‘Kuya’ FVR’s advice
Much is (still) being said about former President Fidel V. Ramos’ assessment of the first 100 days of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte in office. The title of his column in a major broadsheet said it all: “DU30’s first 100 days – Team Philippines losing.”
I watched FVR’s one-on-one with TV program host Lynda Jumilla (“Beyond Politics”) the other night, and was impressed by his candor and bravado. He was critical, but with respect and restraint. He showed no sign of wondering if his subject would be offended.
In summary, he wrote in his column, and said in his TV interview: “Of course, we are talking only of the first 100 days. We do not indicate here a wish-list of our highest aspirations to be achieved in the six years of the President’s term – but only what could have been do-able by P. Digong. If he had hit the ground running instead of being stuck in unending controversies about extra-judicial killings of drug suspects and in his ability at using cuss-words and insults instead of civilized language.”
As if asking to be excused for his unsolicited advice, he said that what he said should be taken like an elderly advice from a brother. “I’m treating him like I was his kuya.”
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Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella was asked for his comment on FVR’s assessment of his boss’s first 100 days in office. “Yes, we listen to him, we respect him but we’d also like to balance his perspective.”
Abella, former church minister, was quoted in a palace release as saying Ramos is a “senior statesman” who is “acting, in the sense, like a father. In fact, Duterte is known to admire Ramos, even mentioning the former president first in his inaugural speech on June 30.
Abella said Ramos’ comments are “worth looking into” but that other ex-government officials have a different take on Duterte and his performance.
He cited Ramos’ own national security adviser Jose Almonte who had given Duterte an “exceptional” rating for his performance in tackling poverty, corruption, and peace and order. Almonte also said Duterte “would make his colorful statements colorless.”
“There are really mixed reactions. While there may be some concerns, we’d also like to in the end summarize the fact that the President is a man of action and really we need to appreciate that more,” Abella said.
In closing, would Duterte listen to Ramos’ comments? Abella said, “The President is a wise man.”
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Unilever has been in the country for 75 years. So it’s likely that one has been using its products, from laundry detergents and soaps to shampoos and hair conditioners, toothpastes, deodorants, skin care products, household clearness and toilet soaps. But not everyone knows that it has an annual sales of over P40 billion and employs over 1,000 people annually.
But while Unilever Philippines is admittedly making money, it is also in step with its sister companies around the world, in its being a practitioner of “sustainable growth,” a term so often tossed around the corporate world these days as the grand vision for any corporate venture.
To make this into a reality, Ed Sunico, Unilever vice president for sustainable business and communication, says the vision of a Unilever Plan is “to double the size of the business while reducing our environmental footprint and increasing our positive social impact in all the countries we operate in.”
At a Bulong Pulungan core group get-together, Joy Isla, corporate affairs project director, talked about three programs that demonstrate Unilever’s vision of sustainable growth, otherwise touted as corporate social responsibility.
The Lutong Nanay Nutrition program, an initiative under Knorr, one of Unilever’s food brands, informs mothers about nutritional values of foods, cooking them, and taking their knowledge of nutrition to their homes. This program was a response to alarming national numbers of one-third of the population of Filipino children believed to be suffering from malnourishment.
The program enjoys a 99 percent success rate, said Joy Isla, with children being taken out of malnutrition, per the evaluation of the World Health Organization.
A second program, Kabisig Summit, teaches sari-sari store owners skills in managing small businesses. Unique to this program is its “kalye-serye” approach, a hands-on method of conducting training sessions in the vicinity of the sari-sari storekeepers.
Aurora Tejada, a certified kabisig since 2013, reports that a lot of changes happened after her attending the first kabisig summit. “I was able to practice separating my capital from personal expenses. Part of my learnings from Module 1 was to save part of my earnings. Every Sunday, I keep half of the store earnings for personal savings and add half to my store’s capital. Since I attended the first summit, I was able to save P24,000. My husband was surprised that I was able to do it even with the small income that I get from the store.”
The third program consists of two activities.
USLP has long been aware of the excessive amount of plastic waste generated in households daily, thus contributing to the aggravation of environmental disasters, particularly storms and floods. Hence its Surf Fiesta program.
Surf Fiesta is a collaboration with Smart Communications and Cebuana Lhullier. Consumers are asked to turn in used sachets (for shampoo, soup, juices, etc.) even from competitor companies, and are given free texts for their cellphones.
The second activity, Sweep, has participants collecting sachets through door-to-door collections. The sachets, turned over to selected sites for a fee, are converted into cement pavers, which are donated to communities.” You’ll be surprised,” Joy told us, “at the volume of sachets collected. What’s significant is that the collectors become conscious about waste and waste disposal.”
Next time you use products coming in sachets, collect them, and inquire from your barangay or sari-sari store about your Unilever award.
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The Supreme Court’s decision to hold off (status quo ante order) decision on the issue of whether to allow the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos’ body to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani drew diametrically opposed reactions: utter frustration on the part of the Marcos family and their supporters, and jubilance on the part of those opposed to the interment on many grounds, the No. 1 being the deceased’s having been dethroned by a people’s revolution on February 25, 1986. I’m one of those opposed to the burial in the heroes’ cemetery.
And I wonder, in case the court’s final decision favors interment, if the former First Lady will build a huge mausoleum on the hallowed grounds.
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