THE POTENTIAL OF COOPERATIVES

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 066
By Ike Señeres 04/30/2011

THE POTENTIAL OF COOPERATIVES

Many cooperatives in the Philippines have failed or are failing because of corruption. This problem in the local cooperative movement is indicative of what is happening in the broader society that is also beset with corruption. In other words, the problem in the cooperatives is a microcosm of the corruption that is happening in our country as a whole.

Regardless of the pervasive problem of corruption in our country however, we have to other choice because we only have one country, and we could not replace it. What we could replace however is the conduct of our society, so that corruption will be decreased, to a point where it will become more of an exception than the rule itself.

Comparing the state of corruption in our country and the state of corruption among the cooperatives however, I would say that there is no other alternative for the cooperative approach as an instrument for the more equitable distribution of wealth, or in other words, for the democratization of economic opportunities for everyone in our society.

I have looked all over, time and again, and I have always arrived at the conclusion that there is really no alternative for the cooperative approach. That being the case, we have no other choice really except to reform the conduct of the cooperative movement, so that corruption will be lessened.

I know that some critics might disagree with me when I say that my goal is only to lessen or decrease corruption, and not to remove or eradicate it. The fact is, corruption is a product of greed, and it will always be around as long as greed remains as a human weakness. It could only be reduced, but not removed.

The law says that cooperatives should appoint professional managers, but it seems that only a few of them are obeying this law. Good business practice says that coops should not appoint their own members to work as professional managers in order to avoid conflicts of interest, but again, many coops are going against this rule. Not unless the coops will obey these two basic conditions, they will never be able to get out of their present problems. As an incentive to the coops that are willing to reform, they could avail of free management training right away.
Since it is part of my work to identify and integrate information and communications technology (ICT) solutions for business applications, I already have direct access to ICT resources that could readily be used by the coops. I am ready and willing to share these resources with all coops, provided that they would agree to implement the two basic solutions.

Aside from management, marketing is the other most common problem of coops. The solution to this is of course simple, and that is the identification of a good buyer. Not so much to start with, but I have already identified good buyers for cacao, rice and tree seedlings, among others. These buyers are potentially able to issue letters of intent already.

Automation is the biggest challenge of business enterprises today, and that also includes cooperatives. Automation should include manufacturing and marketing systems as well. So much could be done in these two aspects in terms of enabling increased revenues and saving more money. In short, the bottom line of coops could really improve, if only they could adopt the right technologies.

Most Filipinos could not afford to invest in big business, and could not also buy the stocks of big companies. That being the case, the only practical alternative for them is to invest in the coops. Most Filipinos are also unable to manage their own business, and that is what the coops are supposed to do for them, provided of course that the coops would hire professional managers.

The idea behind the coop concept is to pool together small amounts of money from small investors, so that it would turn into bigger capital. Since that is the idea, why not pool together the money of professionals so that they could invest in the infra that they need to practice their professions? This idea could work for doctors, nurses, sailors and ship captains, and why not for drivers and mechanics too?

Doctors and nurses could pool their money to put up coops that would own clinics and hospitals. Sailors and ship captains could put up coops that would own ships and barges. Drivers and mechanics could put up coops that would own buses and taxis. The list could go on and on with more imagination applied. The idea about buying ships is interesting because we have so many sailors and yet they do not own a single ship, despite the fact that they collectively earn so many millions.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 065
By Ike Señeres 04/22/2011

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY

I met Atty. Cita Garcia for the second time. She is one of the staunch advocates of the adoption of the jury system here. It was a good time for me to be reminded that participation in a jury is one of the rights and obligations of citizens in a real democratic system, a right that is equal to the right to vote, as a matter of fact.

The right to vote in an election in a manner of speaking gives us the means to participate in the executive and legislative processes, because we are the ones who chose the people who run our government and make our laws, even if indirectly. The adoption of the jury system will in effect complete our rights to participate in the three branches of government.

I received an email from Mr. Andy Rosales, and in that email he reminded me that there is another means for us citizens to participate in the executive process, but unfortunately we are practically ignoring the said means. I am referring to the rights and obligations of citizens to participate in the mandated development councils at the barangay, municipal, provincial and regional levels.

