So You Think You Know American English?

If you work at a call center or are planning to, there is a chance you will be dealing with native English speakers like Americans. What you may not know is that our Philippine English is not always the same as American English. Some of the English words or phrases we use regularly may sound puzzling (or even funny) to Americans.

Read the short story below and see if you can find anything that may not sound right to Americans. This is NOT a grammar test, but a test of your familiarity with American English.

As I approached the local chapter of the Marvel Superheroes Fans Club, I began to have second thoughts. The building was constructed from unpainted hollow blocks and was just a little taller than me. But my editor had requested for an interview with the club president, so I went right in.

The tiny space was fitted with cheap plastic furnitures. Sitting behind a desk piled high with all kinds of stuffs was Leonard Chamberlain, club president.

“I have a good news for you,” he announced after greeting me. We have several old members dropping by later. You can interview them.”

He opened a small ref filled with different foods. “Can I get you anything?” he asked, removing a sandwich from the ref and popping it in his oven toaster.

If you have coffee or tea or juice, that would be great,” I said.

"Sorry, I don’t. How about a soft drink?”

I accepted the cola gratefully. Leonard’s relaxed, informal style put me at ease immediately. He talked with a slang and told the funniest green jokes.

After our snack, he invited me to go for a short walk. ‘I have to get rid of all these fats,” he laughed, patting his generous abdomen.

*     *     *

So how many words or phrases do you think Americans will find confusing? Three? Five? Seven? None? Believe it or not, there are thirteen English terms here that are familiar to Filipinos but not to Americans. Want to try looking again? Go ahead, we'll wait.

And here they are . . .

1. Fans Club: Whether the club is made of one or a million fans, Americans say fan club.

2.   Hollow Blocks: Americans say cinder blocks, not hollow blocks.

3. Request(ed) for: If request is used as a verb, we do not add for. PHILIPPINE VERSION: Customer requested for a refund. AMERICAN VERSION: Customer requested a refund. (On the other hand, if request is used as a noun, then for may be used: His request for a refund was approved.)

4. A good news: Whether it is one paragraph or an entire news bureau, Americans do not use the ‘a’: I have good news.

5.  Ref: When referring to a refrigerator, Americans say fridge. (To them, ‘ref’ is short for referee.)

6. Oven Toaster: Toaster Oven.

7. Soft drink: Notice that Leonard said he has no tea, juice or coffee, but he had cola. Coffee, tea and juice are soft drinks, as is any beverage without alcohol. What we call soft drinks Americans call soda.

8.  A slang: First off, Americans never put a before slang. Secondly, slang is NOT that broad accent we associate with Americans, especially from the East Coast. That is twang. But slang refers to well-known or recent idiomatic expressions, like calling a beginner a newbie is slang (or worse, noob if s/he is clueless. And clueless is another example of slang.)

9.  Green jokes: Americans say off-color jokes.

And finally, the most common example of Philippine English, pluralizing unnecessarily . . .

 10.  Furnitures: Just furniture.

 11.  Fats: When referring to bodily tissue or meat cuts, it is fat. (Fats is used in specialized cases like biochemistry.)

12.  Stuffs: Whether one item or an entire warehouse: stuff. (If used as a verb, Stuffs is sometimes used: He stuffs all that stuff into that cabinet.).

13.  Foods: Recently (mis)used by certain condominium visitors. Whether one sandwich or an entire buffet, it is always food. (Foods is sometimes used when referring to commodities or for commerce: Purefoods.)

So what lessons can be learned from all this? If your answer is

Now I know that I have to say cinder blocks and not hollow blocks,

Sorry, but that is only a tiny part of it. The whole point of this exercise is to show that there are so many examples of how the things we take for granted may be different elsewhere. 

There are many, many more examples other than these thirteen, so memorizing them is not enough, and learning the rules is too tedious.

The more important lesson is that with this revelation, we now must develop

active listening and active reading.

That means watching shows and reading material that use American English and then catching any differences from Pinoy English. So if a character or passage says: He ordered a dozen roses, an active listener/reader will right away notice: He said a dozen roses, not the usual a dozen of roses, and then commit that to memory.

Keep in mind that the reason many Filipinos say hollow blocks, green jokes, stuffs, etc. is because they hear other Filipinos use them and assume it is the norm. Their favorite argument is: That's how everybody says it. But 'everybody' is not limited to just the people around you. 'Everybody' says will gonna, but you won't hear a single American say that.

(Americans do have their own errors but they are different from ours. For example, some Americans say axe instead of ask, something we don't say.)  

Incidentally, active listening also works for correct pronunciation. For example, if an active listener hears the names Leonard or Chamberlain, s/he will notice that the first is pronounced LEH-nurd, not lee-O-nard, and the second is CHEYM-ber-lin, not cham-ber-LEYN.

