Learnings of "Pinoy Henyo" in Relation to Business and Life

Yesterday, our quiz in Information Management class is that each group will write six terms then one representative per group will be asked to guess three terms from the other group, that was randomly selected by the professor, in a span of six minutes. Each group will draw lots to determine the order of the groups in guessing the set of terms. The game is similar to "Pinoy Henyo" with the twist that the guesser will be blindfolded. The two groups to guess all three words/concepts the fastest will get a perfect score while the next two groups will get a score of 3.5 then the last two will get a score of 3.0. Here is my reflection of the activity we did.

1. You cannot be nice all the time.

One may be thinking that we should be nice to others hoping that they'll be nice to us also as what the Bible says. However in business world, that does not work most of the time. Competitors will and always will be taking advantage of everything. They'll even give you fits even if you are nice to them. In our case, we chose terms that are easy to remember or what we thought are important, but other groups would give you terms that are out of your hindsight. Fortunately, we weren't the ones who encountered the out of nowhere terms that we're asked to guess.

2. If you are going to throw fits, make sure you're ready to receive one.

This is probably why great businesses survive, when they throw difficult things to their supplier/customer, they ensure that they'll be able to protect themselves against possible threats that will be imposed to them and they have an immediate counter against these. In this case, the group who gave the most out of nowhere terms were the ones who guess the terms the fastest since they were able to prepare themselves if they were given a difficult one like what they did.

3. Be vigilant, be prepared.

Sometimes we had a tendency to be laid back on things that we thought we're assured of. In this case, our professor told us a week before that it is an open-notes exam. Probably most people are thinking that as long as you have all the notes, you're going to do fine. However, in the "Pinoy Henyo" it showed that it is not really an open notes for everybody. In fact the ones guessing the terms should actually have studied or know the terms for him/her to guess it correctly. In this case, one should still be prepared for the things even if we are guaranteed an assurance because sometimes there is a hidden clause in the contracts that we're agreeing with.

4. Be confident with your strengths.

People say that do not be overconfident with your strengths because it will backfire. This is true in some circumstances, but in a pressure situation, you have to depend on your strength especially if one of the ingredients to success of a game or project is one of your strengths. Personally I felt that the game is all about strategy, memory and luck. I know luck is not on our side that time since our groupmate had drawn to be the first group to guess. In addition, it seemed that he wasn't that confident enough for him to pull it off. I've been told by my mother and other former classmate of my ability to remember things. In addition, I read the slides prior to the class so I hesitantly told them that I'll do it since our group is quite hesitant to volunteer. It might have been a risky move as your group grade will mostly fall on your shoulders and it might sound a little brash for them, especially in a Filipino setting wherein you are not allowed to flaunt your strengths and if they compliment your strengths, you have to deny or thank them for noticing it. Fortunately, I was able to guess all the three terms before time expires.

5. Setting a trend without patent is a dangerous.

Being a first mover or the trend setter, you should be careful from threats from competitors and patent or copyright is really, really important especially in a competitive industry. If one failed to patent a product, it is easy to copy it because all they need to do is to use your product as a basis and improve it from there. Being a trendsetter, you encounter trial and error and if the competitors saw a strategy that worked in your company, they are going to do it with much more improvement. In addition, no matter how ridiculous your strategy or product is in the eyes of the competitors, they will always follow or improve it once you've proved to them that it worked even if it took you longer to accomplish it.

In our quiz, since I was the one guessing, I had a hard time getting hints from my groupmates since all I got is a "no", perhaps my lack of experience in this game is probably another factor. Instead of asking whether the term is a person, object thing especially when the terms are difficult to be categorized, I went with the strategy of stating the letters of the alphabet hoping that the first letter of the word would allow me to recall the terms easier. The strategy worked, but since I wasn't able to figure it out until the latter part of the game, I ate much time figuring things out. However, the basis of the grades is speed. Since other groups already saw how we fared and figured out our strategy worked, the succeeding groups was able to prepare themselves better and copy the strategy that you did, to the point of abusing it. In some groups, they are already asking the 2nd , 3rd or even up to the 5th letter of the word; thus guessing all the words at a faster pace. But then, in a quiz or game, you cannot request for patent since other groups can say that it was really in their mind, it happened that our group have to go first.

6. A proven strategy can make similar processes work no matter the difficulty.

Creating something is very difficult, revising it is easier. In businesses, once a structure is formed, it is easier to implement it in other areas especially when they are of the same process. It is similar to figuring out how to automate a particular data, then do it for the rest of the data available by improving it. In this game, even if the terms or concepts of the other groups are more difficult than ours, by figuring out the strategy, it is easier for them to guess the word at a faster time.

7. You cannot blame the leader or boss for all the company's flaw all the time.

In business, it is said the leader reflects the attitude of the organization. Yes the leader has a lot of responsibility on his/her shoulder, but it should be taken consideration that the people around or the board chose a leader that they think could lead them. A leader cannot function if his/her subordinates are not listening, following or even have a dialogue with the leader on how to improve their company. In this game, the representative would act as a leader and the group's grade will depend on his/her ability to guess. The representative would not be able to guess the right word if the subordinates or the other members of the group would not participate in answering whether the representative is asking the right hints.

8. Communication is the key.

In a company, even if you have a good strategy in place, if the boss and employees are not articulating their thought to each other or are not communicating with each other clearly, it will be of no use. In our group, prior to the game itself, I told my groupmates about the use of "first half" and "second half" of the alphabet to determine the first letter of the word without blurting out the letters of the alphabet. However, when I mentioned that, they probably didn't understand what I'm saying. Perhaps they were thinking that it is the first half of the session or something else. This is why it is important that you've communicated well even if you are under pressure.