It is ironic to think that while the people in the Middle East are giving their lives for the sake of democracy, we on the other hand are wasting our opportunities to take advantage of the democratic process. Citizen participation in the development councils is supposed to be through the involvement of local non-government organizations (NGOs), but this set-up is very much disorganized now.

In order to address the disorganized state of NGOs at the local levels, I believe that it is now time to organize local chapters of the Socio-Economic Development Alliance (SEDA) at the barangay, municipal, provincial and regional levels, all managed by a central office at all regional centers. Needless to say, the officers at the central office should also be the ones who will attend the meetings of the Regional Development Councils (RDCs).

In order to establish order in the regular meetings of SEDA at all local levels, I have written a set of protocols that will be used in these meetings, along with Robert’s Rules of Order that should also be used. Any organization that is interested in getting a copy of this protocol may contact me and I will send it via email. If you have any contacts at these local levels, please let me know.
The Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) is supposed to be the overall framework of all the mandated development councils. All the reports of all local councils are supposed to be submitted to main office of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), where the secretariat of the MTPDP is located. Fortunately, NEDA is also the secretariat of the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD), and because of this dual role, NEDA is really in a position to coordinate all developmental and environmental concerns.

In the same manner that we get what we pay, we also get the government that we deserve. President Noynoy Aquino is correct in saying that we the people are his “boss”, but that does not mean that the government should be doing all the work, and we the people should just remain as passive spectators. Since the mechanisms for participatory democracy are already in place, let us now become active in good governance through the local chapters of SEDA.

As a service to the nation, SEDA should become active in continuously monitoring and reporting all the socio-economic indicators that could be used by NEDA in particular and by the government in general. This should include the poverty rate, the illiteracy rate, the mortality rate, the crime rate, the unemployment rate and many other known measures. On top of these, we should come up with new measures that are still relatively unknown, such as the hunger rate and the homeless rate.

The poverty rate, the illiteracy rate and the mortality rate are measures that are being monitored by the United Nations under the framework of the Human Development Index (HDI). It would be fair to say that the mortality rate is directly related to the crime rate, and that the poverty rate is also directly related to the unemployment rate, therefore we should be conscious of these inter-relationships.

Since mortality, illiteracy, hunger and poverty appear to be our four biggest national problems, I have come up with a collective approach that will deliver Health, Education, Agriculture and Livelihood solutions, otherwise known as the HEAL framework. This is going to be the working framework of SEDA. Health is the solution to high mortality. Education is the solution to illiteracy. Food is the solution to hunger. Livelihood is the solution to poverty. People will always die because of one reason or another, but at least, we could lower the mortality rate.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

POVERTY AND STARVATION

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 064
By Ike Señeres 04/14/2011

POVERTY AND STARVATION

We should all be shocked to learn that 25% of Filipinos are “experiencing hunger”, and 50% consider themselves to be poor, not just President Noynoy Aquino. Thanks to the Social Weather Station (SWS), this grim reality is now known to all of us, and we should all do something about it.

According to economist Mr. Butch Valdez, “hunger” is actually a mild term to use, because the more accurate term is “starvation”. I recently interviewed Mr. Valdez and Dr. Ernie Gonzales in my TV show, and both of them said that not unless we change the economic policies that are now in place in our country, the poverty and hunger problems here will worsen, possibly even destroying our entire country in the years to come.

Reacting to their statements, I asked them why is it that our government and our people are not yet seriously alarmed about the situation, considering that it appears to have already reached a very critical stage. I then offered the explanation that perhaps the reason why we are not yet alarmed, is because people are not yet dying in the streets, unlike what has happened in India.

It was Dr. Gonzales who explained that in our culture, we still manage to take care of the sick and the dying in our homes, and that is why we do not see people dying in the streets. His explanation is acceptable, but if that is the case, we should still find out how many people are dying because of poverty and hunger, directly or indirectly. If we have to require our hospitals and our funeral parlors to do that, we must do so, because we need the data to be able to guide our policy actions.