********This is an original composition, but feel free to share******

Growth in Them Thar Hills

My first glimpse of a mine was, appropriately enough, from Mines View in Baguio City when I was a young teen. Having no interest in tacky souvenirs, I chose to spend my time on the observation deck while my family did their tourist shopping. (Me, I was saving my money for the used books on sale at the public market.)

As the cool breeze wafting over me heightened the idyllic mood that afternoon, I gazed idly upon the mining colony in the distance that gave the place its name, and I imagined I could hear the clink of pickaxes on rock. (I had not known at the time that I was looking at abandoned mines . . .)

As I turned to go I saw something that made me think I was hallucinating.  On the side of a large mound not far from the tourist shops was a hole that was large enough for me to walk through standing up. Odd: I didn’t think there were any mines that close. Stupid kid that I was, I went inside.

As I squelched in the mud (thereby effectively nullifying the shoeshine I had earlier) I advanced down a tunnel, all the while fantasizing that I was exploring some cave from my Dungeons & Dragons pencil and paper game. There was a faint light a few meters away and I made my way towards it until I heard voices. Still in my fantasy world, I edged closer to try to listen in on what they were saying without being spotted. . .

Unfortunately, they were speaking in the local dialect, so I decided it was time for me to head back. I wasn’t afraid of being captured by orcs and fed to trolls or even of a cave-in, but more of being hauled off to the precinct for trespassing.

That semi-adventure imbued in me some silly belief that I could tolerate, if not thrive in, a life under the earth. I often fantasized digging some unidentified ore from the cave walls and getting rich off it.

Aside from an occasional mention in our Social Studies class, mining didn’t enter my consciousness again until many years later when I was working for a call center. To establish rapport with my customer, I learned that he was into buying gold. He wanted to know what gold mining was like in the Philippines, and I said something about it being the domain of small miners.

Years later I ran into a former classmate from my Diplomate in Teaching class. She was to meet a fellow teacher who, it turns out, taught at the Philex Mines Elementary School in Padcal, Benguet. My mind returned to that day on the rugged hewn slopes of Mines View. I pictured a rough and ready pioneer schoolmarm with ropy arms and calloused hands amidst those slopes. When she finally showed up I had to conceal my surprise as I greeted her. (I apologize for not recalling her name.) She looked so delicate and tiny – sorry, petite – that a stiff breeze would have blown her away. I felt self-conscious as my classmate and I held our sandwiches while Teacher cut hers daintily with a knife, primly dabbing her lips at every bite.

My friend remarked how Teacher hadn’t changed since the last time they met more than three years ago. “Must be the mountain air,” I piped in, feeling all-knowing.

“But look at me,” my friend lamented. “I’m looking older than my age. The job is okay, but life in Metro Manila will wear anyone out.”

“How is it with you,” I asked Teacher, as my mind’s eye saw her scaling muddy crags and crossing rickety bamboo footbridges every morning to get to school.

As it turned out, Teacher made residence within the same Philex Mines compound. She showed me a small photo album (no Instagram then) of the employee’s residence, a two-storey concrete affair. As I thumbed through her album she pointed out the various features. In addition to the elementary school there was also the Philex St. Louis High School which has graduated more than 40,000 students since it began in the 70s. (Philex Elementary graduated more than 100,000 since the 60s.) Far from being ramshackle structures, they were not much different from the private school I attended in the city. She didn't have to travel very far for other needs, either, because the nearby Padcal community had everything residents needed.

I thought that was impressive enough until I remembered why my classmate was meeting Teacher. They needed to coordinate for Philex’s Adopt-a-School program. In addition to their own schools, Philex assists in the upkeep and rehabilitation of other schools in both host Padcal as well as neighboring communities.

Fast forward to the present. While doing research for the region where I was stationed I happened across the list of Human Development Index in the Philippines. HDI, to put it simply, is a measure of how well one’s needs are met as far as basic necessities go, or as the United Nations Development Programme puts it, is “a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living.”

I expected Metro Manila to be at the top of the list but it wasn’t. The frontrunner, the region with the highest and most complete standard of living is – Benguet! (Data as of 2009/)

Seriously?! All that from strawberries and wooden figurines in barrels? No, it was from Mining. (The ‘perfect score’ for HDI is a 1. Benguet is 0.883 and Metro Manila was second at 0.837).

Here I learned about the so-called multiplier effect, which is basically the benefits that a business generates reaching the surrounding areas. Economist Bernardo Villegas a professor and senior vice-president at the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P), the Chairman of the Center for Research and Communication, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Makati Business Club, reveals that the benefits of mining to national development are not only from the minerals dug up, not even from tax revenues and export earnings. He points out that mining also means employment generation, which in turn fuels small and medium scale industries to cater to those wage earners’ consumption of goods and services. Mining communities like Philex typically have advanced educational, livelihood and medical facilities (Many of Teacher's pupils had been born in the Philex-run Sto. Nino private hospital in Padcal). Villegas compares mining to the outsourcing industry with links to other industries and even infrastructure, (Before Philex, there were no roads and no electricity going to those far-flung communities, Teacher had said.)

