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

Contracts and Promises

“Contract is a meeting of the minds between two contracting parties whereby one binds himself, with respect to the other, to give something or to render some service.”^[1]

During college days, our Law professor, Atty. Amor Robles, would ask us to read a series of articles from Obligation and Contracts up until Negotiable Instruments in a span of four to five months which would make us nervous every time we are to recite hoping that we know the articles she would ask by heart. Despite the nerve-racking experience we had, I know that she taught us a lot of things in this subject, especially asking us to remember the first quote by heart. I would not have trade that experience of her teaching us as I know that she is one of the best law professors that could teach us to understand the concepts and terms.

“All contracts are agreements but not all agreements are contracts.”^[1]

Let's talk about contracts, they come in different forms such as terms and conditions, rules and regulations or any other contracts that are agreed through formal signing, and sometimes to the point that we confuse them with agreements. However according to my second quote from Hector de Leon's Obligation and Contracts book, contract is agreed upon, but not in binding. I think it is proper that we should not believe into something unless there is a proof of agreement.

A perfect example is elections, especially as we are about to vote in two to three months time. Politicians would usually give promises, which we as masses agreed upon by believing that their platforms had good plans in improving the economy; however when we voted them, most of the time, they gave us false hope that they would fulfill it. Few days ago, a news from Gigi Grande of ABS-CBN news^[2] showed in KampanyaSerye edition of the party-list in which there are some party-list either did not create bills or created bills that are not directly related to their target population.

Another example of agreement that may not end up into contract would be some men with "id mentalities" promising women "the ring" by sweet-talking them in order to get what they want which is usually in a form of sex and when the women gave in to men's short-term desire and believing the men's everlasting promise, they will just be left into dust once these men got the woman's purity, which I think caused families to be broken and for most people, whether men or women, to believe that humanity cannot be restored. 

Terms and Conditions: Have we actually read them by heart?

Sometimes we felt that reading contracts is such a nuisance from reading terms and conditions, warranties, etc. Most of the time, we are actually lying that we agreed to read the terms and conditions because of a very long contract that we need to read, especially we are so busy doing a lot of things. 

Example of it are those bank's terms and conditions. Aside from the contract being long, it is also too small that would make the eyes of the people tiring whenever they read it, especially the elderly who will not have any patience by this time. Bank companies might contest that they need to save paper for environment purpose and to save money. For the point of view of the clients, do we devote our time to read it instead of doing tasks that are immediate and deemed to be more productive? Will the benefit of reading the whole contract outweigh the possible fortuitous events that would go against us, even natural or sudden death?

Such instance is when the cars that had been affected by typhoon Ondoy^[3], owners were shocked that their cars are not covered by the insurance companies because they have not read in the contract that the companies would not cover 'acts of God', these owners were not able to brace the consequence and might accuse the insurance companies that they were being mislead by it. Personally I think the best way to satisfy both sides is to still make that terms and conditions, but summarize the important things that are being highlighted by the said condition because not all of them are that important or that damaging in the part of the client.

Footnote:
^[1]http://www.scribd.com/doc/7501215/Contract-is-a-Meeting-of-the-Minds-Between-Two-Persons-Whereby-One-Binds-Himself#scribd

^[2]REPORT CARD: Would you vote for these party-list groups again?
^[3]Review 'acts of God' clause in car insurance

Reflection on Service Learning Activity Part 1

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.

My Personal Dilemma 

Upon learning that we are required to have our own service learning activity, I knew that I had a lot of ideas as what I've mentioned one of my previous blog entry.^[1] However the problem, even during my college days, was where do I find a place to have an outreach? I know it seemed to be weird in terms of thinking that there are millions of people who would need our help. I felt that it is so difficult to find any contact even if organizations are already posting their contact details. Honestly, I do not know if is it because I just do not have the courage to inquire or to deal with people, which I know it's not my forte up to this point. I knew I did became a president of an organization, but I do admit that without my co-officer's help, I could not get our organization going. I was blessed that my Outreach Liaison Officer is so dedicated to her work that frankly it was easy for us to conduct an outreach activity that is unique such as conducting seminars for the custodians of the school.