In the end, I might not able to get the highest possible grade for my groupmates, but looking their appreciation for what I did is already a great relief from me since I was able to give all my best in a most disadvantage situation that was being thrown at us. In addition, I think that it's not only my good memory that enabled me to get it though, but also through my experiences as a leader in previous organizations such as quick thinking in finding an alternative to the solution, in this case a strategy of blurting out the letters of the alphabet since it is not restricted in the game. Also, learning from other groups is also important and if ever these kinds of games comes in again, I would be able to figure out on how to improve based on what I've saw and experienced. 

A Letter to the Local Government

As El Niño continues to strengthen in our country, we should be aware that global warming is indeed present not only in our country, but in the whole world. In our country global warming affects us in a way that summer seemed to be happening during mid March instead of the usual late March until early April. In addition, the top places locals visit during summer such as Baguio and Tagaytay does not become much enticing as the temperature is actually warmer compared before. Other effects of Global Warming would be that the soils in the farming is drying up easily, thus the drought in the country's crop which might lead with a shortage of food crops. If Global Warming cannot be prevented, plants, animals and even human could die for various diseases due to the heat stroke.

If we keep on taking for granted the gradual effects of global warming, we might end up suffering the effects and we hope that the damages will not be passed on to the future generations. So upon reading Dr. Nereus Acosta, presidential adviser for Environmental Protection, general manager of the Laguna Lake Development Authority, and the principal author of the Clean Air Act, here are some thoughts he ned that I think could also be applied in relation with our gradual experience of Global Warming.^[1]

1. There's No Economy Without Ecology

Since companies or governments aim for profit, we should put in mind that we should protect the foundation of all the profits that we have - the environment. Without the natural resources that the environment has given to us (e.g. land, air, water), there would be no profit in the first place for these corporations. It should be taken note that if we do not allocate or utilize our resources properly, little would we know that it would be harder for us to recover something that has been damaged already.

2. Metro Manila Is Fast Losing Its Green Areas

According to Acosta, there are only few green areas left such as the Arroceros Forest Park, Veterans Memorial Medical Center, etc. around Metro Manila. As the saying goes, the more trees that are being chopped off, the more carbon dioxide the plants can no longer be absorbed in the air and the lesser oxygen we could inhale. That is why it is said that living in the province is better as these green areas provide clean air for the residents in there, so converting these green areas in Metro Manila in exchange for more property would not be a good idea especially that the area of Metro Manila is already congested with traffic, which cause more pollution in the air. Wouldn't be nice if we get the coolness of an area because the trees protect us from shade and not exerting effort or putting an artificial air just for us to be comfortable?

3. Metro Manila is very vulnerable to natural calamities

By chopping off trees in exchange of building more properties, we are placing ourselves in danger. Because of the effects of Global Warming, we already experienced the consequence in Metro Manila such as Typhoon Ondoy and the Typhoon Pedring caused the sea walls of Manila Bay to crash. Shouldn't this be our wake-up call already that one of the most lauded areas in the Metro Manila cannot overcome the effects of these typhoons?

I know that our country still have hope for a change in a positive way, we can start treating the remaining green areas in the Metro Manila like an endangered place in which we should preserve what's remaining of it. Instead of planting trees outside the metro, it would be possible to do it in the metro even if almost all land are converted to concrete. There is still a way to somewhat improve the air condition of Metro Manila.

Even if it is a long shot, with the group effort and discipline of all the people involved, we can make a positive change for the community so that we can pass it on to the younger generations.

Footnote:

^[1] 6 Ecological Issues That Affect Real Estate of Metro Manila

Where is Justice?

Warning: This is the blogger's personal opinion based on her views and experiences, you've been warned that there might be some form of man-hating or very feminist approach in this page, especially the men of her race. 

We all scream for equality. Women are most likely to scream for equality, but we do know that some men are also screaming for one too, especially when a man seemed to be unattractive as they are usually associated with being a pervert even though they are not. So the question is what were the instances that both sexes experienced injustice in this world?

Society's Unequal Acceptance

Where is justice when it is okay for a man to cheat with somebody else yet for women it would automatically be associated with being a whore? I remembered when somebody argued that women are using the men's money to cheat that is why it is not acceptable in society. However even if the women use her own hard-earned money to cheat, it would be the same thing. In this situation, I remembered a story about how a woman would allow herself to cheat with a married man; and yet if she cheated with other men (thinking she is single and she is the other woman in their current situation anyway), the married man, whom the woman had relationship with, would call degrading names to a woman already.

Various reasons on why it's okay for men to cheat for some people, many thought that it's part of a man's gene to cheat. They say, men cannot help but to cheat, or it is only normal for them to do such thing as it is part of the man's nature and if they don't, they would deem as having gay tendencies. Another thing people say is that men are using their own hard-earned money to use it with other women they're cheating with; therefore, women have no rights to complain about it. However on the side of females, if they intend to do that, they would automatically be associated with being a whore or prostitute, while for men such association doesn't exist - in fact it is an ego booster for them to be associated in one indicating that they have strong masculine tendencies as they had a strong sense of magnetizing attractive women by their side. Even during biblical times wherein women are treated as second class, these men can even have two wives during those times while a woman committing the same sin will be stoned to death. Where is justice?

Masculinity Issues

Where is justice when a woman can't get satisfied no matter how hard the man labored just to give something for a woman he loves? Traditionally, men are expected to be gentlemen, they are expected to pay when they are going to a date with a woman. There are some women who are considerate in terms of knowing that they should not spend lavishly on something, while other women are mostly being thought as gold diggers, which unfortunately is true in some cases.