To express it in the simplest mathematical terms, said Villegas, for every P1 demanded of the mining industry, P2.60 goes into the national economy. That’s more than double and a half return of investment! Others like Canada, South Africa and even Malaysia have built their industry around mining. We can surely match that. If mining in this country is fully developed, we have a good chance of eradicating poverty and the damage done by this administration and others within this generation!

The mining industry is currently governed by the Mining Act of 1995 which covers all aspects of the industry from taxation to even environmental protection. (I remember one of Teacher’s photos which showed her and other Philex employees participating in their regular greening project. Not only did they perform tree-planting in mined-out areas, but they went so far as to plant in areas that never had trees.)

I was astounded to further learn that the Philippines has the second largest untapped gold deposits in the world. Our little archipelago with all that gold! (Philex mines in Padcal mines both gold and copper. Hardly the small outfit my uninformed mouth blurted out long ago.)

But now there is some tarnish in that golden future. In 2012 President Benigno Simeon Aquino, Jr, signed Executive Order 79 which in effect taxes mining twice. This scheme was the brainchild of the Mining Industry Coordinating Council created by Aquino based on the belief that the 2% excise tax of mining is too little. Despite the name, MICC is actually a multi-sectoral group which includes not only representatives of the mining industry, but also those from non-governmental organizations associated with militant mass action (read, leftists) and cabinet members who are more politicians than technocrats and who have no knowledge of mining.

Predictably, the bleeding-heart leftists played the environment card, and predictably, the populist Aquino administration whose hunger for brownie points is only matched by its lack of technical expertise, jumped at the chance. The environmentaleftists attacks are predicated on the centuries-old tactic that it’s easier to attack the law abiding miners who follow environmental laws (or even those who go one better, like Philex greening new areas) than it is to arrest illegal miners (no longer small-scale with their heavy equipment) who pay no taxes and ignore the environment and are protected by corrupt local officials. With all the energy they expend in protest actions, the radicals have not once spoken out against the illegal miners, their favorite targets being the registered mining companies like Philex, Atlas, Lepanto, etc.. C'mon, these self-styled environmentalists haven't even planted a single tree! Our government totally devoid of political will is only too willing to take this lazy way, too of penalizing the law-abiding..

Executive Order 79 or for that matter, any mining legislation under Aquino only spells disaster for the industry. He blindly believes the radicals' claims of environmental destruction at the expense of - get this - tourism. Tourism in a country riddled with corruption, rotten infrastructure and crime.  

Despite presentations of the industry representatives that the current Mining Act is on a par, if not better than comparable legislation worldwide in terms of environmental protection, community development, workers welfare and yes, taxation, their input was ignored by the politicians chairing the Council and the MICC plan railroaded through.

If there is anything wrong with the Mining Act of 1995, it is that like many Philippine laws, implementation is a joke, particularly in the prevention of illegal mining. And like other poorly-enforced laws, the kneejerk solution is to try to change it with a new law, which E.O. 79 threatens to do.

The plan, the miners say, will only result in taxing the industry to death. (It goes without saying that the illegal miners will remain unaffected.) But before that happens whatever benefits the multiplier effect distributed will wither away under the burden of punitive taxation. The mining industry is in a delicate balance as it is, requiring confidence in long-term investments in a market that could go either way at any time with the vagaries of world metal prices and currencies, among others. The last thing it needs is more taxes.

The leftists don’t really care about increased revenue or the multiplier effect. Taxing the industry to death is exactly what they had in mind. Their leftist dialectic demands the eradication of all private enterprise in favor of state control, which they will inevitably push for once private sector mining collapses. And there’s a good chance that they may get it.

Currently, there is an Aquino-initiated moratorium on all new mining. This and the impending catastrophe of EO 79 caused investors to shun Philippine mining.  The past few years have seen negative growth in the industry. Our vast, shining untapped wealth estimated at trillions of dollars remains hidden under the proverbial bushel.  And while Aquino likes to crow about the supposed increase in Foreign Direct Investments, he conveniently leaves out the part that our FDIs are still the lowest in all of Southeast Asia. Worse, a drop of 71% was noted this quarter.
  
It is the cruellest of ironies that one of the buzzwords of the Aquino administration was ‘inclusive growth’, yet the moratorium and his E.O. 79 threaten to strangle the multiplier effect.

The Chamber of Commerce of Canada has already warned against the passage of E.O. 79, which is now only awaiting Congress approval. It remains to be seen whether the Noynoy administration will finally be our economic Messiah and quash the EO or will it remain true to form as self-righteous Pharisees, blaming all but their own house.

