http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideOpinion.htm?f=2010/january/26/emiljurado.isx&d=2010/january/26
The Cory fanatics are moving heaven and earth to have the Vatican declare former President Cory Aquino “blessed” soon, and then a saint in five years’ time.
This beats the fate of Joan of Arc, who was declared a saint after 400 years and St. Bernadette of the Miracle of Lourdes after 200 years. My gulay, Mother Teresa is not even a saint yet!
I can’t judge the moral character of a person—only God can. But how can we forget the Hacienda Luisita massacre of seven and the Mendiola massacre of 13; the Kamaganak Inc., the takeover of the Lopas of no less than 37 corporation suspected of having ties with the late dictator Marcos; the illegal importation of “Simbas” from London; the grant of tax exemption to Shell when the Malampaya gas exploration started (it now amounts to P70-billion); and the illegal sale of that prized Union Square property in San Francisco where friends and relatives of Cory went laughing all the way to the banks?
Blessed Cory and then Santa Cory? Santa Banana!
At this point we are reminded, as all grizzled and veteran politicians know, that in the final analysis, all elections in the Philippines are local.
It’s the people in rural areas who will decide who will be president, vice president and senators. What the locals care most about is who will be their congressman, governor, provincial board members, mayor, vice mayor and councilors. Who are the candidates nearest to their hearts and who truly care for them? They could not care less about national candidates.
In my over half a century as a journalist, I know for a fact that national candidates depend largely on local candidates to carry them. No matter how popular a national candidate is, it depends on whether a local politician will carry him.
It has been this way for so long in Philippine elections. That’s why sample ballots are important—most of the “provincianos” depend on these when they go to the polling centers.
Now that we will be having automated polls, sample ballots will be more critical. Ballots, which are yet to be printed, are about 28 inches long. Each sheet will have the names of the 10 presidential candidates, 8 vice presidential candidates, 158 senatorial candidates, 150 party-list groups, countless congressmen, governors, vice governors, provincial board members, city and municipal mayors, vice mayors, so many councilors in a district, depending how big a city is.
I can say with certainty that names of national candidates cannot just be included in those sample ballots just because local candidates are enamored by the faces of national candidates. More often than not, it depends how much a national candidate can dole out.
The Golden Rule—meaning he who has the gold rules, is particularly important in the provinces. That answers the needs of people in the “bundok” where the bottom line is money. That, aside from jobs, is what people want.
I have seen this so many times: people from the barrios wait for buses, jeepneys and tricycles to fetch them from their places and bring them to the precincts. They wait for you-know-what. My gulay, I’ve seen people lining up streets waiting for these rides. They also don’t vote early. They wait for the last hour—and the sample ballot with money tucked in it. In some places, P500 is the going rate per voter; in some, P1,500 is.
There is also the factor of exposure in media, which cost hundreds of millions of pesos.
There are, of course, exceptions. In Metro Manila and in other urban areas, this Golden Rule will likely not prevail. Generally, though, that’s how it is in our kind of elections. Old habits are hard to break.
Gaffes and blunders make a candidate lose whatever edge he has over the other candidates.
Take Liberal Party standard bearer Senator Benigno Aquino III. He has committed so many mistakes that people have been turned off. People are now starting to realize that indeed Noynoy does not have what it takes to be president.
Once, he said that surveys could be bought in Quiapo. This was when surveys started to show that Nacionalista Party standard bearer Manuel Villar was narrowing the gap between them.
Then, Noynoy also warned President Arroyo against appointing a chief justice. He would not recognize this appointment, Noynoy said. What gumption! A candidate threatening a sitting President!
And now Noynoy has promised he would not raise taxes and would, in fact, lower them. He said he would have the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs collect more to narrow the deficit gap.
Lately, too, he has been saying that there would be no cronies under him. Shall we even believe him, when all we need to do is look at the faces behind Noynoy? They are all salivating for a return to power!
“Hindi ako magnanakaw,” Noynoy says. Again, shall we believe him? All we have to do is look back at his mother’s administration.
After making headlines for more than a week, the news item about two children with special needs and their mothers who were forced to disembark from a Cebu Pacific plane is quieting down.
The story had all the ingredients of a perfect storm. It drew the kind of attention that it deserved. More than basic consumer rights, it touched on human rights, especially the rights of children.