If a woman's confidence would grow based on the number of her admirers, a man's confidence would grow based on his ability to show off his masculinity such as ability to pay for dinner, etc. The issue in today's world is that because of a closer gap in inequality between men and women, both men and women have an equal pay especially when both have the same level of competence in their respective fields. Before, men have higher pay compared with women; therefore it is only proper for a man to treat the women in dates since the woman would generally end up being a housewife. However, today there are cases wherein men even got a lower pay than women. 

So how would women respond to this issue if they have higher income? It seemed like women need to balance the ego tendencies of men in order to really not look bad in a situation. A traditionalist/gold-digging mentality woman would not consider the man's financial resources for as long as she is being satisfied would not only hurt the man financially, but also his ego if he keep on failing to satisfy the woman's desires, especially when it comes to giving her gifts. This kind of woman would even act like a brat if she does not get what she wants. However, a strong independent woman would insist on splitting the bill as it would mean that they are not gold diggers in the eyes of men, but doing that would hurt the ego of men and these men would think that this woman is inconsiderate of a man's masculinity. 

If a man treated a woman in a cheap restaurant or insist that they split the bill, he is deemed to be cheap. If a man would treat a woman lavishly, he's being viewed as someone who will use his money to buy love for a woman especially when the man is unattractive to women. Where is justice?

Conditional Love and Prestige

Where is justice wherein unconditional love between lovers only exist on one side or none at all? Sadly, most of us live in a world wherein everything revolves on a conditional love. In movies and series, main characters with large socio-economic gap would be deemed as loving each other unconditionally that made people think that such love exist. If the story in the movies/series was mimicked in the real world, would we still have the same ending? Yes, it's still possible but common sense would tell majority of the people that it's not. When a man is attracted to a woman with a much lower income class, even if he is not attractive, common sense would tell the woman to accept the man even if he's ugly because that would be the only way for her family to level up their social status, to get out of poverty. So do we think that the man here would marry the woman because he loves her even if she's poor? It's true that the man is richer so we can say that this man is loving her unconditionally; however, usually women are attractive and men had a tendency to use women as a form of trophy wife or a means to show-off these women to their friends. It's a matter of each one benefiting the other by deciding to be together even if they really do not love each other - unconditionally.

We already heard numerous stories before, specially in rural areas wherein young women are forced to marry rich old men because of economic hardships. Aside from economic issues, there is also prestige issues. Traditions, especially of Chinese ones put a high value of prestige in which marrying someone not of your race would indicate a lost of social prestige and purity of Chinese blood for your children. The pressure is big especially for men as they are the ones who will be carrying the name of their family and a purity of Chinese bloodline must be ensured. Before, things like arranged marriage exist, but even if couples do not really love each other, such infidelity does not exist. 

Sadly in today's world, some Chinese men would only marry a Chinese girl for the sake of preserving the bloodline and not because they unconditionally love them. In addition, I would admit that even though the beauty of each on of us is unique, the physical beauty of a Filipina is really incomparable that of a Chinese; therefore it is not really surprising if these Chinese men have two women in their lives. One is the one they really love, but cannot marry because of parents' disapproval of race difference and only being brought to events among his friends only as a means of showing off on how beautiful she is; and the other is a girl of his same race that is only being show off in terms of family and prestigious social gathering wherein he is showing the world that he is a good man who married someone of his own race and able to preserve the family's pure bloodline. It also proves the man that he belonged in a prestigious class, while still being able to show off the other girl with his friends for ego boosting. 

In this situation, both women deserve more than what they were experiencing. The Chinese girl deserve someone who would accept her for who she is and not just a mere cover-up for the man's family gatherings because she's Chinese. The Filipina girl, or any girl who is not Chinese also deserves more, she should not blame herself for not being Chinese that's why she cannot be with the man she loves. If the man truly loves her, he will choose her no matter what even if it would mean a loss of inheritance from his parents or his prestigious and social life. Besides, we cannot convince all elders to accept inter-racial marriage as a new norm and if one's family are open-minded then they are lucky to have those kinds of people around them. As the idiomatic expression goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too. However, it seemed these Chinese men have best of both worlds by having at least two women by their side and they can use each one like their chess pieces or as part of their wardrobe wherein they would bring the woman that they think will boost their ego and confidence as a man. Where is justice?

What Can We Do About It?

Both sexes are striving for equality. We had a tendency to hold on to something that would deem advantageous to us. For men, knowing that woman can get permitted to cheat would lose their ego and masculinity as having numerous women would mean that they can no longer guarantee themselves that the women they are cheating with are also not cheating on them too. In addition, knowing that a woman can cheat with men would also make the man more insecure as he can be deemed not man enough for the woman that's why the woman cheated. 

As for women, requiring them to split the bill would mean that they cannot use the money to spend for buying things that would make their image better such as clothing, jewelry, etc. In addition, requiring them to do things on their own without the help of the men would mean that women should not act like brats or princesses just to get something that they want.

This is difficult as both men and women have different framework and approach when it comes to gender equality. I think in order to ensure equality, there should be a communication between two opposing sexes and have a mutual understanding on what is right and wrong especially for a man wherein they are permitted to commit cheating in the eyes of public. It cannot be avoided that there will be some kind of condition when it comes to choosing a mate, however by choosing to be faithful to your partner and treat each other with respect, there would be no qualms for society rallying violence, abuse, and inequality.

Women in Society: An Experience of Treatment between Co-ed and Exclusive

Contrasting View of Women in School Setting

Being exposed in Girl Scouting during my elementary and high school years would made you think that you have to do things on your own. However, since I'm in an coed school during these days, principals and troop leaders (usually our school teachers) would make sure that we have some male figure such as janitors or any staff (also a student) from a boy scout organization to assist us whether it would be carrying heavy stuffs or collecting firewood for our campfire in the school field. During high school, I usually perceive this organization as the most lax among the three scouting or military related organizations in our school with CAT being the strictest followed by Boy Scouting then Girl Scouting.