NATIONALIZATION: THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING FROM POVERTY TO DANDRUFF...

Word association test: Does the name Snyder-Gardner mean anything? If you’re an electrical engineer, it might. I am not, yet this name from my childhood resonates in my mind to this day. These were the names of power generating units, and the reason I recall the name so well is because they kept cropping up in newspapers on account of their constantly breaking down. (There was no cable TV or electronic games then, so I did a thing called 'reading'.) This little kid now had a name to which he could attach to the villain responsible for depriving him of his cartoons and physical comfort because of brownouts (another term I learned).

Fast forward to adulthood. I was fortunate to land a teaching job at a private tutorial center. Unlike the classrooms I had attended in college, ours were air-conditioned. That didn’t last long, however. Rotating brownouts, especially during the summer months when enrolment was at its peak, again became the norm, forcing us to open our windows to Manila traffic and trying to get our lessons across through the noise, heat, humidity and dim lighting. There was also a new set of names added to my brownout rogue’s gallery: Artemio Malicsi and Ernesto Aboitiz, both Presidents of the top villain, NAPOCOR or the National Power Corporation. No nightly news broadcast was complete without a video of Mr. Aboitiz standing before a projection screen (no Powerpoint back then) with his omnipresent steel pointer explaining the latest breakdown, to the point that many frustrated power consumers wanted to show him what to do with that pointer.

While the Meralco of my childhood had been run by Eugenio Lopez, Martial Law saw his hurried departure before he could replace all the superannuated equipment. (The Snyder-Gardners dated from the American administration.) The utility was taken over by government’s NAPOCOR. Flush with the victory over political opponents, the Marcos administration funnelled resources to its many cronies while neglecting long-term investment for the power generating sector. Whatever feeble stopgap measures NAPOCOR instituted was no match for the growing demand for electricity. Brownouts became longer and more frequent. 

After EDSA I Meralco, now a power distributor that purchased electricity from energy producers or generation companies (gencos), reverted to private ownership, first to the Lopez family and then to Manuel V. Pangilinan. To aid in his fastrack recovery of the tottering power sector President Fidel V. Ramos signed the Power Crisis Act of 1993. The Act had a bumpy beginning due to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, but the most notable feature was that now the power sector would be dominated by the private sector, from generation to distribution.

Let’s pause here for a moment…

This walk down memory lane only shows that we have not learned from our mistakes, but like the saying goes, we are doomed to repeat those mistakes. Despite the sins of the past, certain sectors, dismayed by rising costs, are calling once again for the nationalization of the public utilities. Not just the power sector but everything else: transportation, water, healthcare, etc.

I like to think that those people pushing for nationalization fall into two categories. First you have the average disgruntled citizen who is unfortunately guided by the simplistic black-and-white logic that if a certain system is unpopular, then scrap it for something entirely different. In the case of electricity, it’s well known that the Philippines has the most expensive electricity in the region, thus the kneejerk response: Privatization obviously is a failure. Let government run it.

The second group of people pushing for state-control do it because it is part of their agenda. I’m referring to the leftist organizations with their moribund 60s-era Communist ideology attempting to pit obsolete dialectic against historical inevitability. Their answer to every ill of society from anarchy to zero-sum economics is Nationalization. High electricity bills? Nationalize it. Poor water service? Nationalize. Trains not running on time? Let the state handle it.

Nationalization is a win-win situation for the leftists. If it works, well and good, we have a smoothly-running society and the leftists gain political capital. But if nationalization fails, then so much the better. When services degrade from government mismanagement, and enough people get angry, and government collapses, our Marxist Red Knight comes galloping to the rescue, moving into positions of power, with all vital industry and utilities all wrapped up in a neat state-controlled package a la North Korea. They are the ones stoking the anger of the aforementioned disgruntled consumers with their displays of militant outrage.

The militants have their work cut out for them; our national character has a built-in hostility towards those considered wealthy and successful. (It doesn’t help that our entertainment media never tires of the cliché of the vile, degenerate rich villain with no redeeming factor whatsoever.) Add to that our crab mentality and you have fertile ground for any anti-capitalism, anti-private sector propaganda. A casual glance at the negative comments on social media directed at privatized service invariably has the blanket condemnation of the rich-are-evil extraction. Period. No supporting statements are provided because as far as the naysayers are concerned, they hold this 'truth' to be self-evident. (Translation: Ah, basta!)

Those promoting state-control like to cite examples of successful nationalization like Singapore, Japan and so on. But one wonders why they cannot cite a Philippine example. I submit that it is because they cannot find a single case where nationalization in this country was successful. If we’re to make a game of citing examples from other countries, then how about Bangladesh’s rail system, or Indonesia’s water utilities, both state-run concerns with reportedly deplorable service?

