these would fleetingly scare me out of my wits but just like as always i have always gone back to the habit of smoking.

I don't consider myself an addict. I don't really feel any palpitation or uneasiness if i don't get to smoke when i want to. I believe i am not, by the number of cigarettes i smoke on a daily basis, which is about 5-7 sticks, i don't think I am.

But i think i am (sorry for the contradictions, maybe the years of smoking have totally fucked up my logic), considering i have not really kicked the habit in the last 21 years (well, i hope i am making sense now!).

I can't remember how many times I have tried quitting and failed.

Now I am back to trying to quit again. I am doing it gradually though, but this time i have cornered myself by putting an expensive stake if i fail again.

This one will cost me a thousand bucks and an I-Phone, courtesy of a good friend and colleague, who is hell bent in saving my wretched life from smoking, for all its worth. Let me see what happens in the next 6 months. If i get to write about it regularly in the next 6 months, I am probably surviving and is seriously internalizing the shame of smoking.

You know what would be easier for all smokers? Just an idea, why doesn't the Singapore Government just ban smoking in the entire Island Republic.

The Thing called Social Media for Operators

2009-07-07T14:32:00.016+08:00

Most telco CxOs nowadays will have a fair understanding of what social media is and how it has pervaded the industry and its consumers (and even enterprise clients).

Wikipedia defines it as ..." Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM)."

Not a lot of emerging market telco CxOs though understand how it works and appreciate the power it can wield for them if leveraged well. There are a few operators in SEA region which are progressive enough to have started some shapes and forms of social media in engaging their customers. But exemplary success apart from what has been seen with CyWorld, which was bought by SK Telecom later, has been rare.

Over the years, the likes of Singtel with its Moblog (www.moblog.com.sg)and Maxis with its MBlog (www.mblog.com.my)were among the first in the region to venture into mobile social networking. However, from the looks of how they have managed and supported these communities, it seemed like they are completely amiss on its potential and how it could have given them enough equity among netizen subscribers in the last 4-5 years since they introduced these mobile social networking communities.

It's sad that Singtel and Maxis have wasted years of potential lead in this space in that they have simply allowed their communities of subscribers to wilt away. Singtel has recently announced in its MoBlog site that it is closing down the service on July 22. MBlog continues to be the same boring site to date when i start profiling the site some 3 years back.

These operator-led mobile social networks used to be the shining examples of progressiveness in the social media space or what some call as user generated content (UGC) space. Funny that while every other operator in the region are scrambling for resources and expertise on how to launch their own social media sites, these 2 operators seem to be abandoning what they pioneered, years ahead of their competition.

I know of operators in the regions right now which are seriously studying or even close to launching their own social media efforts. In Thailand, I know of an operator who recently launched their own UGC trading community about a year back. Though the community has not prospered yet, I do believe that with proper focus on execution and alignment to the overall business strategy and the support it requires to build the community, it should be on its way of getting a critical mass of participants.

Telcos have to understand that a foray into the social media will not give short term ROI like any tactical marketing program. Building communities don't happen overnight. Stars like Facebook and Linkedin did not become popular overnight. It takes years to build the community, but if you succeed, you don't need much of an ATL budget to spend. You will have millions of ambassadors doing the marketing for you.

So how can operators leverage the social media trend?

Operators need to understand that the consumer should be at the center of things in providing social media environment. In social media, content is from consumers not from operators. Consumers are the new creators, opinion makers, networkers, and distributors of this new space.

Hence, operators cannot rely anymore from their own marketing messages and product brochures to keep the community members engaged. They have to depend on activist community members and early adopters to market the community and encourage content contribution from other members.

What this means is that the community has to be open.

1) Open means no restrictions on how to join or log in
2) Open means providing various access like mobile internet, mobile SMS short codes, in addition to fixed internet
3) Open means being able to create, upload, share and trade any content from any terminal PC or mobile
4) Open means anyone can join and access the communities, not only my subscribers but also other operators' subscribers.

Walled garden and restricted access approaches that place limitations on consumers will no longer work if you want your social media community to prosper.

At the heart of all social media efforts, operators will need a separate social media strategy to be able to fully leverage the power of the communities it can bring in.

This strategy has to take into account these five (5) important social media ideas.

1) Offer environments for consumers to create, store, and manage their digital identities at various levels ensuring wherever the consumers go, they still rely and route through the environment.
2) Revise marketing strategy to leverage ‘Viral Marketing’ and ‘Tryvertising’
3) Harness social networking by building own networks around localized motivations and embedding these into larger global social networks (e.g. Facebook, MySpace etc.)
4) Enable user generated content (UGC) via tools and platforms with rewarding mechanisms to drive quality to ward off reliance on content provision agencies.
5) Revise portal strategy – ‘Me’ portal that enables consumers to project outwards embedded onto ‘My’ portal that assimilates what the consumer is interested in.

Operators need to play the social media game today to ensure they are still in business tomorrow. The social media technologies are readily available and easily implementable. The issues are not implementation but conceptualization.

The revenue potential of social media will depend on the monetization model based on :
1) Scale of consumer traffic
2) Level of (potential) addictiveness (to service)
3) Offerings on personalization, UGC, social network and other add on services for utilities and entertainment purpose.

The speed of realization will depend on :
1) Level of mobile, internet, and Web 2.0 familiarity (such as usage of blog, social network, media sharing)
2) Identification of a strong early adopter group that can help hasten take up

Putting the consumers at the center however, may put the operator on the periphery. Why not? Part of leveraging the social media trend is letting go. Specifically with respect to communities, operators will need to contend with :

1) Lack of control over the evolution of networks and applications that communities initiate
2) Users who will wield more influence over communities, individuals, and transactions than operators can
3) Outside applications that will find their way in via consumers

Operators will also need to develop an understanding of local context outside their business – communities and activities will be centered around interests, needs, and affiliations, not the operator. Most importantly, operators will need to be agile and aware enough to follow trends in the community to revise their offering and possibly brand positioning.

You can download a whitepaper around this topic co-written by this author with Chintan Rastogi at www.redpillsolutions.com.

Compass

2009-06-26T17:28:00.011+08:00

I was having a casual chat with a colleague over lunch one day, when he popped this question.

"Have you always been aware of what you want to do with your career since you started work?"

I paused a moment and for a few seconds, i debated in my head whether should the question be - do I actually know what I want to do in life? instead of the one he asked. Then, I acquiesced by pointing out that it was only about 5 years ago did I actually start convincing myself what i want to have in life, but not really about what to do in between that end point and then.

My point being is that I know now what i want to posses towards mid-life (50s please). It's actually 3 things or 3 basic states for that matter (nothing spectacular really!). One state is when my 2 kids have finished their chosen degrees from an Ivy League school and provided for them a comfortable headstart in making it on their own. Second being having expanded my existing retail businesses and successfully operating these. The third being, my wife and I possessing enough wealth to live our remaining lives comfortably in the suburbs of Manila near an owned-farm of fruit-bearing trees and being able to travel overseas for leisure every other month.