Upon studying in an exclusive school for girls in college, despite the views of people that students who chose to study there are said to be either a tomboy or a too girly type of person that they emphasize more on fashion and being prim and proper. Perhaps what people without real knowledge of how this type of school works didn't know that it enabled us to become a well-rounded students in terms of learning how to become independent and working together as a team without the aid of men (except for music and art students in our school as they accept male students in their programs). I can say that I'm not the typical Scholastican that the outside people would project me to be such as either a tomboy or too girly, but I can proudly say that I'm the ideal Scholastican that the school wants to embody in each and every student in the school. I know I'm not as self-serving as my other co-presidents or peers, but the fact that I was not labeled either of the two extremes (since I'm not a lesbian and I'm not that too girly to the point that when there's no lesbian in the class/group you are always an automatic the person acting as a man in a play/dance or even the ones who would be doing the somehow dirty work like carrying stuffs or doing task that involves getting your hands dirty.), would allow me to be classified as an ideal one, especially I was a member of the college of leaders under Student Council during college.

Effect on View of Insecurity and Inequality

Perhaps this is the difference between growing up in a co-ed university versus an exclusive one. In a co-ed school, some girls would have a positive feeling of being admired by a lot of their male schoolmates. This in turn would allow the men to impress the girl that they like such as treating them or carrying their stuffs. Like during high school, you would know whether somebody is courting someone or whether they are in a relationship or not. Or else, why do those things to a girl if there were no motive right? Of course unless the guy is genuine enough to do those helping with the girls in need of one. In addition, the feeling of almost all girls would talk with you about the guy who is currently interested in you through courtship or would get jealous that you had sets of admirers. By being the center of attention, girls would have the tendency to boost their confidence in terms of knowing that somebody admires them, especially the male counterparts. 

This is where I think insecurity comes in. Women would either don't care or they would think that they are not beautiful enough because they always see their male peers are carrying stuffs or accompanying the girl that these men admire while they are walking alone carrying loads of books and thinking if there is a person who would be nice enough to help them without any form of ulterior motive. I also think that aside from insecurity among same-sex peers, one would also deem oneself as a weak person since one would automatically depend on the guys to carry heavy loads. Even if the woman insist on carrying it, she would be deem as a too independent or have a feminist thinking if she refused the offer of a guy that would be willing to carry the heavy loads even for classroom purposes, which would make her end up giving the load to the person even if she knows she could handle it. 

I'm uncertain if teachers are really concerned with the female well-being or there is really an inequality. I used to remember in high school wherein girls are somewhat limited in sweeping floors since that is the task that students would dodge as much as possible as the task is so tedious. In addition, the cleaning of blackboards and using of coconut shell ("bunot") are limited to males since it's been told that women cannot use it as something might happen to the female reproductive organ if they continue to use it. The fact that the school would almost constrain the women in sweeping floors - to the extent fixing chairs as there seem to be equality on that side, would mean that women are being conditioned to do the household related chores, while men are only limited to cleaning the blackboard, using the coconut shell to remove the chalk dust from the platform and help fix the chairs. Males would take about less than five minutes to finish the task of cleaning the board, while women would require more than five minutes to finish sweeping the floor.

Contrary in an exclusive school, when I entered St. Scholastica's College, my mom knew that my social life in terms of dealing with men would be a disaster as it would cut five years (eventually become six years as I got delayed due to sickness) of my teenage to early adulthood life of having a chance to mingle and understand them. However, she also thought that being in this reputable school would enable me to grow as a person and have a higher chance to land in a good career. In addition, my mom would feel safe as the school would teach the right values and enable us to be raised in a culture that not only allow us to be involved in the community by serving others, but to also impart the necessary values that we need in order to become a well-rounded person. True enough, I improved my extra-curricular, become active member of an organization and had various opportunities to be involved in different talks and seminars that would allow me to become more aware of the current situation in the country. It's just that the difference is, you actually have one less problem to deal with such as your insecurity whether you are beautiful or not, unless you are insecure that you do not get flowers every special occasion since you are in an exclusive school. Additionally, you would not need to be shy towards opposite sex and it would allow you to flourish as person without the need of approval and admiration from men.

Conclusion
In the end, it really takes a balance whether you grew up in an exclusive school or a co-ed. Balance in terms of when there are really things that you can do on your own without requiring the help of a person, do it on your own. Also, when somebody received flowers from an admirer, whether it is same sex or opposite sex, we should not look down upon ourselves thinking that we're not good enough to be admired. Perhaps it is not yet our time and we should keep on improving ourselves not only externally, but more importantly internally as it would enable our good attitudes to radiate towards our external beauty.

In celebration of Women's Month, let us remember that despite there are still inequalities in the world, we should keep in mind that we are in better place than before and all we need to do is to keep on striving for equality, by also treating men equal to us.

Reflection on Service Learning Activity Part 3

This is a three-part series blog entry of my participation in our class service learning as part of our requirements in this course. The three-part series blog will focus on my experiences and reflections before, during and after service learning. To check my first and second series of Service Learning Activity, kindly click here for the first and here for the second.

Painting in Navotas

This was our group's first leg of the service learning activity. In partnership with the Habitat for Humanity, our task here is to paint houses in the community. Aside from our group, we are also being joined by a group from Japan, students from Immaculate Concepcion Academy (ICA) and the MFI undergraduate students from DLSU. When I reached this place, I felt that it was like the community is similar to Gawad Kalinga all over again, except I hope that I do not accidentally paint a light bulb again because of my excitement in using the roller brush during college. I used to do house painting in Gawad Kalinga, so I thought that we're going to paint the external structure of the house, but upon reaching the assigned house, they asked us to paint the interior of the house. Honestly, it was an easy task as we were six people painting one house and only two sides unlike when I was doing this in college there were only three of us and we had to paint two sides of the house exterior since we were assigned a corner house.