To be fair, nationalization is not an ogre, per se. It may even work in the Philippines someday. But to institute it at this point thinking it will improve the situation is a cart-before-the –horse measure.

Nationalization has a better chance of success in a society where government possesses political will, with a bureaucracy free from excessive red tape, and most of all, with no more culture of impunity and political patronage. For us to transform ourselves into a society even slightly comparable to the aforementioned Singapore and Japan is a task for which even the description ‘Herculean’ is inadequate. This will involve a 180-degree turn in our national psyche, not to mention the passing of several generations before those changes become part of our national character. Currently, the Philippines is woefully inadequate in these qualities, thus the constant failure of state-control.

(Worse, corrupt politicians make a brisk business out of state-run services.) 

We need look no further than the Metro Rail Transit 3 system (MRT3) as a contemporary example of another public utility deteriorating under government control. While technically owned by Metro Rail Transit Holdings (MRTH), a consortium of private companies, the MRT had its maintenance responsibilities taken over by the government’s Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) in 2012 when they promptly relieved Sumitomo Corp., the maintenance provider hired by MRTH and replaced it with an undercapitalized and newly-formed company. Since then, the decline of the MRT has been unprecedented, culminating in a derailment in August of 2014. The malaise that the MRT is currently suffering can be attributed to those destructive aspects of our society previously mentioned. Political patronage has positioned the President of the ruling party in the DOTC seat despite a lack of a technical background. Impunity has paralyzed the investigation and prosecution of a DOTC official reported to have attempted to bribe a Czech contractor. Finally, total absence of political will has officials all the way up to Malacanang exhibiting appalling indifference for practical solutions, and instead imposing impractical and dilatory ‘solutions’. The Not Invented Here mindset (really a form of crab mentality) is present as they harbor hostility to unsolicited offers from the private sector to clean up their mess, preferring to hire their contractor of choice without bid, confident that no one will stop this blatant double-standard despite the fact that this was the very reason we were saddled by an incompetent contractor back in 2012.

One shudders at the thought of what the future holds if this same diseased government controls every industry and utility.

By contrast, the water utilities sector enjoyed the most successful Public-Private Partnership agreement in this country’s and ASEAN’s history. ‘Enjoyed’ because again, this populist government bent on garnering approval points reneged on the PPP contract which allowed regulated rate increases, an arrangement that had been working well for 17 years. The resulting lengthy arbitration and frozen rates could impact on quality of service.

Simply put, the private sector does very well, thank you very much, until government steps in and contaminates the whole proceeding.

To be sure, government does have a vital role in public utilities. They become necessary in aiding indigent or lower-income groups access to those services. But this only adds weight to the argument for privatization. Management and financing from the private sector of these services would free up government subsidies for use towards not only the poor but for other parts of the country that do not enjoy the same largesse Metro Manila has been getting.

The privatization of electricity and water came about precisely because of the failure of nationalization, and these resulted in the Electric Power Act of 1993 and the Water Crisis Act of 1994.

While brownouts are no longer as frequent as they were in pre-Crisis days, government’s own Department of Energy and the private sector foresaw the recurrence of another energy shortage as far back as 2010, given the lack of new power projects and the condition of aged generation units. Unfortunately, once again, our old demons of weak political will and outright incompetence return to plague us and threaten to bring back the Dark Ages. Regulatory bodies fail to regulate or prevent excessively high prices of electricity in the spot market. Government fails to prepare for maintenance shutdowns announced more than a year in advance. Decrepit power plants normally running on natural gas had to switch to more expensive diesel fuel while repairs were being made. Private sector attempts to set up new power projects are hamstrung for populist reasons and bureaucratic red tape. What new power plants there were had been similarly stymied. Case in  point is the coal-fired power plant in Subic that was prevented from operating in 2012 even before it could produce a single watt of electricity, due not so much to environmental concerns, but to a mere bureaucratic technicality.

With another power crisis looming, the Supreme Court in February of 2015 belatedly reversed the earlier decision and upheld the Subic plant’s permit to operate – three years after its suspension. While the plant is now allowed to open, it will take years for it to not only come fully online but to find investors to finance it, way too late to arrest the coming new crisis.

It is bad enough that we forget the lessons of the folly of government-run services, but it is even more ironic when one considers we are to this day still paying the debts not only for the emergency purchase without bidding of power generators as part of Ramos' fastrack measures, but also the ones incurred by NAPOCOR prior to his administration.