Not surprisingly, various groups scored Cebu Pacific for its discriminatory actions. But what surprised me was the airline’s reaction to the scandal. It would have been so easy for the airline to put the entire blame on the erring employees—the Filipino colloquial term “laglag” being the perfect word to describe the action. They could have had a team of lawyers and spokesperson to mouth the worn-out argument that the individual actions and lapses in judgment of our staff cannot be held against the company. But they chose not to. Cebu Pacific actually owned up to its employees’ fault, apologized for it, and took conciliatory measures.
At least, some companies understand the legal principle of apparent authority as a rule that applies to situations such as the Cebu Pacific gaffe. Apparent authority states that a principal is responsible for the acts of its agents.
Sad to say, some firms cannot seem to grasp this concept of apparent authority either out of ignorance or malice. Recently, a hornet’s nest the size of Switzerland was stirred when a top multinational was assailed by its Central Luzon distributors for failing to prevent a billion-peso scam perpetrated by one of its high-ranking officials.
My gulay, what makes matters worse is that the architect of the foul scheme seems to have operated in plain sight, acting in her capacity as the regional sales manager of the multinational.
This manager allegedly instructed her distributors to give preferential discounts to the tune of 12-percent in favor of one particular reseller, Company X. The distributors were stumped on how they could possibly do that, since the maximum discount they could give was only 4-percent. Not to worry, the manager said, who wrote them letters using the company’s letterhead, promising that the multinational would cover the difference. And since the manager was a well-decorated and high-ranking employee, they complied.
Company X’s goods now acquired at an illogically cheap rate, all it had to do was go to a consumer area in Metro Manila and undersell all other distributors. Pretty soon, retail outlets were almost exclusively ordering from Company X at the expense of other Metro Manila distributors. Santa Banana, don’t forget that all these distributors were supposedly part of the same team!
The Metro Manila and Central Luzon distributors felt antsy. The multinational refused to investigate, and after months of reassurances, not a single centavo of discount reimbursements came.
They say hindsight is 100-percent accurate, but even the smallest of due diligence could have prevented the financial collapse of countless distributors.
My gulay, didn’t the multinational wonder how a previously-unheard of reseller could have come to Metro Manila and taken royal customers away from existing distributors? Based on figures submitted, didn’t the multinational question how a company could sell items for so low?
Ultimately, I feel that it is the legal principle of apparent authority that will put the case to rest. Even if the manager acted on her own as claimed, the law doesn’t favor the cop-out (palusot). The distributors are set to file a class-action against the multinational, where the buck should stop.
I can’t judge the moral character of a person—only God can. But how can we forget the Hacienda Luisita massacre of seven and the Mendiola massacre of 13; the Kamaganak Inc., the takeover of the Lopas of no less than 37 corporation suspected of having ties with the late dictator Marcos; the illegal importation of “Simbas” from London; the grant of tax exemption to Shell when the Malampaya gas exploration started (it now amounts to P70-billion); and the illegal sale of that prized Union Square property in San Francisco where friends and relatives of Cory went laughing all the way to the banks?
Blessed Cory and then Santa Cory? Santa Banana!
***
At this point we are reminded, as all grizzled and veteran politicians know, that in the final analysis, all elections in the Philippines are local.
It’s the people in rural areas who will decide who will be president, vice president and senators. What the locals care most about is who will be their congressman, governor, provincial board members, mayor, vice mayor and councilors. Who are the candidates nearest to their hearts and who truly care for them? They could not care less about national candidates.
In my over half a century as a journalist, I know for a fact that national candidates depend largely on local candidates to carry them. No matter how popular a national candidate is, it depends on whether a local politician will carry him.
It has been this way for so long in Philippine elections. That’s why sample ballots are important—most of the “provincianos” depend on these when they go to the polling centers.
Now that we will be having automated polls, sample ballots will be more critical. Ballots, which are yet to be printed, are about 28 inches long. Each sheet will have the names of the 10 presidential candidates, 8 vice presidential candidates, 158 senatorial candidates, 150 party-list groups, countless congressmen, governors, vice governors, provincial board members, city and municipal mayors, vice mayors, so many councilors in a district, depending how big a city is.
I can say with certainty that names of national candidates cannot just be included in those sample ballots just because local candidates are enamored by the faces of national candidates. More often than not, it depends how much a national candidate can dole out.
***
The Golden Rule—meaning he who has the gold rules, is particularly important in the provinces. That answers the needs of people in the “bundok” where the bottom line is money. That, aside from jobs, is what people want.