As the saying goes, the more the merrier and the easier the task will be completed. We were able to finish the task ahead of time compared with other groups. While painting, we also conversed with the resident of the house we painted by asking their way of living in this area and knowing their family more. After painting, we also conversed with the coordinator of the area and asked her different things from how they had ended up in this place after typhoon Pedring and also inquired other activities that they were conducting in the area. It's nice to hear that the people here had a decent living and the community also have a public library for the children to study. However despite these brilliant sustainability activities that was being planned by the community, we learned from the coordinator that some residents would not participate in activities such as seminar about values and they would just gather whenever there is a gift giving in their community, which is kind of sad. Overall, this is still a positive experience as we were able to discover the other side of the community that we used to see in the city. In addition, similar to what I saw in Gawad Kalinga, these residents also had their own livelihood in which they would sell different things such as food, prepaid load, or even service such as manicure.

Spending Time with Kids

After our morning community service in Navotas, we immediately went to Hospicio de San Jose in Manila as been promised to the organization despite not being credited as part of our community service. Even if we only spent a few hours with the toddlers, all of us enjoyed our time there as it enabled us to take care of them similar on how we are supposed to take care of our kids whenever we are to have one. It was a positive experience especially when I'm quite scared up until now that I might have the fear that I could not handle child-rearing in the future. This made me realize that maybe if you would be able to train your child well, you would not have any much issue rearing the child even if he/she reach the teenage years.

A Day in a Construction Site

This is the last leg of our community service of the same organization Habitat for Humanity, but this time our service is located in Stonewell, Sto. Tomas Batangas. The community is in partnership with Rockwell wherein they would build low cost housing for the people near the area. Based on our queries, the house would cost around 450,000 pesos and the target market are usually the public school teachers. The things we did in the community are shoveling and carrying sacks of sand and stone, sifting sand, assist the workers by transporting buckets of cement for filling the blocks and placing putties to fill in the gaps in the wall.

Doing these things are no easy task, especially if you come somewhat unprepared of the circumstances that you'd be dealing with. Despite the initial advice by one of the coordinators that we must wear sunblock and even offered hers, we all insisted that we could go without one even if we did not bring any sun protection except for our gloves and asking the coordinator for one would seem to be embarrassing on our part. The result of resisting the coordinator's offer? A sunburn on various parts of our body. This experiential activity in serving the community made us feel where the minutes seemed to be hours, especially when we thought we already did a lot of tasks, it also made me realize that we should not take the construction workers for granted as they always make a huge effort in doing these daily activity just to have food on the table for their family. Aside from experiencing what they're doing in a day, it's also nice to see that despite these hardships that the construction workers had gone through, they still managed to put a smile when you see them working. I think this could be the result of the community and the company that is in partnership with establishing a rapport with the workers, in which despite getting meager income, it enables them to work with enthusiasm because these workers were treated with respect, which I think is the most important thing that can be given by anyone for them as it would allow them to appreciate themselves and think that without them, these houses would not be built.

Final Thoughts

Despite the early time we need to wake up in order to do this thing, I was more of looking forward to this outreach as it would allow me to experience helping other people and seeing the smile and appreciation in their faces once again. Also, this is not the usual outreach I've been doing during my college life except for the painting part. It's heartwarming to know that these people appreciate the help that we did for them that day even if it is a little one. I think this service learning allowed me to have life in a new perspective in terms of being prepared such as knowing what situation we're going at (e.g. we are under the heat of the sun, therefore we should bring sunblocks) and realizing how life of being a construction worker was like. We thought that we already labored a lot of things such as carrying sacks of sand and stone, but upon looking at the time, we were surprised that we only spent a few minutes while we thought that we already spent almost an hour already.

In this experience, aside from learning more about the community, it enabled me to also learn more about my group mates and grow together as a person.

Everybody Should be Accountable

There are instances in our life wherein we are always encountering issues, especially the negative ones. In the news specifically in the media, we always hear news complaining about the government is not doing its part in improving the lives of the people and also the country's economy. Whenever we had a calamity, flood or any kind of negative event that are affecting the country as a whole, it seems like we are automatically pointing the blame at the government's poor management of the situation. We always used to do this that sometimes I felt that these government officials either become immune to the people's constant blame against them or kept on swallowing the blame since they felt that they have a lot of shortcomings. I am not saying that I am totally pro government, but when you microscope the situation, are they really the ones solely to blame, especially the president?

The Little Things

It is said the reason there are floods is because of poor waste management, cutting down of trees and all other reasons that might have contribute to this. Yes, it's true that maybe the government mismanaged the waste; but it is also true that there are some people who throw trashes at the wrong places, which had the tendency to go to places that are not supposed to be and caused clogging of the drainage system, which if left untreated might cause floods.

In terms of cutting trees, people would say the government approved of the project just to get an income from big corporations that would build residential and commercial lands so that there would be more people to accommodate to. Maybe they had fault in this since they are the ones agreeing or maybe there are corporations whose aim is to maximize profit and only saw what was in front of them and not what would the future look like if they weren't able to account the decisions they made today. Like what was discussed before by Dr. Hal Urban in our office, there is a consequence or a reward for every decision we make.

When a fault of a person cannot be corrected especially if it was still a small one, it can grow bigger and bigger until it would take a herculean effort in order to stop the damage that has been done years ago.