The main objection to the privatization of public services is the supposedly high cost to consumers. Public facilities run by private companies need to turn a profit, unlike a government-subsidized service. True enough, but given the choice between a subsidized service that continually breaks down (and in the case of the MRT, is potentially life-threatening) versus one that is costly but effective, the choice is clear. Quite simply, if the private sector doesn’t maintain good service, they don’t make a profit, thus it behooves them to maintain an acceptable level of efficiency. The private sector may be profit-driven, but a populist-driven government whose only motivation is instant gratification as against what is practical and enduring is more deleterious. Consider, too, the ‘hidden costs’ that come with poor infrastructure in the form of lost work hours, stress, medical bills and additional transportation (like to ferry water as I did in my childhood), and finally, diminished investor confidence. Once people learn to see the correlation, then the choice becomes easier: You get what you pay for.

It would be so wonderful to say: ‘Government can keep the prices low and fix the service.’ It’s always nice to have the best of both worlds, but at present this is not possible. Once we have the political will of Singapore and the sense of unity of Japan, when we have gotten our act together as a people and are able to elect competent leaders under a working system of checks and balances, then that goal is attainable. 

SPi CLASS: Order for my Chaos? (Part I)

Recently my supervisor asked me to attend something with the innocuous name of SPi CLASS few years ago I would have been filled with apprehension: This has to be some kind of remedial class. Are they dissatisfied with my work?

But today I know that isn’t the case. My boss had put me in charge of the team for when he isn’t around, so it wasn’t a question of my abilities. The class, he assured, was preparation for when I and my teammates would be leading our own teams. To be honest, I would have been delighted to attend whether the class was remedial or not.

The reason for this is because our account was formed only two years ago. Thus, operations within the team tended to be a bit informal, to say the least. In the first few months we pretty much made stuff up as we went along. But as long as we fulfilled the client’s requests, then we were all right.

But even with our client expressing satisfaction with our work, something was definitely missing. It’s not enough to be doing the right thing when you don’t even know what it is you’re doing right. The reason was obvious: After all this time of flying by the seat of my pants, albeit successfully, I needed structure. To have a firm and definite direction would do wonders not only for my performance but for my self-confidence Therefore a formal class in developing one’s work performance looked attractive.

I did some digging around for information about this SPi CLASS. Scout out the terrain and all that. The idea of SPi CLASS began when the Training Solutions Group of SPi Global (Solutions, People, Innovation) was approached by PLDT’s Business Offices customer service in October of 2011. The aim was for the group (the name ‘SPi CLASS’ had not yet been born) to train the customer service department of PLDT to the point where its subscribers and clients would notice the improvement upon first contact with customer service representatives.

Recall how one business tattoos itself in customers’ consciousness the way they clap and cry out: Ready to serve! (See? You knew right away who it was.) Well, the signature gesture introduced to PLDT customer service was . . . the handshake! CS reps are trained to welcome people with a hearty handshake.

This made me pause. Really now? A handshake?  Cynic that I am, I wondered if this was one of those voodoo rituals that seminars like to spout, like mindlessly repeating some mantra before a mirror. But the trainers go on to explain that physical touch syncs the customer service rep’s mood with that of the customer’s and builds empathy, declaring: I’m ready for you!

Reinforcing this empathy is another innovation: The mirroring technique, where the rep subtly follows the customer’s actions. Sits when she sits, smile when she smiles, and so on. I must admit out of all the seminars I’ve attended, these were unheard-of techniques for me. Usually, a competency like ‘empathy’ was inculcated into trainees merely on the strength of the trainers’ persuasive powers in showing the importance of the concept, leaving the trainees to develop their own approach. But SPi CLASS’ practical techniques actually led the trainees to discover the importance of empathy on their own, that ‘Well, whaddaya you know’ moment, as it were (More impressive than an ‘aha’ moment.)

Long story short, PLDT was delighted. From an initial contract with the Training Solutions Group sessions for 200 Metro Manila employees, the arrangement grew to include several regional PLDT business offices.

As for SPi CLASS itself, it has its origin in the Leadership Seminar in 2011 led  by SPi Global’s President and CEO Maulik Parekh. Mindful of SPi’s vision to InSPire Success in the field of customer service, SPi’s Training and Development Team broke from its traditional role of keeping its expertise as an inhouse asset, instead sharing their success formula with other industries.

After the success of the PLDT project the program now called itself SPi CLASS and was formally launched in June of 2012. The commitment and dedication of the people behind SPi CLASS was proven by the manner in which they addressed the teething pains inevitable in any new project. The AVP of Training and Development had to fork over his own money to make an advance payment for venue rental.

SPi CLASS next conquest was a group of 22 customer service reps from NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s biggest mobile service provider.

Wait: 22 trainees?

But the more I thought of it, the more impressed I was. That SPi CLASS would endeavour to train such a small number speaks well both of the trainers’ dedication and the elite status of the chosen few trainees. I once trained small classes myself and learned that such groups cry out for individualized instruction. This was only apropos because the main thrust of this four-day SPi CLASS was establishing personal rapport with customers.