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How am i going to get to that state is one thing that i am unsure.

I was reflecting and sharing with my colleague that in the years that I have worked, especially with that bank that i worked for the longest time, I never really had that burning desire about becoming the next CEO in X number of years or setting a target of how much money i should be getting in X number of months. It is not that i did not have any ambition for upward mobility then, but it was an assumption of mine that I will progress naturally if i do my job well. Whether I get to the next position or not is not a matter of objective, but a matter of consequence.

Well, i was of course wrong. Corporate life was not necessarily a bed of roses. As they said, sometimes the road to hell are paved with good intentions.

In this recent year, I have come to realize that i am increasingly becoming fixated with going back to the telecom industry that while it is not the end all and be all of the things that i want in life, it is for me a critical milestone in my journey between now and the end states i want to achieve in my life. Hence, for a particular job and position in this domain, it is now a matter of objective and deep desire.

How i have been planning to get there in the last 6 months has been a journey of disappointments and relief. So far, I have managed to stay the course in consulting, and have been able focus on what is needed and expected of me.

I don't know how long still until i am able to make the next step closer to what i want. In fact, the roads are right in front of me, while i wallow in convenient state of indecision.

As always, I am unsure on what road to take, consciously aware that the path i am thinking may not necessarily the only path towards my goal.

My Mom's Legacy

2009-06-24T10:19:00.003+08:00

Here is a beautiful prose about lessons in life passed on by Leona Rubio Miranda, my grandmother, to her son, my uncle, Gilberto Miranda, who decided to share it with friends and loved ones.

My Mom’s Legacy
By Gil R. Miranda

To plants and animals including human beings, life has three directions— survival, reproduction and death. To survive, find a mate, reproduce seeds for plants, and raise a brood for animals and humans, and even in dying, one has to face countless difficulties. It is a dilemma. One needs to accept and understand that life is full of problems because problem itself is life and life is a problem. Life is meaningless without problems. Problems would not exist without life.

People earn their living because they solve other people’s problems. Lawyers find solutions to legal problems. Farmers resolve food problems. Engineers settle engineering problems. Teachers unravel education problems. One sorts out other people’s problems according to one’s forte or discipline.

As people earns from other people’s problems, they spend these earnings to solve their own. To survive, men need to provide themselves food, clothing, and shelter. Other than that, they provide their children with education, so that they may have a better chance of survival in the future. It is a continuing cycle of earning and spending hooked on a chain linked with problems.

Survival stirs up competition. The struggle makes man acquisitive. The phenomenon is rare to plants but is also common to a few species of mammals and insects. A few known species of plants and animals also hoard, but few become greedy. Human acquisitiveness turns to avarice, which complicates the problem all the more. That is why we seek social status, a place under the sun, recognition, and influence. These complicate our problems. We yearn for lavish foods, an extravagant house in a plush neighborhood, a more luxurious car and amass properties as much as we can. Yet, everyday, we mutter about problems. We mutter about the thorns that lay on the road going to our desired destination.

It is innate amongst living things to reproduce. Thus, looking for a perfect mate is an instinctual grapple. Living things has to show off their intrinsic good looks, strength, skills, intellect, etc. The point is not only to find the finest to help us disperse our inheritable factors, but to produce perfect children and assure that our genealogical seeds will survive a world only the fittest could endure. At times though, the process goes wayward. It boosts the human being’s own sense of self-importance. Some gifted persons, or those who believe they are, become conceited egotists. Consequently, the effort to solve a problem develops another. The adage probes itself, “There is always a solution to a problem as there always is a problem in every solution.”

Death to plants and animals may be unceremonious. Most humans however, wish to face this final act appropriately, marked with dignity and serenity. Some wish for immortality. People want other people to remember him. Eternal life may not be physically possible but somebody’s memory can live on. Life is a tussle, a brawl, but one has to strive to continue living on. We have to face an endless wave of problems to achieve another problem. When problems end, life ends.

Life is seemingly simple. Yet, once you dig deep into its labyrinth, it becomes more and more complicated. Someone who has gone through life earlier than us could give us roadmaps of the favorable route in the maze of life’s struggle. My mother left some. I thought I should share them with my children and anyone who may find it useful.

Keep your head down. — When you look up, you see things that are difficult to reach. Your attention focus on people with better paying jobs, elegant homes, nicer cars, etc. Look down and you will appreciate life more. You will be happier to know that your life is better than the others rather than having the worst.

If you love the things that you do, you never work at all. — A business executive would go fishing and enjoy it. For him it is a hobby. To a fisherman it is a job. If you will learn to treat your job a hobby, you will not work all your life.

Changing jobs, careers or business.— If you think you should quit your job, which you once wanted so much, got after scanning hundreds of want ad pages, grueling exams, and several exhausting interviews, do not change your job… change your attitude. (My mother always reminds me, “A rolling stone, gathers no moss.”)

Friendly relations — when you quarrel with a friend once, something must be wrong with your friend. When you quarrel with the same friend twice, think again, something must be wrong with either you or your friend. When you quarrel with the same friend for the third time…something is wrong with you.

Life has no pause, stop, or rewind buttons. It does not have a fast forward button either— Life runs incessantly. It is unstoppable. It is not the problems of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets of yesterday, which one cannot redirect, and the fear of the future, which one cannot preview. Except for the lessons that the past brings, forget every yesterdays. Leave all despair on the way and travel towards each tomorrow with fresh hopes.

Most of your worries do not happen. — Many people shake away opportunities and fail to achieve lifetime dreams because of worries that do not always happen. Brave men who ignore obstacles succeed. Coward people who worry does not dare— they fail. Remember that fear is only imaginary.

Most people want to help. They are only waiting for you to ask for it. — Sometimes, we need help, but we do not ask, because we fear rejection. Most people are gracious and compassionate. They just do not offer their assistance because they fear rejection too.

Be generous with praises. — Everyone welcomes words of admiration. Praise is a necessary tool in a polite society. One who generously uses it gains more friends. Like a rider’s whip, its use is necessary to make a horse run faster.

Dreams do not stay in one place— Dreams are mobile. It moves as fast as you reach for it. Dreams are illusions. Like a rainbow, it either changes its position or runs away as you get near it.

When in panic, press the button. — When something goes wrong in the bathroom, you call a plumber. When something is wrong with your car, you see a mechanic. When you are in pain, you visit your doctor. When everything seems to be wrong call God, He is only a prayer away from you.

Day 3 of Amazing Busuanga

2009-06-10T13:23:00.018+08:00

We started the day early. At 630am we scaled the 700 plus steps to Mt. Tapyas (Tapyas literally means carved - so its called the Carved Mountain). The view is breathtaking! Mt. Tapyas has a giant lighted Cross on its peak, serving both as beacon for boatmen at night time as well as one of major tourist destinations of the municipality. It was a big pain scaling those 700 plus steps! I tried counting but i lost count trying to catch my breath. At the top, Mt.Tapyas offers an awe-inspiring panoramic 180 degree view of the Busuanga islands. The scenic nature view is so fantastic that you would want to make a realist mural painting of it and put it up in some lobby of a hotel.