Similar to Bystander Effect?
I am sure that we all see people throwing trash in improper places. Usually I see passengers in the jeepney will just throw their trash inside and outside of the jeepney instead of keeping it or place it in the trash bin of the jeepney (if ever there's one). People who saw the situation would just either shake their head out of dismay or ignore it. 

I think this can be associated similar to the Bystander Effect Phenomenon, except this is not for emergency situations. In this case, if somebody would commit throwing trash in improper places, would these people dare to inform this person that he/she is doing the wrong thing? This is the problem, we might be thinking that who are we to tell them, or in some cases it is not our business so why tell them? But then, I know that there are some people who would tell them that they are wrong yet these people would ignore them and keep on walking towards their direction.

Reasons
Everybody should be accountable for this, including myself. But then, what makes us prevent from telling people that they are wrong? Why do these people keep on violating rules despite the law indicating that we are not suppose to do this such as throwing trashes in improper places? Below are my personal reasons why we do not either tell them of their mistakes or what caused them to keep on violating the rules.

Reason 1: "Everybody is doing it."
I certainly agree that one way to learn something is to observe. According to the proponent of Social Learning Theory, Albert Bandura, said that "Most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action."^[1] From this theory we can infer that when a child would see that the person who throws trash anywhere get away with it, then he/she will learn that it is okay to do it. So when somebody will scold someone about this, they'll say "Everybody is doing it, why can't I".

Reason 2: Somebody will bail them out
Personally I think the ones who are violating the rules would think that the street cleaners would just clean their mismanagement of mess. Perhaps they are the reason why the flood is not really that much damaging to a certain degree. But then, how sure are we that they could clean everything we threw on the streets in a span of eight hours? Aside from this, what if we threw them in the drainage, would that mean that they have to get the trash in the filthy manhole? I'm sure that even they would not do that since they might be thinking that it is already out of their job description. I also think that these violators knew that somebody perhaps with a obsessive-compulsive tendency will do it that's why they keep on doing it.

Reason 3: Avoid trouble
Usually violators have one thing in common, they are fearless. Fearless in the sense that when you see that what they did was wrong and you dare to tell them, they will just bark at you and tell you that you should mind your own business. I remember I used to tell my classmate when I was in elementary and I got the response such as "Go ahead, tell to the teacher" type. These instances would actually require more people to tell them that they are wrong rather than letting the person be ashamed of what he/she did even if it is the right thing. I also think it depends on who violated it, would you scold someone who is close to you and he/she might not be friends with you anymore if you tell him/her mistakes in front of the people?

Reason 4: Conflict of interest
This is reason why we do not progress as a nation, we usually have these conflict of interest mentality such as telling the person their mistakes would mean a loss of your job or ruin your reputation. That's why some people do not want to interfere because something is at stake and only the brave ones should be admired even if it would mean a loss of their job or lives. Also, there is a thinking of survival in which in order to survive in the society, they should be fearless in being mean or aggressive instead of doing the right thing.

Step Up
They said the more people who go against somebody's action as a group, the more embarrassing it is for the violator and would correct changes. The thing here is why would we always wait for someone to speak out? It's like the bystanders are always playing safe and hoping that there is someone who would speak out on their behalf. Honestly, there are times wherein I used to be the initiator, but other times I just wait for someone to speak out out of my fear based on past experiences.

I used to remember in my fourth year high school wherein our adviser initiated an open forum due to our Physics teacher being upset at us for the reason I forgot. I was called by my adviser to stand up and tell my reason why do I think this is happening. I know during my fourth year high school, I am usually the person that they would be scolded by my classmates in front of the class or privately being laugh at for the reasons that I don't know until I'm being told by my classmate about it. So since I'm pretty sure I'm not at fault for our Physics teacher's anger, I bluntly said that I think the class is not united. I know that most of my classmates have been together for 10 years since it is a star section. but then you will see that you would rather be in a regular section than to be in a star section because of all the lack of sincerity among them and they would belittle people who do not act like them. For one I do not really keep up with them in terms of their lifestyle and way of thinking. After mentioning that, my adviser asked the class who agreed with what I said. To my surprise, people did raise their hand because if not, I'll again be ending up in the laughing stock by these same people who are telling unpleasant things to me. I don't know if it's because there is an authority which made my classmates feel safer to respond an uncomfortable question or they just waited for someone like me to speak out.

To conclude, yes everybody should be accountable on what's happening. At the same time, we should know that people do have unpleasant experiences in speaking out against violations. It is up for the brave souls to do the right thing and by standing up, bystanders will eventually follow. There is still hope that people will change for the better.

The Tree

Footnote:
^[1] Social Learning Theory

Reflection on Service Learning Activity Part 2

This is a three-part series blog entry of my participation in our class service learning as part of our requirements in this course. The three-part series blog will focus on my experiences and reflections before, during and after service learning. To check my first series of Service Learning Activity, kindly click here.

An Eye for Humanity
In my part 1 reflection, I mentioned that I would call the White Cross Orphanage as our target beneficiary for our service learning activity. True enough to myself, I did call them. However the requirements that we need to comply coupled with the location and the amount of time required for the visit would not suffice the objectives of our class. They mentioned that we are only allowed to visit their place for two hours only. Aside from this, my former college classmate and my parents mentioned that we might try to contact Hospicio de San Jose as it is more feasible for all of us in terms of location. I did call the place and similar to White Cross Orphanage, they only require us to visit them for two hours only.

Aside from trying to target orphanage, I kept my eye on Habitat for Humanity Philippines even before Leann would then confirm the initial plan of doing a CSR activity in their company. Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit organization that focuses on providing Filipino families a decent home of their own. ^[1] Since Leann mentioned that we could no longer do CSR with their company due to the company's rescheduling of outreach activities, I informed her about Habitat since I know that this is a non-profit organization in which I know that would be agreeable to all. Fortunately Leann was willing to communicate with the said institution and I'm glad that she was able to schedule us an outreach activity.