For sure, rapport is taught in just about every call center. Despite this, I am witness to many gaffes that make my ears curl. An agent may be facile in the language but  unaware of nuances like cultural sensitivity. For instance, once I encountered an agent preceding her repeated instructions to the customer with ‘I told you…’ which may come across as snippy to customers.

This is not unexpected when one considers that a regular call center training class covers a broad scope like technical, billing and so on, glossing over some other topics like rapport. But a specialized class would make trainees aware of competencies they had heretofore taken for granted.

After the NTT program, SPi CLASS took on a different direction. Rather than serving one company, they held an open workshop for 16 participants from eight different and diverse companies at a Makati hotel. Moreover, in addition to customer service the scope now included leadership and training.

This workshop must have been daunting, to say the least: eight different major business establishments with diverse needs. Instruction had to be all-encompassing, yet remain individualized, the strength of SPi CLASS.

The trainers thus had to think on their feet, tailoring the modules they used to the needs of not just each company but each individual.

Was it successful? Well, some of their clients, a major insurance company and one of the country’s largest telcos, want SPi CLASS to conduct sessions with their own employees.

After having done my research for this article, I wonder if I now possess the foreknowledge that the other participants do not, and how it would affect my attendance. Would that make me more demanding of SPi CLASS, testing the limits of their abilities? Regardless, I knew that I could only benefit from this.

My next section will deal with my personal experience in SPi CLASS.

The EDSA I Example? Think Again.

Today marks the 28th anniversary of the EDSA I People's Power revolution.

It's gotten so that every time we hear of some popular uprising elsewhere in the world, we point to it with pride and say: We helped inspire that.

But if EDSA I was such a success in changing things for the better, why the hell is our country still in the shithole? To refresh our memory (and man, does our memory need constant refreshing), watch the EDSA-inspired movie 'A Dangerous Life'. After you do, ask yourself: Where are they (the protagonists) now? Heroes have become heels and vice versa. Disgraced figures are once more in power and are continuing to win followers. We're all asking (those who give a shit anyway), WTF happened?!

Worse is that this administration (led, incidentally, by the only son of the President that EDSA I installed) uses the recent economic upgrades from  Standard and Poor's, Moody's and so on as proof that government's business acumen is leading the country out of poverty, so screw those naysaying economists.

But what the economists say is that the upswing is due to dollar remittances from overseas contract workers who have despaired finding a good job here. The experts also say that foreign direct investments are on the verge of leaving (or are staying away altogether) disgusted not only by laws hostile to FDIs but by how this government changes the favorable rules midstream, all because of leftist populist pressure that Ninoy Aquino's son and namesake believe is carrying on the legacy of People Power.

(Interesting that PNoy's mother opened Pandora's Box when she set free Communist leaders who are back to orchestrating these populist protests with the aim of bringing down the economy.)

In Cory's time, investor confidence had already started to wane post-EDSA, and those that remained were finally driven off by the massive brownouts that threaten to repeat itself today because of government inefficiency and just plain incompetence in energy bodies like the Energy Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy and PSALM, all led by unqualified political appointees who not only failed to regulate, but drafted hallucinogenic-inspired creations like EPIRA and WESM.

If the Philippines and EDSA I are indeed to serve as a favorable example for the rest of the world, then the international community should also take heed of what happened after the euphoria of People's Power petered out. Witness the chaos that followed the Arab Spring which seemed to assume that matters would right itself as soon as dictators were overthrown. It would appear that they and other popular revolts before them had followed the example of EDSA I a little too well.

Ongoing revolutions in the Ukraine, Venezuela and Thailand should take heed: Don't just think of removing despots. Think even harder on what will need to be done to fill the resultant vacuum. There will be that: Duhh...what do we do now? moment, and without a doubt  the new rulers will be inundated with supporters calling in favors to have a seat of power in the new government, just as the Cory administration was, with disastrous results.

(The fact that we cannot say just EDSA, but EDSA I reveals the continual upheavals in this country, the same reason The Great War had to be renamed World War I. )

The Philippines needs to get its act together. Let's educate ourselves in choosing truly qualified leaders. That way we can also serve once more as an example to the rest of the international community.

Private Sector Disaster Relief: Altruism and Business Do Mix

I was in Iloilo City when Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan hit, but the city itself had been spared. Not so the surrounding municipalities, some of which are just an hour’s drive away.

A few days later I was at the Iloilo Sports Complex packing used clothes and canned food into boxes as part of our company’s relief drive. One of my co-workers cracked that he would stick his picture on one of the boxes. This was a reference of how some politicians were distributing relief goods with their mugs plastered on the packaging or grinning out of streamers at the distribution site, and how these brazen heavy-handed attempts at self-aggrandizement were drawing the ire of the denizens of social media.

