2006: A banner year for Globe Telecom!

I'm finally home after almost three weeks in the United States. Was it Shakespeare who once quipped, "Parting is such sweet sorrow"? I guess I was feeling sad while I was peering from the plane's window looking at the bright lights of Los Angeles PAL Flt. 103 taking off for Manila. I hate to travel to the United States… that's because I have to come back home. Please don't get me wrong, I believe in that old adage, "There's no place like home". I only wish that coming home to Cebu is like coming to a better, orderly, disciplined and organized city, because that's what I saw in the cities in the USA.

Actually, I made the first part of this column while I was still on PAL Flt. 103 headed back to Manila. It was the first time in almost three weeks that I have seen a Philippine newspaper. I grabbed a copy of the Philippine Star dated Mar.26th Monday. The first big local news I got was about that tragic fire that killed a family of seven in Pardo. This unfortunate incident hopefully should teach people another bitter lesson that if you want your home secured with iron bars, you should make sure that this security device doesn't make your home a fire trap.

We cannot blame the Fire Department for this but hopefully it triggers a kind of effort from the Fire Department to be aggressive in their fire prevention campaign. Constant reminders with the support of local media can do a lot to make homeowners aware that iron bars or grills may keep the robbers out of your home, but it can kill your family. We can only wish that the national and local governments made a more valiant effort to curb criminality. Who would put iron grills in their homes if the citizenry can live without the constant fear that something untoward would happen to their families? This is a tragic incident for us Cebuanos. We ought to learn from this incident. But then again, Filipinos have never been good in learning from their mistakes.

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I arrived in Manila last Wednesday in time to cover the Globe Telecom Annual Stockholder's meeting at the Manila Intercon. Globe Telecom Chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II reported that his company's performance for the year 2006 was record-breaking, bagging a net income of P11.8 billion compared to the year 2005, which was P 10,315 billion. This was quite unexpected given last year's rumors within Globe Telecom that they expected the year 2006 to be a difficult year.

In his speech, Globe Pres. Gerry Ablaza said "2006 was a defining year for Globe as we exceeded our expectations, answering to the needs of the market. Globe invested more than P45 billion in infrastructure in the last 3 years reaching 98% of the Filipino population with 5,884 cellsites." Ten years ago, there would be places we would ride our big bikes where our Globe cell-phones would be useless. That has since become history.

Things have changed a lot, thanks to Globe for pioneering texting and International Roaming. I have not come across a place in this country where my Globe phone goes blink. More so with Globe's partners in the US, T-Mobile and Cingular, which always allowed me to stay in touch with my family back home and text our friends in the US.

During the Globe Presscon at the Intercon Hotel, I asked Mr. Ablaza what Globe Telecom was doing in order to prevent a repetition of the Taiwan earthquake where all Internet connections were disrupted and Internet connection slowed down to a crawl. Mr. Ablaza pointed out that Globe would be investing in new facilities to assure its subscribers that there will be no repeat of that incident last December. What most people do not know is that, even a wireless system like a mobile phone needs to be linked to an underwater cable when they are texting or communicating with someone abroad. With Globe, even its wire line business is experiencing growth.

I also asked Atty. Rudy Salalima about the one-way war waged by the New People's Army (NPA) against Globe cellsites whether it was increasing or decreasing? Atty. Salalima reported that such incidents are on a decline as Globe had strengthened its security in its cellsites. The military upon the directive of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) had stepped up its campaign to stop the NPAs from their extortion activities.

In summary, Mr. Gerry Ablaza said, "All economic indicators are up and inflation is down throughout the country which is good for the Telecoms industry." I can vouch for that. When the economy is doing well, people have more money to communicate with their friends and the more they do so, the more business for Globe Telecom. But can Globe Telecom can break their own record this year? We'll only know this when we cover next year's Globe Stockholder's meeting. But given the performance of Globe Telecom in the past ten years, they have done pretty well. Barring any glitches in the telecoms market, I'm sure that Globe will outperform themselves next year.