I am not an economist myself, but I would venture to offer an explanation that we still do not see people dying in the streets, because the problem of homelessness here has not yet worsened as it has in India. What I mean however is that people here still manage to have a place to stay even if it is just a shanty. If however we strictly define the standards for decent habitable homes, these shanty dwellers would all technically become “homeless”, even if they have placesto stay.

One does not have to be an economist to understand that the problem of hunger is directly related to the problem of poverty, and the problem of homelessness is directly related to both also. During the interview, Mr. Valdez said that we should not be surprised if the poor people will die as they do, because they they have nothing to eat, and when they are hungry, they get sick, and when they get sick, they have no means to get medical attention, so they die. To that, I will add that if they are homeless, there is a higher probability that they will get sick, because they are not protected from the elements.

Three Filipinos are executed in China, and we are all scandalized. The fact is, about three thousand poor people die here every day according to Mr. Valdez, and we are not scandalized. I understand that there are many economic policies that need to be changed in order to solve the problem of poverty related deaths, but first of all, it has to change with our change of values, about what we consider to be important, and what is not.

Of course it is important for us to plan a good future for our people, but first things first, we must first deal with the present triple problems of poverty, hunger and homelessness. The first order of business is to declare a NATIONAL STATE OF EMERGENCY to address the problem of HUNGER. We are preparing for the eventuality that people could die in case of an earthquake, but we are not doing enough to deal with the present reality of HUNGER.

The best place to start is at the barangay level, where serious and real POVERTY MAPPING should be done immediately, leading to a DATABASE that should include data about poverty, hunger, sickness and homelessness. These are the four DATA SETS that should always be gathered together, not one at a time. Everyone should get involved in this exercise, and anyone who needs help in putting up a DATABASE should let me know, because I can help.

It is not yet in our national consciousness, but it is now about time for local government units (LGUs) to put up HOMELESS SHELTERS. We are all aware of the existence of street children, but the fact is, there are STREET FAMILIES already if we just bother to look. It goes without saying that STREET FAMILIES are in effect homeless, but we should also include in that category all families that are staying in shanties, because in effect, they do not have real homes. For my part, I will assign myself the homework of organizing a FOOD BANK starting in Metro Manila, so that food companies and restaurants could donate their surplus foodstuffs to these HOMELESS SHELTERS in exchange for tax credits.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

THE PRO-POOR MANIFESTO OF 2011

April 15, 2011
THE PRO-POOR MANIFESTO OF 2011
The time has come for all Filipinos to acknowledge the reality that HUNGER as a social problem has now reached alarming critical levels, and therefore it is time to declare a STATE OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY.
We the signatories of this manifesto hereby declare a STATE OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY in order to address the problem of HUNGER on our own, and we at the same time call upon the GOVERNMENT to do the same, to also declare a STATE OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY on its own, in order to make this declaration OFFICIAL.
We the signatories of this manifesto hereby call upon all Filipinos everywhere, those who are in the Philippines and those who are overseas, to acknowledge the following realities:
About 50% of Filipinos now consider themselves to be POOR;
About 25% of Filipinos have experienced HUNGER at least once for the past three months;
About 10% of Filipinos have a life threatening SICKNESS and are in danger of dying because they could not afford medical care, and many of them could die without even seeing a doctor;
About 5% of Filipinos are now HOMELESS, not counting those who are living in shanties and makeshift dwellings under subhuman conditions.
We the signatories of this manifesto hereby call upon the GOVERNMENT to immediately implement the following programs:
POVERTY MAPPING- To establish a database of POOR Filipinos, in order to know who they are, and where they are, down to the barangay level;
FOOD BANK- To establish a system of feeding the HUNGRY by collecting surplus foodstuffs from food companies and restaurants, in exchange for tax credits;
HEALTH CARD- To establish a system of giving identity cards to indigent Filipinos who are suffering from SICKNESS, so that they could see a doctor and avail of medical care;
HOMELESS SHELTERS- To establish a system of providing temporary shelters so that HOMELESS Filipinos could have a place to during the night, with breakfast in the morning.
We the signatories of this manifesto hereby call upon the private sector to support the GOVERNMENT in implementing the above programs as soon as possible.
1. Ike Seneres, iseneres@yahoo.com, +639997333011
2.