After a 15 minute break at the top panting for air and forcing smiles for memoir photos of Busuanga in between breaths, we went down the 700 steps thankful to a vendor who was selling bottled water at the 350th step. I guess he knows when the real thirst kicks in for tourists who scale Mt.Tapyas.

Upon reaching Coron Village Lodge, Dexter, our tour guide has packed our breakfast meals and raring to go. Finally, we are going to Malcapuya Island.

It was a 1.5 hours boat ride and this time we used a bigger motorboat so we can move swifter across the hypnotic waves of the Palawan seas. It was a fun ride, and Malcapuya is one of the farther islands from the Coron town proper and it is really an effort to reach it.

Dexter did not disappoint us. Malcapuya is truly an awesome island! Fine white sands! Well not truly close to the Boracay white and fine sands, but the place in its pristine state provides a most appealing factor.

What was more amazing is the Giant Clam show treat underwater. Just a few meters away from the shore, you can snorkel and experience an upclose visual treat of live Giant Clams.

The tour guide was explaining that the Giant Clams are protected by the local authorities because they are decades old and will be worth more money as a tourist attraction than for eating :-). Indeed, he was right, the Giant Clams were very nice to look at and my wife and I can literally stay afloat for minutes in snorkels gawking at them intermittently moving like giants' mouths.

Towards the afternoon, my wife and I walked around the beach area and we saw uniquely formed sand and rock formations. They were very nice, and at that instant you wonder how they even got formed that way.

Both were amazing creations, but while the first is quickly created and destroyed by the daily high and low water ebbing tides, the latter took few scores to form into its unique forms.

As we left, Malcapuya Island I knew in my heart that i will not probably see the place in a long time, hoping that somehow when and if I do again and when the kids have grown up, Malcapuya, and the entirety of the Busuanga Islands remain as pristine as it is yet today.

We celebrated our new discoveries that night as my wife, my sisters-in-law, Aileen and Au, who happens to celebrate her birthday that day (June 3) as well, and my brother-in-law Gerry, gather around with San Mig Light to quench our thirst...thankful as well that Mama insisted that we take the time out as a family as her birthday gift, else we would not have seen a beautiful place like Busuanga (http://wikitravel.org/en/Busuanga).

A few more days, it will be back to reality...

Day 2 of Amazing Busuanga

2009-06-03T22:14:00.009+08:00

Day 2 was a sluggish one. We woke up early at around 530am, but had to wait for the breakfast to be served at 730am as the Lodge's employees only come to work at 7am. We were supposed to leave early for Malcapuya Island, a beach area famous for its protected clams for snorkeling adventure and long stretch of white sand beach front.

Rather than sulk, i just read mails from office :-).

So finally, we were able to leave by 830am for Malcapuya Island. But it was not meant to be, before we reach halfway of our destination, the waves indicated that it will not take an hour of motorboat trip instead some 2 plus hours. Buds and Reynante, our nice Cuyonen boatmen, advised that it might not be safe to proceed with the size of their motorboat.

So we turned back and headed for the Banol Beach. It was a blessing in disguise. Banol Beach is a nice and easy place to swim and have fun with the kids, while having some private lunch of nicely cooked Cusido (a type of delicacy - can't remember the kind of fish - cooked in calamansi,string beans and lady finger) and grilled pork chop, and having ripe Mangos for desserts.

After lunch, we went back to Twin Lagoon, this time it's low tide. We went to the other side through the underwater cave and this time, no cuts from the jagged walls given the water level allowed a comfortable swim towards the other side of the Lagoon. This lagoon is quite popular, Dexter, our Cuyonen guide, said. It's almost a standard destination with every batch of tourist going to Coron. True enough, we found ourselves with some 20 other tourists who were already on the other side, gleefully romping in the deep waters of the enclosed lagoon. We stayed for a while and enjoy the scenery around the enclosed lagoon. An hour after, we headed for the Siete Pecados - a preserved marine park famous for snorkeling of scenic corals.

Siete Pecados - This marine park is an extravagant show of multi-colored and multi-shaped live corals. I managed to take pictures of the awesome corals with my sister-in-law's underwater digital camera, and you will be floored by the beauty of these underwater sea creatures exude. First time in my life that i ever got close to almost touching distance to these creatures, which i have only seen in shows like Discovery Channel and National Geographic. I tell you it is one of those experiences I will never forget.

Day 1 of Amazing Busuanga

2009-06-02T07:21:00.022+08:00

We landed at the Busuanga airport at around 11am of June 1, with the weather threatening to get worse. After 15 minutes of hovering in the air, the pilot managed to land the plane at the airport, to the relief of some 50 people who were just too excited to taste the raw beauty of Busuanga islands.

After we landed, a transport service from the Coron Village Lodge brought us at the hotel for a sumptous lunch at the hotel's simple yet appropriately set up bamboo-motiffed restaurant. We were given about an hour by the tour guide, Dexter, to unpack and get ready to see the virgin locations that the people of Busuanga, the Cuyonens, are all too proud about.

We ride a motorboat at around 230pm. Two nice Cuyonens - Buds and Reynante have been tasked to ferry us around Busuanga in the next 3 days. Cuyonens, as i have observed, are sincerely nice and really proud when showing off the beauty their home has to offer. Rightfully so, I agree.

It is such a joy to see a pristine place like Busuanga. Day 1 in Coron (town or municipality located in the Busuanga Islands in Palawan province in the Philippines) is such a blast that I can't find the right expressions of awe evoked by the virgin locations we have been to, just in Day 1.

Our first destination was the Atuwayan beach and the snorkeling was liberating. Then, we went on to see the Twin Lagoon and for the first time, I have seen and experienced diving in an underwater cave bounded by razor sharped stone walls that gave me nasty cuts in some of my fingers just by touching them.

Afterwards, we went to the very serene Cayangan Lake, supposed to be a sacred lake maintained by the local Tagbanua tribe - a more than 1000-year and still existing indigenous tribe that preceded even the waves of Aetas, Malays, and Indonesian immigrants to the archipelago. Only that getting there requires scaling some 200 hundred step mountain footpath that goes up and down, requiring me and my brother-in-law to carry my son Cobi, half of the way. My legs nearly buckled down more than once, both from Cobi's weight and mud-slippery steps.

Cayangan Lake is such a clean lake that you can see the bottom at 14 meters deep. The water is amazingly clear. Dexter, the tour guide said it has been officially acclaimed as one of the world's 'cleanest lakes' in the last 3 years, having been consistently proven by biologists for its cleanliness comparable with similar places across the world. I have to believed it when i actually swam in it. Awesome lake indeed!

We capped the day by going to another amazing place - a seawater hot spring, the Makinit Hot Spring. Wow, it was such a joy to dip in it and soothe your aching muscles after having been flexed pre-maturely swimming and diving a few hours ago.