Fortunately, one of our groupmates Leann was able to work in a company which does a quarterly outreach. She mentioned that the company does medical and dental mission in partnership with Makati Medical Center. I'm looking forward for this outreach as it would be a different kind as I'd gone with the usual and typical outreach. Of course we cannot just barge in joining other company's outreach without giving something in return. In this case, Leann suggested that we are to sell pastries as part of our fundraising. When she mentioned that I was somehow trembling deep inside thinking nobody would buy the product since my colleagues would like to get it for free instead. Perhaps this is the result of my thinking that I'm not good at selling products or not assertive enough to sell one even if I know the product that I'm going to sell is for a good cause. It was like I could not sell to save my life that is why I never really dared to enter into the Marketing field. In addition it's like I would like to tell my classmate, can I be the one who will purchase it, even if it would mean I would spend more then I would give it to people for free since I'm going to do it for a good cause anyway?

Renewed Hope

What I thought would be a smooth flowing outreach activity headed by one of our groupmates, we learned that the company rescheduled their outreach activity in which the said date would not make it before the term ends. Knowing this, I felt that we have to get back to square one in which we have to find another place to have an outreach. I did try to look at a lot of outreach activities that is either accessible or easily to achieve without too much commitment. I know this seemed to be uncaring or just getting the job done. However, I should also be aware that we should keep our words, especially all of us are working and we have various sets of life roles to fulfill.

Upon looking at the outreach activities, I know that I should eliminate possible place to outreach that required a long-time service or would only accept donations without us conducting the service itself. With this, I knew that the only hope I got was to target an orphanage. 

This is where my hope was reawaken. I happened to browse through my news feed on Facebook, when I saw a post of one of my former classmates in college spent her birthday in an orphanage called the White Cross Orphanage. When I saw the pictures, I was amazed that she was able to do that alone. I know a lot of people are already doing this on their birthday, but the number of children she catered to was astonishing for me. I may not know the level of her financial status, but I am sure that she made an effort in putting more money and time to make these kids happy. I told my fellow groupmates if she could serve 61 kids all by herself, why can't we? So this is the time that I messaged my classmate and inquired about her outreach. Fortunately, she was able to message me back by giving me the contact details and informing us what we need to do. I felt so blessed that God used somebody as an instrument where she was able to meet the criteria that we need such as accessible location, a service that would not require too much commitment in terms of time and a target population that all of us would like to cater to.

The question now is, would I get back on my old self by inviting fear into me or should I gather up my courage to speak to the contact person for the group?

Part 2 Click Here

Footnote:

^[1]Introduction

Reflection of Economics and Ethics in the Market

In economics, there are four kinds of market structure: Monopoly, Oligopoly, Monopolistic Competition and Perfect Competition. In addition to this there are three major stakeholders involved in this kind of market: Buyers, Sellers and the Government. The buyers and sellers would like to have a preferred Market Structure over the other; however, both  of them do not have the same preference. The preference of one is the dislike of the other. However, this should mean that a preference of the said market structure should also ensure that all stakeholders, including the government, should not take advantage of the situation for their personal goals.

Sellers' Dream Market Structure: Monopoly & Oligopoly

As one of the laws of Economics would tell us, the fewer the supply, the more demand would there be, which would eventually lead to higher pricing of goods and services. Personally, I think this is the ideal view of every business person, to be in a position wherein they could control the price on their free will. Aside from having the price control, they also have the control on the manner they handle the service and/or the quality level of products they are selling to their customers. Not only these things that this kind of structure would do, they also could envision the goal of maximizing profits in which when they felt that the demand seemed to be low, they can have the tendency to cut production in order to spike the demand artificially. However the question is, how much is too much? Perhaps a price may be said to be justifiable for one, but not justifiable for others. 

An ethical businessperson would ensure that the price would be just for all the markets involved even if they are the only one who are providing them. But then, even if they think that it is just, a consumer's mind would think that the said firm is still cheating since they do not have a comparison of the said product. On the other hand, an unethical firm would likely to take advantage of the situation as they knew that they are the only ones who they can be depended upon by the consumers. 

Examples of these are the ones that been told by the elderly which are the utility companies such as Meralco and PLDT wherein they've been told to us that before the service is next to horrible in which it would take these firms a long time before a service is being rendered. In addition, I think this still applies until now. Despite PLDT having competitors, the prices is still expensive compared with other countries wherein the market competition there was so intense to the point that they are already having price wars and revealing the competitor's name through their advertisements. Aside from the consumers not having any choice but to swallow the high price of the products and services, firms are trying to find ways to ensure that the government would not allow any form of entry from other countries stating reasons such as foreigners might take over the country in which the consumers would be taken advantage of eventually. I personally think that they knew that once these established foreign companies would get in the market, not only they could not compete in terms of the price, they might not also compete in terms of quality of products and services. The masses knew how much of a threat foreign companies are, that is why the existing firms that are under oligopoly would really stop it from happening. 