Although Habitat only allowed us to serve the community for four hours, we thought that it was already enough to suffice the six-hour service learning by splitting our time in Habitat and Hospicio de San Jose.

Torn between Convenience and Purpose
Sometimes people have a tendency to look what is in front of them, perhaps a sign of a desperate attempt just to get the job done. However, there are times wherein we are already not meeting the objectives, that is why it was a good thing that there is a proposal and our professor is there to approve it. As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure.

Our professor approved our service learning in Habitat, but not for Hospicio. She mentioned that we need to have a sustainability project for our target population. Honestly, I know that we should make a sustainable project, but then like what I've mentioned, a desperate attempt on my part to get the job done blinded me of the real purpose of this activity. In addition, I know that our target population, which are the toddlers aged 1 to 3 years old cannot be taught sustainability activities. What could these toddlers do to help the community wherein these children need more constant guidance and not one time activity and allow them to learn from there? Again, it was a sign of prioritizing convenience without thinking of the real purpose of this activity.

Promises are Not Meant to be Broken
The good news is Habitat had another activity which would allow us to complete the six hour service learning that would be split in two different days. However, since I need to call the hospice to reserve a date of our visit in order to pass it in our proposal paper, which eventually got rejected, I was torn whether I should try to get away with it such as breaking a commitment, convince my fellow groupmates that we should attend this even if it won't be part of our six-hour service learning or just do it myself and shoulder the said materials (e.g. shampoo, soap, etc.) that would benefit the kids.

Fortunately, I was able to get an agreement among our groupmates that we would agree to still visit the children since I was able to voice out my concern such as informing them that we had to commit to a date before we mention it on our proposal papers.

Gratitude
We are informed that the group's contribution in the Habitat is to paint houses in Navotas and we are assigned to bring 2.5 gallons of white paint. The group encountered multiple dilemmas and the main problem of our group is how are we supposed to bring the paint from point to point without using train (fastest route and they do not permit carrying of flammable materials) or waking up earlier just to bring the paint on the meeting place (our meeting time is at 7am in the morning and my father would not allow me to carry 2.5 gallons of paint)? I've been trying to rack my brain on finding different ways to achieve this goal by delivering these gallons of paint. Thankfully, one of our groupmates Ryan offered his car to be used to transport all the materials that we need, including the donations that we would give to Hospicio de San Jose. Ryan's offer actually solved all of our problems since it would be easier for us to transport the goods with me buying all the stuffs that we need and him picking it up a day before the activity. We are all grateful to what he did since if not for him we might be wondering how are we supposed to deliver it to the destination.

As the saying goes everything has a reason. It is just that there are challenges that are trying to test us to see if we are still strong enough to believe that we could achieve a certain task.

Now we are ready for an adventure in Navotas, Manila and Batangas!

Part 3 Click Here

Footnote:
^[1]Habitat for Humanity

The Bully, The Oppressed and The Indifferent: A Personal Reflection from Enron Incident

After watching the 2005 documentary of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, I was able to reflect a lot of things pertaining to various aspects of the said documentary. In this film, it showed how the company had risen from manipulating financial data and fell when they could no longer find any measures to stop the bleeding of the company's accounting fraud. This story actually still applies up until today. Based on my further readings about this issue and other bankruptcy-related issues, it was thought that Enron had the worst financial collapse but companies like Worldcom and Lehman Brothers had more troubles in terms of the amount of assets that's been lost.

THE BULLY

Survival of the Fittest: A Darwinian Theory

When Jeff Skilling decided to apply what he'd experienced during his MBA in Harvard University in which 15% of the people will be graded either a low pass or fail.^[1] He did this in Enron wherein they have their annual performance review system in which employees are being rated from 1 to 5 with 5 being the lowest. In this scheme, 15% of their employees have to be graded a "5" even if they performed exceptionally well. Skilling said that this enables to weed out the under-performing ones and kept the remaining ones to be more competitive. 

However upon watching, I realized and asked myself that how could the company be able to sustain this for a long time? In this case, it meant that employees are required to be competitive and not help each other in order to stay in this company since helping them would mean that they might be the ones that would be weeded out. So if this is their mentality, there is really no way that the company would be able to sustain this since the continuity would be lost, which actually reflected in their real financial profits. Instead of fostering a healthy environment, in which the colleagues would be able to interact with other co-workers harmoniously, they are making the environment a hostile one by knowing that if they do not perform well against their peers, they will be weed out. I understand that companies must put a quota or a basis for performance in order to avoid having free riders; but then, having a quota would mean that employees will compete with each other in order to get the said sale or transaction. I think there should be a balance between this two things, if all of the employees indeed did perform above the company's expected results then nobody should be weed out for that and vice versa.

This scenario is especially true in salespersons in a store. Perhaps they have a quota that they should reach in a day, it is just that they may not be weed out for failing it and instead being rewarded for exceeding it. In one instance, I was looking for a pair of shoes, the saleslady indeed assisted me at first; but when I was about to ask for a new stock, she was nowhere to be found and I decided to look for another sales person to ask for a new stock. A salesman assisted me by looking for a new stock and when I decided to purchase the shoes at the counter, the saleslady who first assisted me then went straight to the cashier and told her that the shoes that I bought should be named to her (perhaps in terms of number of shoes sold), then the salesman showed up and told the cashier that it is supposed to be his and even wanting me to verify that he's the one who assisted me in choosing the shoes.

Cheating and Greed: How much is too much?