We headed back to the Coron Village Lodge at around 7pm, and after another sumptous dinner of tasty crabs and beef soup, we retired to bed. Of course, I had to see some 100 emails from the office that made me guilty for a moment. But after realizing how much i would have missed if i did not go with the family to this holiday, I would not exchange this experience for anything my colleagues in Singapore can offer :-). I knew deep in my heart that my wife and kids are proud i made the right choice on this one.

Got to go now, breakfast is waiting. I don't like the Longaniza (grounded meat made into sausage - a Filipino breakfast delicacy) and the Danggit (a dried small fish, which is best eaten fried with fried rice during breakfast) getting cold on me....

It's Day 2 of my Busuanga holiday!

Happy Episode 2

2009-05-30T21:29:00.003+08:00

My good friend's son is home after spending the first 55 grueling days of his life in an incubator and in tubes. It is a miracle indeed.

His son is now with his family 24 hours a day, having been cooped alone for almost 2 months in an incubator in the company of only nurses and doctors, due to limited visitation times in the hospital.

Accordingly, my friend's son is actively responding to the sounds and sights of his loving parents who are just so overjoyed to be reunited with him in the comfort of their home.

Happy news indeed.

Consulting

2009-05-22T00:02:00.006+08:00

Being in the management consulting industry is exciting and perpetually stimulating. You never run out of opportunities to learn and be at the forefront of ground breaking insights. The works give you both the motivation and rewards to seek for new information and innovations so that you can add real value to clients.

However, it becomes tiring and draining once you stop learning new things and become stuck with intellectual masturbation. Well, some may argue that it depends on how you see learning and what sort of things define learning (pardon my self argumentation - it becomes a habit when you have stayed long enough in this industry).

I specialize in telecom and while I enjoy the constant search for new ideas in social media and perpetual distillation of emerging business models, I hate the part when you have to sit and create pre-sales decks to clients who never seem to get tired of asking for proposals. The hateful part of this process is when you keep on finding ways of saying the same thing in a different way to the same client who can't seem to figure out what he wants.

I miss the days when I use to do delivery. While it is tiring and pressure-packed to manage a project, it is fulfilling in a sense that there is real engagement and application of ideas. You may not be learning ground-breaking ideas but you do get to bring YOUR ideas to the table of those who can make them happen.

Today is just one of those days when consulting feels tiring and draining.

Happy Episode

2009-05-19T18:36:00.003+08:00

A few weeks back, i wrote about a friend couple whose son was born premature with some complications that even the best doctors in Singapore have almost given up trying to find a solution to his condition.

For a while, it seems like the couple was just waiting for the inevitable. Miraculously though, their son has recovered and now he is out of the ICU. Now the baby is slowly gaining weight and can already drink milk from the bottle.

Things like these miracles make me smile, and believe even more that the Universe truly conspires to make things happen.

Work and a new home

2009-05-06T22:10:00.011+08:00

By Raul and Sarah Alicaway

(let me have the liberty of re-publising a story written by a good friend who recently migrated to Canada - original article published in www.canadianimmigrant.ca)

Leaving Manila on the last eligible day of our visa — and landing in Toronto just about an hour before our visas did, in fact, expire — gave us the jitters as we journeyed to Canada. Our two kids, JC and Migs, never knew the risk we faced of being immediately asked to travel back to Manila.

At the Lester B. Pearson International Airport, we finally relaxed as we were warmly welcomed by the Bolivars, family friends who selflessly accommodated us for almost a month in their home.

But, after landing, we didn’t waste any time. Three days after arriving, we were already attending a downtown seminar about Canadian accounting designations sponsored by the Association of Filipino-Canadian Accountants (AFCA). We had business, banking and accounting backgrounds in the Philippines.

Within our first month in Toronto, we were blessed to have secured confirmed job offers in our respective fields — I as an officer in one of Canada’s banking giants and Sarah as an accounting technician in an accounting firm (she was referred by an AFCA member).

In due time, we moved to a safe and nice community close to everything — subway station, bus stations, church, school for the kids, public library, community centre, family doctor’s clinic, grocery stores, Filipino store, Fairview Mall (which has lots of everything!) and lush parks and greenery. Early on, we already felt our decision to come to Canada was a rewarding one, even though we had had many doubts prior to boarding the plane in Manila.

We are thankful for God’s provision to our family. Just eight months down the road, I became a manager for GTA branch operations at ICICI Bank Canada and Sarah became a senior accountant at Weinberg & Gaspirc, Chartered Accountants.

We’ve both also been blessed on the education front: I took the International Accounting and Finance Professionals (IAFP) Program at Ryerson University and have qualified for the certified management accountant (CMA) accelerated program; Sarah has been granted 50 out of 51 credit hours in her pursuit of the chartered accountant (CA) designation at the same time being granted 14 out of 15 maximum allowable transfer credits in the certified general accountant (CGA) program.

Our kids are also adjusting fast in the Canadian school system, with JC always landing on the honour roll and Migs having lots of friends across many nationalities and cultures.
Paying forward, we have humbly opened our simple home in at least two instances to friends and their families, helping them with their initial stay in Toronto.

As what the Bolivars did for us, we also guided them on what to do during their initial days, from applying for a SIN card, opening a bank account, looking for an apartment, applying for phone lines, getting familiar with transport systems and Toronto maps, and more!

As our story shows, a little help and a smooth beginning can make all the difference in your journey to Canada.

Jolly Frog

2009-05-06T18:36:00.006+08:00

I came across this new Filipino food place along Neil Road in China Town called Jolly Frog. It's right below the PSG Asia office, right across a parking lot and a stone throw away from the offices of Ebay, Skype, and Paypal . It is a nice and decent place actually.

Well, the food wasn't that great, but the entire dining area is clean and comfortable. My colleagues and I had a peaceful and relax lunch.

The food lay out is the 'turo-turo' (literally 'finger pointing' i.e. you can point any food and mix and match as you like and the waiter will serve it to you in a plate) style in canteens or SM Malls' foodcourts back home. That day there were a few popular Filipino dishes like Tinola (Chicken boiled with Chayote,'Siling Labuyo' leaves -a type of chili,- and ginger, and spiced up with 'Patis' or fish sauce), Beef Steak, Pinakbet (ground meat boiled with an assortment of vegetables like squash, string beans, and bitter gourd spiced with 'Bagoong' or preserved anchovies), and some more.

My colleagues were not so impressed though with the dishes' taste. Even I, felt I have tasted better versions of those before. Well, there is always room for improvement. I guess the place has newly opened and certainly I hope, the owner is seeking feedback from patrons.

When I say peaceful, I mean this place is bereft of the typical noisy chatter one experiences in most Hawkers here in Singapore. Its relaxing in a sense that you don't find people milling around your table waiting like hawks for you to finish dining. The place is neatly painted white and adorned with a couple of decent paintings.