I think this is where the government should interfere in a justifiable manner. While it is true that an invasion of foreign firms would really make the Philippine market suffer to a certain degree to a point that all of our products and services would eventually become a foreign-based instead of local. I agree with the government's rule that a corporation should entail at least 60% of ownership from locals in order for the foreigners to dominate the country. However, government should become fair and just in terms of not accepting bribes from the Oligopoly companies for the good of the countrymen. Masses would like to know the truth. The fact that these masses entrust themselves to the government, the government should do their part in ensuring that the interest of the masses are protected. With government interference such as regulating the price of the products and services of the firms involved in this market structure, the company that is following ethical principles would not be accused of cheating the masses as they know that their prices is being regulated by the government. In addition, by consistently providing the needed products and services by the consumers, they would not be questioned by the buyers.

Reality: Combination of All Market Structures

We cannot put blame into something that utility companies are usually labeled as either Oligopoly or Monopoly and the rest of companies being in monopolistic competition in which it is so intense among competitors. I think that is why government should interfere in the firms that belonged into either Oligopoly or Monopoly to ensure that the consumers are getting what they deserve.

The ideal world for all stakeholders involved would be the perfect competition. This is where there are a lot of buyers and sellers. Also, consumers can substitute a good whenever they felt the quality fell short or become expensive. Aside that the buyers benefit from it, sellers can also benefit in this kind of structure even if it meant that there are a lot of them competing with others. If this structure would be compared to a monopolistic competition, they would fare much better as they can still have decent profit without losing their economic profit by having a healthy market share.

Sadly, the world is not perfect. There is not a single example that exemplify a perfect competition. The nearest it can be compared to is an agriculture. However, by ensuring that firms are honest and truthful in terms of selling their products and services, the buyers would not feel that they are being cheated; at the same time, the government would not spend a lot of their time investigating pertaining to the cheating manner that firms have been accused of. By following all their respective principles in a positive manner, the world will be a perfect place. Pure competition may not exist, but by ensuring that there is a fair treatment among all stakeholders involved, this will be a better place to live in. 

Organization Ethics

Way back in the old times, the goal of every business is maximizing profit. This goal is written in every financial book one could find. I personally encountered such instance when I was still in college studying Finance. Whenever we are about to do a fund raising or any other kind of activity that involves selling a product or services, elders will always teach the children to make sure that you will sell a product more than how much you bought it. The mentality then was to sell anything as long as you would be able to sell it at a price higher than you originally bought no matter whether it might affect people negatively or not.

However, as time goes by, ethical considerations are given an emphasis or in other times in the same weight with the goal of maximizing profits. This story^[1] is actually the beginning of my wake-up call in terms of taking consideration of preserving the environment. My Ecology professor showed a PowerPoint Slide on what would happen when we fail to preserve the water. Despite the water being said to compose 75% of the earth, if most of them is uncleaned, it would be useless. Examples of companies that encountered profit and ethical dilemma are Philex Mining (PSE: PX) pertaining to the Padcal Mining issue.^[2] or the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill that was operated by BP plc.^[3] We are all aware that mining and oil are one of the most profitable business but because of greed or carelessness on the part of the companies involved, instead of these companies using their revenues to improve operations, the money would then proceed to litigation and goodwill expenses which might affect their profit and reputation in the long run. It is really true that a company that put a huge emphasis on their ethics are more likely to succeed as people would look up to them and to the point they will be endorsing their product through word of mouth.

School Exposure and Realizations

Upon joining an environment organization in college, I was actually more aware that profit (from business perspective) or increasing the organization's funds through fund raising (from an organization perspective) is still the main focus, but one must look out on how the organization would achieve the maximum profit without compromising their ethics or the organization's stand. During one of our organization meetings, it was discussed in the meeting that there was a beverage company who was willing to sell products in our school during our organization's 'Org Week' with a portion of the sales be given to the organization. Since our organization is an environment one, the Associate Dean of Student Affairs told the then officers that they cannot allow the said company to sell products during the 'Org Week' as it would not define who our organization is since the company's products contain chemicals, which is harmful for the environment, at the same time in terms of the health of the people. With these kinds of experiences I'd encountered before, I am now more conscious in terms of decision making when it comes to fund raising or doing activities that would not affect the stakeholders negatively. I'm fortunate that aside from being part of the organization that promotes to be environment conscious, the college I graduated from gave emphasis on this issue and ensure that whenever we are to make a fund-raising, we have to ensure that the said products and sponsors exemplify for being environmentally and ethically conscious.