This made me think of the relief efforts of both government and private companies. To be sure, the Department of Social Welfare and Development did the best they could, but they were hindered by a system riddled with poor infrastructure and politics.

Then I read of the efforts of the MVP Group of Companies for Yolanda victims. When I was stationed in Manila many years ago I volunteered for one of their relief efforts as a favour to a friend. I am certain that Manny Pangilinan’s face did not appear in any of the relief packages. And why should it? Unlike with politicians, there would be no point.

I brought this up with someone, whose only response was to sneer that big companies use this as a tax write-off. Well, if it gets help to disaster victims, I have no argument with that.

But is Corporate Social Responsibility motivated by pure altruism?

The private sector certainly seeks to improve its corporate image, motivate and retain employees and break into new markets, states a study by IRIN. The same study also says that companies regard disaster risk reduction as an investment essential for the business community.

So there you have it. But the most important questions is this: Is that so terrible?

The problem is that we see any gains by corporations as nefarious activities by blood-sucking, greedy, grasping, money-grubbing capitalists. As a Third-World country, this old chestnut is further inflamed by our entertainment media which inevitably features that cliché of the Wicked Rich villain cackling behind a wall of goons.

The plain truth is that companies need to benefit if they are going to survive. Former US President Bill Clinton said: “We want healthy companies because only they can invest in our communities.”

 If a company goes under, they won’t be much help to the community during times of normalcy, let alone disaster.

Ask yourself: Is ANYTHING motivated by pure altruism? When you dropped P50 into the collection box, did it make you feel good. Some may have done it to gain favors or to assuage a feeling of guilt. We are doing it to serve our own needs, too. Why should companies be exempted? Whether it is a poor widow dropping a copper into the poor box or a major corporation donating a planeload of goods to a storm-stricken people, everyone benefits from helping people out.

The Price of Being the Good Son

The event was a minor one, the circumstances of little significance. Though it happened when I was in high school I remember all the details. I was at a stamp exhibition at Broadway Centrum. It was starting to get dark so I called home to tell my parents that I would be late for dinner. (This was before there were any cellphones.)

That pretty much characterized my  youth. I was Lawful Good, following all the rules as my parents, school and media preached. When one of my siblings erred in their responsibilities, my parents used me as an example of behavior appropriate for a son.

Then the inevitable happened: I got a life. In college I attended more parties and went out drinking with friends. Naturally, by that time I was 'too old' to report when I'd be coming in late. And my parents hammered the guilt trip into me.

And yes, I was guilty: I was guilty of setting unrealistic expectations. They expected me to be the Sonny Boy as long as they were alive. I now regretted that I wasn't a bit more of a jerk back then. Maybe then they would have resigned themselves to 'boys will be boys'.

But alas, loyalty and obedience to family was too deeply ingrained in me. When my father started to get older, he made it clear that he expected me to carry on the business. This, again, was natural. My siblings had chosen to work elsewhere, some moving abroad. I tried teaching at a speech center, but as my father made clear, this was only to be a sideline.

Let me hasten to add that my parents were far from dictatorial. It was my decision to be my father's successor. I could have easily worked as a permanent teacher at some school, but again filial piety made me ride in to the rescue of a business of two generations that could not die.

The result was an unmitigated disaster. The job carried a lot of responsibility, and I possessed none of the aptitude or temperament needed. I continued to slack off until the business nearly went under.

I ended up leaving the business and moving to Iloilo. My brother who handled the Iloilo side of the business took over the Manila main office as well.

Now when everybody was assuming that I was reflecting on my sins, what I was really tossing about in my head was that I was too dependent on letting my parents pronounce what was best for me. I had been a total schmuck to not consider the possibility that my talents lay elsewhere, simply too lazy to look for a different job just because there was one already waiting on a silver platter.

I had always been a lazy weakling, letting others do my thinking for me even though my intelligence was something others said they admired, and not bothering to speak up for myself. (Some would say 'rebel'.) I remember how part of my dad's grooming process was to insist I dress like he did: short sleeved polo shirts, dark gabardine pants and leather shoes. (He would drag me along to shop for these.) When I asked if I could get a long-sleeved shirt he actually got irritated.

Today, I am fortunate to have found my niche, even though I am still paying for my past sins. But now I have learned that if I ever have a child of my own, I will certainly instill discipline in him or her. (As my work mates will attest, I can be a pain of a stickler sometimes.) But I will certainly make sure that he grows up with some guts, to speak out without being insolent. That will mean constant communication with him without badgering him. I will respect his privacy if only because my own are constantly being violated. In short, I will make him WANT to work with me.

Not too long ago, I had to deal with an infuriating person who was lazy, deceitful and totally lacking in personality. Now I realize that my disgust was because I was seeing myself in that individual.

But I will make sure that I will not see that in my child. Because then, he or she will truly be A Good Child.