What is most commendable however is the display of the courteous brand of service by Filipinas who run the place. It is the beautiful and warm smile that sincerely conveys the willingness to serve and make you feel you are valued as a customer. My colleagues of course, expected no less, having known from their own experiences of Pinoys, how we are hospitable and courteous in our ways. Luckily, my countrywomen did not disappoint them.

Ironically, it was an Indian colleague who recommended to me the place. Tired of gorging the same kind of delicacies from Hawkers near our office day in day out, it was a pleasant surprise to find a Filipino food place in China Town. It was a nice respite from the 'chicken and char siew rice' for a change.

It was a nice excuse for me too to give my colleagues a perspective to 'Filipino dishes'. A few of my friends have asked where else can they find places to eat Filipino dish in Singapore. To which I mentioned 7,107 Flavours at Marina Square (where I have not been to yet, but heard so much from Pinoy friends the past year), and a few stalls in the historic Lau Pa Sat along Robinson Road like Ka Roger, Panyeros, and Jolly V.

I hope I will not disappoint them with 7,107 Flavours as I heard it's quite pricey compared to your usual dining place. Let me visit it one of these days and see for myself if the price is worth the dine. :-)

Why do bad things happen...

2009-04-16T11:55:00.004+08:00

Sad stories.

I spoke to my good friend yesterday. He told me about the sad news about the condition of his baby boy in the hospital and how the situation has turned for the worse. I could not say a thing. There is not much to say to someone who is already in tremendous grief and for whom you cannot do anything to alleviate his sadness.

I cannot say 'i understand' or 'i know how you feel' as no one will ever know how a father feels nor understand what he is going through, when he stands to lose his infant son, due to a condition not even the best doctors in Singapore can solve.

I can only commiserate in silence. I remember pondering about this question for several years now. Why do bad things happen to good people? I still could not fathom the answer, and maybe i will never be able to.

When my brother was murdered a year ago by people who until now have never been brought to justice, i felt hatred. Hatred for unnamed and faceless criminals who i cannot understand why they do these things. My brother did not deserve his fate. He was a good father and a loyal employee of a bank, who happened to be the target of a bank heist, that left all of the bank's employees brutally butchered.

I asked then, why do bad things happen to good people?

Today I spoke to my mom back home. She is worried about my sister, who has been abused for years by her insane husband. There was again an incident where my sister's asshole for a husband threatened to hit her and abused her verbally. Good thing my elder brother has been watching out for her recently, and can now at least bring some sense to my brother-in-law's insane head that if anything happens to our sister, he will have to pay dearly with his life.

My sister is a good mother and good provider to her three kids. She earns her own and can easily fend for herself and the kids all by herself. She and her kids do not deserve her husband. She is a good person and her kids are a promising intelligent brood that i see a bright future ahead. It brings me deep and terrible pain that they have to go through this in life.

But why do things like these happen to people who don't deserve it?

There is just so much pain and grief.

Why not write about telecom and banking stuff?

2009-04-08T16:00:00.000+08:00

A friend once asked me. Why don't you write about telecom and banking stuff in your blog? With the years of experience i have in these domains, the projects and markets i have been exposed to, and clients i have worked with, there is so much to write about. I agree, and may be i can say as much.

For a moment, I wondered why. But i guess the reason is that i don't need and feel like adding to the clutter of intellectual stuff out there already about telecom and banking. I am not out to say any new stuff anyway as I feel i will just be regurgitating similar thoughts that are already being discussed in blogs like technorati, bobstumpel.blogspot, and mashable. For these things I want to be the reader, not the writer. I am not going to learn more by writing more about what i already know.

When I started writing blogs in 2006, using my friendster blog Normandy Chronicles, all i wanted is to write about my thoughts, feelings, and personal experiences, more like as I would in a diary or journal. Then, I extremely missed my collegiate days when i used to write a lot about anything and everything any curious student of my time was probably wondering about. I wanted that peace and freedom to write about these things, when i created my first blog.

I still wanted that freedom now. I don't want to write so as to invite dialogue or a discussion on a telecom or banking innovation or about a new way of engaging customers. I can do that in the course of my consulting profession, but someone needs to pay for my time. I want to write in this blog, because its simply an expression of what i feel, and I don't need anyone to react.

One might say that, why then do you write in a public domain like the web and a blogsite for that matter, where people can and might read it, and hence, react? I have no issue with people reacting. It's not just the intention in the first place. Why don't I write in a private diary or journal? Its convenient for me. It's in the web and if ever I need to share it with somebody, i can do so with ease.

However, there are limitations. I can't write so much about private things which might compromise me or anyone else i might be writing about. I actually can but I may not, because i also don't want to solicit unnecessary reactions or comments and exposed myself to an extent that anyone can use stuff against me.

In sum, I just want to write because I want a medium for a one way personal expression. Nothing else. If you want to know what I know about telecom and banking, email or call me. Maybe we can discuss and I can share with you the things that I know.

When life is at stake

2009-04-05T17:14:00.000+08:00

This morning at dawn I got a call from a good friend of mine. I learned that she just gave birth prematurely to her son last Friday and that there were some challenges that her baby has to hurdle to get past the danger zone. She was distressed and asked me to call my best friend, who is her husband, fearing for his welfare having been through sleepless night since Friday getting through this unexpected ordeal.

My wife and I reflected on what is happening and felt sad that it has to happen twice to them. Their first born, who is now 8 years old, was also born premature and had to struggle too when he was a baby, to survive. Now, it has happened again with their second born.

We reflected at our own time with our first born, who was also born premature at almost 7 months. He too had to go through a lot. He spent his first 18 days of his life in an incubator and he had to go through 4 years of tedious therapies just to get him up to speed with his age peers. He is fine now, celebrating his 8th birthday today and adequately coping up with mainstream school here in Singapore.

I can feel the pain of my friend as he recounted the last 3 days on what his wife and baby have been going through in the hospital. Not to mention the costly medical bills that have been racking up since Friday. In essence, what he says is that in spite of the superior medical support here in Singapore and the successful operation of a life threatening clot, his baby's chance of survival depends largely on his (baby son's) will to survive, which for the love of God, has been positive & strong so far.

There is nothing one can do except to say hold on and believe that things will be better. When it is life, especially if it's the life of your own flesh and blood, that is at stake, you have to believe that the tide will turn in your favor.

A few minutes back, I just called another friend, and told him about the ordeal of our friend, who is his first cousin. He too was shocked and had nothing to say. We knew that there is nothing one can do except to commiserate and say a prayer for our friend's son.

When a life is at stake, you can only turn to prayers for solace, and hopefully salvation.

Pay It Forward

2009-04-01T08:38:00.002+08:00

Amazing how inspiring this movie is. I have not seen it in a long time. Watching it again in HBO Family seems to reinforce that in this world of desperation and seeming helplessness with what the future holds, there are more important things that you can do to make a difference in your life and in others.

I would want to get hold of the novel of the same title by Catherine Ryan Hyde, from which the movie was based upon. Actually, I just found out that this author actually established a foundation in September 2000 about this idea, and named it the Pay It Forward Foundation (www.payitforwardfoundation.org). Its mission is 'to educate and inspire students to realize that they can change the world, and provide them with opportunities to do so.'