I have seen this so many times: people from the barrios wait for buses, jeepneys and tricycles to fetch them from their places and bring them to the precincts. They wait for you-know-what. My gulay, I’ve seen people lining up streets waiting for these rides. They also don’t vote early. They wait for the last hour—and the sample ballot with money tucked in it. In some places, P500 is the going rate per voter; in some, P1,500 is.
There is also the factor of exposure in media, which cost hundreds of millions of pesos.
There are, of course, exceptions. In Metro Manila and in other urban areas, this Golden Rule will likely not prevail. Generally, though, that’s how it is in our kind of elections. Old habits are hard to break.
***
Gaffes and blunders make a candidate lose whatever edge he has over the other candidates.
Take Liberal Party standard bearer Senator Benigno Aquino III. He has committed so many mistakes that people have been turned off. People are now starting to realize that indeed Noynoy does not have what it takes to be president.
Once, he said that surveys could be bought in Quiapo. This was when surveys started to show that Nacionalista Party standard bearer Manuel Villar was narrowing the gap between them.
Then, Noynoy also warned President Arroyo against appointing a chief justice. He would not recognize this appointment, Noynoy said. What gumption! A candidate threatening a sitting President!
And now Noynoy has promised he would not raise taxes and would, in fact, lower them. He said he would have the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs collect more to narrow the deficit gap.
Lately, too, he has been saying that there would be no cronies under him. Shall we even believe him, when all we need to do is look at the faces behind Noynoy? They are all salivating for a return to power!
“Hindi ako magnanakaw,” Noynoy says. Again, shall we believe him? All we have to do is look back at his mother’s administration.
***
After making headlines for more than a week, the news item about two children with special needs and their mothers who were forced to disembark from a Cebu Pacific plane is quieting down.
The story had all the ingredients of a perfect storm. It drew the kind of attention that it deserved. More than basic consumer rights, it touched on human rights, especially the rights of children.
Not surprisingly, various groups scored Cebu Pacific for its discriminatory actions. But what surprised me was the airline’s reaction to the scandal. It would have been so easy for the airline to put the entire blame on the erring employees—the Filipino colloquial term “laglag” being the perfect word to describe the action. They could have had a team of lawyers and spokesperson to mouth the worn-out argument that the individual actions and lapses in judgment of our staff cannot be held against the company. But they chose not to. Cebu Pacific actually owned up to its employees’ fault, apologized for it, and took conciliatory measures.
At least, some companies understand the legal principle of apparent authority as a rule that applies to situations such as the Cebu Pacific gaffe. Apparent authority states that a principal is responsible for the acts of its agents.
***
Sad to say, some firms cannot seem to grasp this concept of apparent authority either out of ignorance or malice. Recently, a hornet’s nest the size of Switzerland was stirred when a top multinational was assailed by its Central Luzon distributors for failing to prevent a billion-peso scam perpetrated by one of its high-ranking officials.
My gulay, what makes matters worse is that the architect of the foul scheme seems to have operated in plain sight, acting in her capacity as the regional sales manager of the multinational.
This manager allegedly instructed her distributors to give preferential discounts to the tune of 12-percent in favor of one particular reseller, Company X. The distributors were stumped on how they could possibly do that, since the maximum discount they could give was only 4-percent. Not to worry, the manager said, who wrote them letters using the company’s letterhead, promising that the multinational would cover the difference. And since the manager was a well-decorated and high-ranking employee, they complied.
Company X’s goods now acquired at an illogically cheap rate, all it had to do was go to a consumer area in Metro Manila and undersell all other distributors. Pretty soon, retail outlets were almost exclusively ordering from Company X at the expense of other Metro Manila distributors. Santa Banana, don’t forget that all these distributors were supposedly part of the same team!
The Metro Manila and Central Luzon distributors felt antsy. The multinational refused to investigate, and after months of reassurances, not a single centavo of discount reimbursements came.
***
They say hindsight is 100-percent accurate, but even the smallest of due diligence could have prevented the financial collapse of countless distributors.
My gulay, didn’t the multinational wonder how a previously-unheard of reseller could have come to Metro Manila and taken royal customers away from existing distributors? Based on figures submitted, didn’t the multinational question how a company could sell items for so low?
Ultimately, I feel that it is the legal principle of apparent authority that will put the case to rest. Even if the manager acted on her own as claimed, the law doesn’t favor the cop-out (palusot). The distributors are set to file a class-action against the multinational, where the buck should stop.
No comments:
Post a Comment