During my stints holding various positions in the environmental organization I'm in, it is sometimes frustrating that you do not have the luxury like other organizations wherein: 

1. We are not an academic organization that asking for payments is almost impossible as we should take into consideration that the members we had were already required to pay for their acquaintance party or any other activities that academic organizations required them to participate in. 
2. By living with the organization's principles, we cannot afford to spend lavishly unlike other organizations and we are to work based on our limited resources.
3. It takes luck to have someone who knows how to do financials at the same time is honest in terms of transparency of financial reports.

With these obstacles, it is really quite tempting to really find a way to improve an organization's financial position without compromising on ethics. There was an instance wherein the then president told me (as an incoming treasurer) that there is money left during the previous school year and I have to get it to the outgoing treasurer. However, I was told by that treasurer that the balance at the end of the school year is zero. Honestly, I find it funny that I used to tell my mom during these years that when I became a treasurer, I have to literally start from zero as the outgoing treasurers during my two stints did not give me anything and when I was to turn over the money to the incoming ones, they can start with some money. I'm not sure if these treasurers were telling the truth or they took advantage of the majority of the members' lack of knowledge when it comes to financing (most of the members are mass communication students; therefore they had a tendency to dread numbers, etc.). When I became the president of the said organization, I ensured that through my monitoring and guidance to my then treasurer (who also happened to be a mass communication student), I was able to make sure that the money was properly spent and there was enough money left for the succeeding school year. 

There are other organizations who had their issues when it comes to finances, sometimes it was the cause of conflict within the organization. Aside from getting money that is not theirs or putting a premium on a price that is not justifiable, I also think that lack of transparency is unethical. In any organization whether profit or non-profit, it is important to be transparent. When I was a treasurer, I knew I could have taken advantage of my co-officers' lack of knowledge when it comes to finances since I'm the only business major that was an officer. However, knowing that the members entrusted me in that position because of my ability to deal with these numbers, at the same time by being honest, I should live by that trust that was given to me. Even if my president that time joked that I might be 'selling her' already because she just kept on signing without even reading the reports, I know that she trusts me enough for her to do that and I know I did not fail her. (Evidence of taking over her reigns as president of the organization)

This is actually the reason why I never wanted to become part of my academic business organization and settle to become a member of it (mandatory membership). Because in the said academic organization, the then treasurer did not disclose the financial report which made us wonder why are we (3rd and 4th year students) supposed to pay every week because of the organization's mismanagement of funds, so we could help the organization recover their lost funds. I felt that if she only showed the financial reports, there would be no qualms from our side. I knew by refusing to become an officer of the said organization doing that would affect my chance to work in a more prestigious company as they would prefer a graduate who had been an officer of an academic organization, rather than an interest organization that emphasized on a cause which can only be appreciated by non-government organizations. Despite these challenges, I told myself and my mom during that time that I would like to lead an organization that have an established culture and have a proper set of ethics and transparency. By being part of the organization for a long time (even longer than my required membership in the said business organization), I knew how my organization runs, especially when it comes to finances as I was the Treasurer twice and I know that I will not break the trust of the members and officers. Until now, I knew what I did was totally worth it. I did not have any stress when it comes to dealing with the organization's work ethics especially when it comes to money, I had a good set of officers and members, and I end my stint by being recognized as one of outstanding presidents. I might have not done all these things in my last school year if I did not factor in the culture that my organization which had their own set of ethics.

Work Exposure and Realizations

Being a rank and file employee, one would actually not care about the company's profit. The only thing employees would care is that they should get paid, nothing more, nothing less. In addition, as long as you follow the company's rules and policies, you will be fine. However, one should not work for a company for money, even if it would mean that the company is not complying with the ethical rules (e.g. poor work conditions). It is nice that more and more companies are starting to be environmentally aware such as requiring people to use reusable bags and not plastics. I think if all companies would keep on doing these things, we would prevent the damage that we did to mother nature.

Footnote:

^[1] A Letter From The Year 2070

^[2] Philex's Padcal mine, the biggest mining disaster of the Philippines

^[3] BP Agrees to Pay $18.7 Billion to Settle Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Claims