Seriously. Sans the drama of most Hollywood films, Pay It Forward is a movie with a solid moral plot. Pay It Forward is a powerful idea and can be a life philosophy in itself. It may sound condescending or cliche for most people who might think its too inane and trivial, when there are a lot of other things you can do or you should be concerned about in this world... hunger, oppression, racism...

If you agree with this kind of people, you are totally missing the point. Pay It Forward is an idea on a way to live life. It is an option, a method on how you choose to be concerned (and act) with what --- personal issues, other people's issues, or even political issues.

Its fundamental basis is actually founded upon shared beliefs on reciprocity or the 'Golden Rule' across religions and philosophies in existence for over hundreds of years, in many words, texts, and verses. You will see various forms of these in Christianity, Brahmanisn, Baha'i Faith, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc.

The premise of the Pay It Forward idea is that any person can do it, at any time and at any point in their lives. You begin it by doing a favor for another person-- WITHOUT any expectation of being paid back. Probably, the only request that the one giving the favor may ask from the recipient if asked, is to ask that s/he does a favor for someone else in return : ideally for three other people. The unconditional favors may be anything or nothing of magnitude. It can be substantial or insignificant or large or small. As the 12-year-old Trevor says in the film, "It doesn't have to be a big thing. It can just seem that way, depending who you do it for."

Fundamental rules on what it takes to Pay It Forward:

a. When someone does you a big favor, don't pay it back... Pay It Forward
b. Do others a favor instead - and the favor should be ...

#1 It has to be something that really helps people.
#2 Something they can't do by themselves.

c. I do it for them, they do it for three other people.

My take on this...I can Pay Forward my life ahead.

Things I learned from Mayor Jesse Robredo

2009-01-11T22:39:00.000+08:00

Things I learned from Mayor Jesse Robredo

by: Harvey S. Keh

The Manila Bulletin

December 28,2008 (Sunday)

For many of you who don't probably know him, Mayor Jesse Robredo is the multi-awarded incumbent city mayor of Naga City, which is currently the main commercial area of the Bicol Region. Aside from this, Mayor Robredo was also one of the first Filipino winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service which is equivalent to Asia's Nobel Prize. He won the award because he was able to transform Naga City from a third class municipality to a first class city and uplift the quality of life of his constituents. Moreover, he was able to develop systems that would enable government processes to be more transparent and accountable to his constituents. As a prime example of this, when one visits the website of Naga City, you would be able to see all the expenses and purchases of the city government. In the more than 16 years of being the mayor of Naga, the city has received accolades from national and international organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations. I met Mayor Robredo in 2001 at an event organized by Synergeia Foundation, one of the country's more effective institutions in improving our public education system. Since then, Mayor Robredo has been one of the people I have looked up to for advice and his effective brand of leadership has been a constant source of inspiration for me. As such, I wanted to share the things that I have learned through these years that I have worked with him.

Firstly, I have learned that there are still people like him who continue to remain ethical despite being in government service for the past 16 years. Many people have dissuaded me from entering government service since they say that no one actually survives the current system of pervasive graft and corruption. Mayor Robredo has shown that one need not compromise his or her values and principles to be able to govern and deliver basic services to the people in an effective manner.

When I asked him what was his secret for being steadfast in his values, he told me that his faith in God and his family are his main foundations, and this is the second lesson that I learned from him. In a society where we hear of politicians having several wives and families, we have someone like Mayor Robredo who continues to put premium on his being a loyal husband and a loving father who devotes time to his three daughters. I remember a time wherein he failed to attend one of our Kaya Natin! Caravan of Good Governance events in the province since his daughter sought his help with regard to her school project. Many politicians would often jump at the chance just to be able to speak before thousands of students but Mayor Robredo chose to be with his daughter who needed him during that time.

Aside from this, Mayor Robredo has also shown that he is a man that can stand up for what he believes in even if he already knows that majority are no longer with him. This can be seen when in the last 2 Presidential elections, wherein he chose to support the late Senator Raul Roco because he believed that he would make a good President for our country even if he already knew that surveys have shown that Senator Roco would have a slim chance of winning and even if he already knew that if Senator Roco loses he may not be able to get the support of the winning candidate. Standing up and holding on to your own principles is something that is clearly lacking in many of our leaders today. Our present day leaders will often support issues or people that will help propagate their own self-interests without necessarily thinking if what they are supporting will be for the common good.

Finally, one of the most important lessons I learned from Mayor Robredo is the simplicity of his way of life. When one thinks of Filipino politicians, large houses and expensive cars always comes to mind but when one visits Naga, you will see that despite being on his 6th term as mayor of a 1st class city, he continues to live in a very simple home. I remember one time wherein we met in my office in Quezon City and I saw him just taking a cab without any bodyguards to reach our office. Back then, I was quite surprised since I was used to seeing politicians with their big cars, blaring sirens and their throngs of bodyguards. Among all of these lessons, I think what Mayor Robredo has shown me is that there is still much to Hope for in our country if we have more principled leaders like him who will continue to deliver proper services to the people and will always put the interests of our country above his or her own interests.

For those who want to hear Mayor Jesse Robredo, you can attend the Kaya Natin! Caravan of Good Governance on January 10,2009 (Saturday) at Araullo University in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija and at the University of the Assumption in San Fernando City, Pampanga. You can reach Kaya Natin! by sending an email to kayanatin@yahoo.com or you can visit the Kaya Natin! website at http://www.kayanatin.com .

Harvey S. Keh is Director for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship at the Ateneo de Manila University-School of Government and Executive Director of AHON Foundation. Comments are welcome at harveykeh@gmail.com .
--
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Dreams

2008-10-15T21:23:00.001+08:00

Dreams are about us. They don't lie, they don't explain, they are just honest about our true feelings.

When friends ask me to help them interpret their dreams, I always warn them about unduly letting me into their private lives.

Dreams are the language of our hearts. They are the voice of the subconscious. The subconscious speaks in symbols, and archetypes. Yes, dreams have colors too, and different colors mean differently.

Nightmares are our subconscious screaming at us, telling us that there is something fundamentally wrong in our waking life. Dreams about falling off a cliff is us feeling out of control. Dreams about monsters are about people we are afraid of in our lives.

Try understanding your dreams, they have a lot of stories to tell about yourself.

Manila!

2008-10-10T10:05:00.000+08:00

Manila!

I am in Manila! Just so glad, i got the chance again to see some chaos on the road...and get to drive after several months in commuting in trains and cabs and buses, again...

Enjoyed being with loved ones, friends, dear friends, long lost dear friends, former colleagues, and an assorted business contacts who I needed to talk to either for for potential business or for some 'gyan' that i am advocating in behalf of my firm.

Its nostalgic to once again sleep in your own bed and house, be greeted by neighbors who are pleasantly surprised to see you around.