My college Filipino teacher used to tell us that it is better to kill than to steal. I was wondering what made him say so where in fact the punishment for killing is heftier than that of stealing. His reason was that a person do not have any excuse for stealing. A person cannot say that he is poor that's why he stole since the victims would also say they are also earning for a living; however a person can somehow defend himself that he killed the person for self-defense if he/she was really being abused.

It is really true that love of money is indeed a sign of greed or sin, which is why it is not surprising that greed is one of the seven Cardinal sins. How much do the Enron executives need to earn in order to be satisfied with they money they are receiving? How much higher does Enron want the stock price to go up despite their schemes almost being unsustainable in the first place? How many times they have to let their morals be compromised in order to have personal or company gain? 

We all know cheating is bad, there was even a saying by some students that it is better to cheat than to repeat. I also heard one of my classmate somehow said that she does not have any conscience by committing cheating anymore. From a financial and time standpoint it is true that you have to cheat in order to pass so that you won't spend another year just to finish a particular level and save money; however, a person's moral standard has been tainted or there is a conscience on the part of the offender. In addition, if a person kept on having a mentality of thinking that they are only committing a small crime and they are not harming the majority; then we would have a problem in which a series of small problems can lead into bigger ones until the habit kept on compounding and compounding, which will now be in a form of greed that you cannot live without it.

I personally think that we really should practice proper ethics and hope that we still have a conscience left in our hearts so that we can still humble ourselves and admit to God our sins. In addition, let us not allow ourselves to let a small sin taken for granted as we all know we might never know that disregarding small sins are already starting to become a habit, which as we know is difficult to change.

THE OPPRESSED

Sadistic Approach

A sadist is said to be someone who loves to see people getting hurt. In the Enron incident, we saw some executives are happy that they are weeding under-performing employees. Like the saying goes, when the lower ranked employees saw how their bosses project themselves, they too would be like them. In the documentary film wherein they know that the State of California is suffering from energy crisis, the traders took the opportunity to earn more profit by telling the power plant operator to shut it down in order to force the consumers to pay more for the electricity. These continuous instance made traders to become sadistically happy about it by hearing the citizens scream of fear and even saw forest fires due to summer heat, etc.

What they did there was actually very alarming since they did not care how many people would be affected by their evil plans just to succeed with their task. People of California were suffering during that time and it was like the screams and fears seem to be a music to the ears for these executives as they know that they would gain more profit because of an artificial shortage of power that's been caused by them.

Aside from this, the executives are encouraging their employees to invest in their company through buying stocks. Little did this people know that they are investing in a company that sooner or later will go into bankruptcy. It was just sad that this people put their earnings into something that would be of no use to them since they believed their executives are doing these things for the benefit of the majority.

THE INDIFFERENT

Brave Souls

The world is not really a polarizing place, it is just that we would need people who are brave enough to see and to fight that there is really something wrong with a certain situation. These people are said to be the indifferent ones as they had opposing views from the majority. Also this people are willing to take risk by facing the consequences of their action by doing what is right.

Such issue is when Enron starting to become the darlings of the Wall Street in early 90's, most analyst kept on recommending a "buy" on Enron except for John Olson, who thought that there is no way the company would keep their earnings that high. This made the Enron upset about Olson, who was working under Merrill Lynch, which Enron eventually made Merrill Lynch fire Olson because of not following the trend of the other analyst.

Eventually, another analyst saw an eerie trend in the company's financial statement that was discovered by Jim Chanos and assisted by Bethany McLean, a former writer of Fortune magazine who dared to ask Skilling a simple question such as how does the company earns money? There is even one analyst, who forced Skilling to lose his composure during the conference call, by asking they are the only company who does not report balance sheet and cash flow, which are one of the bases to determine the health of the company.

Lastly, Sherron Watkins, who is the whistle-blower of Enron took a risk by telling the truth to the public despite knowing that she would lose her job or might be charged with libel by Enron executives. She should be admired here as she bravely told everything the stakeholders need to know. Even though it already caused a lot of people, especially the employees trouble, at least she was able to raise her concern immediately when she found out that there is something wrong with the company's financial statement.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This situation should serve a lesson for all of us whether we are directly affected or indirectly. We do not need to experience these things just for us to realize the lesson behind it. Up until today, we know that there are a lot of companies that are still violating ethics in relation with providing accurate accounting data. Perhaps this is the result of the poor government rules and regulations that forced the companies to find a loophole in a situation. In the US, because they are charging high taxes for corporations, US based companies like Pfizer who are in talks with Dublin-based Allergan for merging so that Pfizer would have tax inversion in which they will mention that their headquarters is based in  Ireland not in the US. ^[2]

In the Philippines, foreign investors do not want to invest in the Philippines because of the tedious requirements of applying for business permits. Businesspersons who are managing a small store cannot keep up with the demands of the government due to the demand of wages and other benefits such as SSS, PhilHealth, etc. Aside from this, the government sometimes accuse of businesspersons that they are not filing the right tax. The problem here is that what has been taught in school is not the same as what is being applied in the real world. I used to remember when I answered my accounting professor's question and he would say it is "theoretically correct", then he would explain this is what the government is doing. Also, if there is someone who is willing to learn how to compute the right taxes, the government does not give the answer and instead want the bribery for their personal money. The person not only lost more money due to unethical practice, he/she did not learn anything.

I really think that this goes both ways, if the government indeed want to stop corruption and force the employees to pay the right taxes, perhaps they should tell them what is the proper computation or lower the taxes to encourage businessmen to open more business so that there will be lower unemployment, reduce poverty and eventually improve the economy as a whole.

Footnote:

[1]Jeff Skilling's Philosophy

[2]Pfizer Allergan Deal is a Tax Inversion