Its such a joyous feeling to be welcomed back by colleagues and given time to be entertained by friends. But most gratifying is being given some quality time and even favors by dear friends, with no explanations asked.

This is Manila! This is home!

me and myself demented

2008-08-19T19:00:00.000+08:00

I have not written anything in the past months. I have not read any interesting story at all in a long time. My mind is tired and my body is stressed.

I want to write but i don't know what to write. I have my thoughts and ideas, but the words don't seem to flow.

In the past, I used to turn to my dreams for solace and understanding. Dreams have always afforded me a peek into my real self and a glimpse of what my heart is longing for. But I have not been able to remember any of my dreams at all...

Why is the Philippines Poor? Or is it?

2008-04-11T12:14:00.000+08:00

Here is a chain e-mail message i received from friends and fellow Pinoys...one of the thousands of chain mails i believe is worthy of being read, understood, and taken to heart by Filipinos like me.

Why Is The Philippines Poor?

Dear Friends, Here is a good article sent by Dr. Arsenio Martin of Fort Arthur , Texas ..Enjoy reading.

THE DIFFERENCE The difference between the poor countries and the rich ones is not the age of the country:

This can be shown by countries like India & Egypt , that are more than 2000 years old, but are poor. On the other hand, Canada , Australia & New Zealand , that 150 years ago were inexpressive, today are developed countries, and are rich.

The difference between poor & rich countries does not reside in the available natural resources.

Japan has a limited territory, 80% mountainous, inadequate for agriculture & cattle raising, but it is the second world economy. The country is like an immense floating factory, importing raw materials from the whole world and exporting manufactured products.

Another example is Switzerland, which does not plant cocoa but has the best chocolate in the world. In its little territory they raise animals and plant the soil during 4 months per year. Not enough, they produce dairy products of the best quality! It is a small country that transmits an image of security, order & labor, which made it the world's strongest, safest place.

Executives from rich countries who communicate with their counterparts in poor countries show that there is no significant intellectual difference. Race or skin color are also not important: immigrants labeled lazy in their countries of origin are the productive power in rich European countries.

What is the difference then? The difference is the attitude of the people, framed along the years by the education & the culture & flawed tradition.

On analyzing the behavior of the people in rich & developed countries, we find that the great majority follow the following principles in their lives:
1. Ethics, as a basic principle.
2. Integrity.
3. Responsibility.
4. Respect to the laws & rules.
5. Respect to the rights of other citizens.
6. Work loving.
7. Strive for savings & investment.
8. Will of super action.
9. Punctuality.
10. and of course...Discipline

In poor countries, only a minority follow these basic principles in their daily life.

The Philippines is not poor because we lack natural resources or because nature was cruel to us. In fact, we are supposedly rich in natural resources. We are poor because we lack the correct attitude.

We lack the will to comply with and teach these functional principles of rich & developed societies.

If you do not forward this message nothing will happen to you. Your pet will not die, you will not be fired, you will not have bad luck for seven years, and also, you will not get sick or go hungry.

But those may happen because of your lack of discipline & laziness, your love for intrigue and politics, your indifference to saving for the future, your stubborn attitude.

If you love your country, let this message circulate so that many Filipinos could reflect about this, & CHANGE, ACT!

Malaysian Airlines rakes in MYR851M net profit : What did they do right?

2008-02-26T17:25:00.000+08:00

This morning I read in a Malaysian daily while on a business trip to KL that MAS has raked in MYR851M in net profit for 2007 and is declaring some dividends.

I was wondering whether the right question to ask is.. "what did they do right?" or "how did they do that?"

For almost a year now, I have traveled weekly to KL on a business trip. I have always taken a Malaysian Airlines (MAS) flight 95% of the time but only for the reason that it's the only airline i know that has the 10am flight from Singapore to KL.

Other than this very convenient time flight schedule, i have not found any decent reason why I should fly MAS, which for me is a classic example of why big airlines like this are bound to fail once competition steps in. If the flight from Sg to KL takes longer than hour, I don't think i can tolerate the torture of riding MAS planes.

I have many horror stories with MAS, 2 of which I will detail in this space for perspective as to why I believe this airline sucks.

One stressful day in August I missed the last MAS flight to SG from KL, after arriving some 15 minutes before flight time. As any customer who wanted to just come home from a stressful work week, I pleaded to be allowed to board the plane for 2 reasons which were obviously not acceptable to most airline policies, but for me then, was worthy of consideration for someone who has always patronized the airline and desperate to get home.

One reason I had in mind was that the plane had not taken off yet, and i presumed that passengers were still boarding. I knew that for sure as in all the time i have rode MAS flights, 60-70% of these flights were delayed in taking off.

Second reason is that it was the LAST flight for the day, thus I had the feeling that it would be considerate to loyal passengers whose intention is never to be late but to get on to a flight home. In my experience, MAS ground stewards or stewardesses seem to assume the former than the latter.

You know how I was treated as my companion and I pleaded to get to the plane?

We got shouted at by the ground steward and lectured on how we should have checked in 2 hours before flight time etc. etc. I told the steward that we know that, and that was why we were asking for a consideration. (He could have just pretended to try at least to call the pilot if its possible.) But no, he did not flinch at all as he continued lecturing us about our being late as our fault and all the crap.

I thought that was the end of such "hospitality" from MAS that day...

We experienced even far worse situation when we got to the ticketing office for re-booking. As my companion and I were re-booking our tickets, we told the booking teller of how we were late and not allowed in the plane in spite of our pleading. We said we were hoping that we will be allowed as we anyway patronize MAS every week. She discourteously barked at us, saying ..."You should know better, if you go here weekly!" My god, I almost slap the teller for such insensitivity.

I caught myself though. I realize that it may be a culture of "customer service mediocrity" or "customer hatred" would be more appropriate. Indeed it probably is. As I was experiencing this, my companion and I were witnessing another teller berating an elderly couple trying to claim for a ticket for some miles they probably earned, to the embarrassment of the elderly customers. And mind you, the supervisor behind the teller was not even trying to stop the teller. He even joined in to the fray by equally shouting at the couple at the top of his voice, on how they were wrong and that they don't understand what they were doing. My companion and I could only shake our heads.

Another recent event is just a few days ago. For 30 minutes, passengers of MH604 were subjected to extremely hot cabin experience before the pilot turned on the 'airconditioning' 5 minutes before taking off. The pilot did apologize and explained that it was due to a malfunction of some ground engine not working, which got me thinking...why the hell did they allow us into the plane when they exactly know that it is going to happen. And not even one of the flight crew was ever looking sorry or apologetic for what the passengers were experiencing...!

During the flight, passengers kept on asking flight stewards for the immigration cards, which the latter kept on replying that "It's not needed." Apparently, the stewards were correct. Indeed, the immigration authority did not look for any immigration card upon entry to KL, but not without a lot of apprehension for most of the passengers from that flight while lining up to the immigration desk, who kept on asking everyone like..."did you get a landing card?" or "Have you filled up an immigration card?."

The one thing that the MAS flight crew could have done as a basic "customer service" is to at least announce the change in the Malaysian immigration authority's guidelines, having seen that the passengers have been asking left and right for an immigration card.

I really wonder what MAS did Right to rake in generous profits in 2007. Maybe, there were a lot too many customers like me who tolerated their services because they had no other choice with the flight times.

Congratulations MAS!

Self Branding

2008-01-22T09:40:00.001+08:00

I remember my days in MBA, when I use to have this professor who is a namesake of my father. He would always say, you need to brand yourself in class. Who do you want to be from the eyes of your discriminating classmates? At the end of the day, you will be graded by professors not just for your performance in class, but also on how they see you.

Are we really conscious in creating a brand of who we are or who we want to be? Do we actually set out the things that we do everyday with conscious intention to project an image, whatever that is?

Of Demented Landlord and Greedy Agents

2008-01-20T10:21:00.001+08:00

In less than 24 hours, I have lost $900 to unscrupulous real estate agents due to a demented landlord who led me to a useless exercise of looking for a flat to rent for days, only to agree later that I can stay on for another year!

If you have useless time, read on...

In the first week of January, my demented landlord had advised me that upon expiry of my lease, he will now be charging a $1.8K rental fee, $400 more than my current rate. After a couple of days of hopeless appeal for a lower rental, I finally succumbed to a $1.8K offer. To my surprise, which blew my brains to bits, he said he wanted $2K now as the market rates have gone up. "I am even giving you $400 discount at that rate because a 5 room flat in your area is now renting at $2.4K.", he said is in a monotonous and ruthless tone.

Holly Molly! I could almost see myself going in for a combat Aikido Shihu Nage and pinning my landlord, whom I have never seen except hear his voice, with a San Kyo arm lock. My knees almost gave in.

So what my wife and I did in the ensuing week was to scour the entire Singapore for every flat available for lease and evaluate our options. We finally found one unit almost identical to ours for $1.8K monthly rent and available for 2 year lease, which we want. So we immediately engaged a seemingly (always just seemingly--when will i ever learn!) nice female real agent with a tag-along body-of-a-guard-companion who speaks more like an agent than she does.

The pair asked me to pay "one month advance rental" and "half of the 1.8K" for agent's fee. I was hesitant to sign the LOI to the owner because my wife and I wanted to take a look at the flat again the following day. When we looked at the flat, it was 7pm on a Sunday and was quite unusually dark because of the heavy rains. So we really did not get to take a good look at the place. I said, to show good faith, I can give the $2.7K to the pair but we would like to have the LOI signed with finality once we get to see it again the following day.

The body of a guard agent expectedly insisted. "No, no. Sign it now because nothing's gonna change, right? Everything will be all right and taken care of." So I muttered to myself, "What the hell, if we are really to leave this house, it should not matter what ever the little imperfections of the new house. Even if I will be paying rentals for two houses in February, it is just the way it goes here in Singapore. Otherwise, my kids my find themselves homeless next month." The lease on my flat expires in end February, while the new place is required to be rented start of Feb. With all these in mind, I gave the $1.8K in cash and electronically transferred the "$900 agent's fee and signed the LOI, which did not even bear the name of the owner yet. (Such a dumb ass I am when it comes to things like these. I am ashamed I have dealt with far more complicated transactions and contracts than these in my life as a banker, but I am almost always a careless neophyte when it comes to personal transactions such as these.)

I signed the LOI then. My wife and I assured ourselves, that the new place is for the best, as we have no choice, except if we want to pay the $2K per month rate. Before I sleep, I sent a message to my demented landlord to say that I cannot afford his $2K rate and am willing to leave end of January if he gives me back my deposit and not let me pay the Feb rent.

A day after and upon landing in Thailand, I received a roaming call from my demented landlord. He said, "How much are you willing to pay ha?" I told him, "You already asked me that, and I told you $1.8K. You said ‘CANNOT’." My stomach churned upon his reply, "OK. You can take it for $1.8K. You are a good tenant, paying on time and loyal." What the hell can I say, except to say, "Thank you." This was 1030ish in the morning Sg time.

Now my thoughts we rushing to how I can recover the money from the seemingly nice agent and body-of-a-guard-companion, (who by the way claimed to be Christian upon seeing a statue of Christ in my flat). So I sent an SMS message that I am backing out of the LOI and request my money back. A couple of seconds after, the body-of-a-guard-companion of the agent, called.

"Norman, I cannot give you back the money because we have given it to the owner already. Under the law even if if its one hour or days, once you sign a contract its consummated. Sorry. But we can give up the agent's fee that you advance ($900) as a consideration."

I immediately had an Amygdala hijack, and pointed out that there was no contract at all as the document i signed was a mere LOI and the money I gave was, as he said, "advance rental", and without any contract there is no "advance rental." I told him it was not even 24 hours yet. The next 10 minutes of roaming call became a heated exchange with me realizing that the greedy body-of-a-guard-companion only wanted to take a buck from me. He was "willing to give up the $900 agent's fee" but had his eyes on the "$1.8K" which I had suspected he and his female agent friend have not even given to the owner yet.

So I sent the greedy of a body-of-a-guard-companion of my agent a message. “Hey body-of-a-guard-companion, sorry my attitude. I was just shocked with what you said are the possibilities (of my money). I am willing to compensate you and female agent for your trouble but do consider how much we need that money as a family.”

Well it did the trick. Before the day ended, they returned the $1.8K “advance rental” but not the “$900” agent’s fee, which in the morning conversation, Mr. body-of-a-guard-companion was all too willing to give up.

I would like to believe that I appealed to the pair’s conscience, but I knew that they were also aware that they did not have any legitimate hold on that money. So i surmised they really wanted to earn a buck off a careless and gullible customer like me.

In less than 24 hours, I have lost $900 to unscrupulous agents due to a demented landlord who led me to a useless exercise of looking for a flat to rent for days, only to agree later that I can stay on for another year in his flat.

Demented!

Demented Thoughts in 2008

2008-01-06T17:02:00.001+08:00

...will i ever get to do my naughtiest ever thoughts whenever inside an elevator.

Everytime I am inside a crowded elevator, I have this sick and funny thought of making a loud and prolonged farting. I wonder how people will react? Of course, I will pretend to say 'i am sorry' and make a humbling excuse of the act being completely uncontrollable.

Will people be civil enough to just cover their noses or react violently by mauling my ass till kingdom come for inflicting them with an inescapable hell.

Or whenever I am alone in an elevator, I have often thought of taking a sticky and slimy boogger (from my nose of course!) and finger-sling shotting it towards the CCTV camera while gesturing my regards. Will someone do anything? Will a security guard be actually waiting for me once I reach the ground floor?

Does anyone monitor these CCTVs daily as in the movies? Or it is just automatically stored in some terrabyte-capacity hard drive to be accessed only upon a security-breached?

Some sick thoughts to start the year, eh? Happy New Year!

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Of Demented Landlord and Greedy Agents

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