A NEW CULTURAL REVOLUTION

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 063
By Ike Señeres 04/09/2011

A NEW CULTURAL REVOLUTION

I remember an old debate way back in my Diliman days, about who is really the prima donna of the social sciences, whether it is economics or political science. Of course I was on the political science side at that time, but when I graduated and moved on to the corporate world, I realized that it is really money that drives the politics of a developing nation.

It is the development aspect that makes the difference, because in politically mature societies, there is no doubt that it is politics that drives everything, including the economic aspects. To be precise however, politics and economics of the same coin, given the fact that many politicians enter politics in order to protect and preserve their economic power.

Into this picture enters Art Valdez, the leader of the Philippine Mount Everest team, and the Balanghay Voyage team. An iconic leader with impeccable credentials and unquestionable credibility, he now says that what we need now is a new cultural revolution. He explains that way back in our early history, our territory was inhabited by a highly civilized, dignified and proud people, adding that we should recover and restore that pride in order to move forward as one united country.

Art cited the example of China, a country that was once devastated by war and humbled by national defeat and economic failure. He said that it was because of the cultural revolution of China that enabled the Chinese people to rediscover their national identity, and as a consequence they also restored their national pride, a factor that enabled them to move towards a clear path of progress.

In a manner of speaking, Art is in effect saying that culture is more important than economics and politics, suggesting indirectly that a new cultural revolution will give us the strenght and the inspiration to move forward economically and politically. As it turned out, it now appears that the conquest of Mount Everest by Filipinos and the succesful journey of the Balanghay boats are actually part of this emerging new cultural revolution.

Not the type who would stop while he is ahead, Art is now about to start an expanded Balanghay voyage that will take his team to more ports of call in the Philippines, in a sort of seaborne roadshow that will take five years to complete, a mission that could kindle and inspire the whole nation towards a new cultural revolution. True enough, Art told me that aside from the medical, dental missions that are being planned, the roadshow will also include the documentation of native and indigenous arts and cultures.

In our private conversations, Art told me that during the Mount Everest climbs and the Balanghay voyages, he and his teams realized the importance of disaster preparedness and emergency response readiness. Because of this realization, Art has now added disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) to his advocacies, saying as well that DRR and CCA seminars will always be part of the new voyage activities.

Art and I are fellow American Field Service (AFS) scholars. Another well known AFS scholar is Tony Meloto of Gawad Kalinga. Sharing a common bond, we have agreed to work together for the good of the nation, possibly also bringing in Tony into the joint efforts. We still have to work out the specifics, but the general idea is to build lasting institutions in all the ports of call where the boats will go.

Among other specific ideas, Art and I talked about establishing Command and Control Centers (CCC) in every region, similar to the CCC project in Makati that I supported as a computer consultant. A CCC is the nerve center of all police, fire, ambulance, rescue, hospital and traffic information and communications within a locality, and logically it should also be the base of all DRR and CCA operations.

We also talked about establishing a Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) branch in every region, also a Marine Biodiversity Center (MBDC) in each region. These are big and tall ideas, but are surely within the realistic reach of a true visionary who has proven himself in the achievement of near impossible goals. In so many ways, he believes that our natural diversity is part of our cultural heritage.

As part of the MBDC project, Art has agreed to promote the replanting of mangrove trees in all the coastal areas where the boats will dock. Needless to say, this will include the Manila Bay, and this is where MABIADO will come in. To know more about it, visit http://sedablog.blogspot.com/2011/04/manila-bay-integrated-area-development.html. Join the new cultural revolution now!

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

PROTOCOL FOR MULTILATERAL MEETINGS

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 062
By Ike Señeres 03/30/2011

PROTOCOL FOR MULTILATERAL MEETINGS

I have written this piece about protocol for multilateral meetings, in the hope that it could help unite organizations of all kinds that are trying to work together for common causes. Sets of protocols are like “terms of engagement “ that would define how many sides would relate to each other. In particular, I am hoping that this would work towards the unity of the environment sector.

Let me start by saying that having a set of protocols for meetings is not the same as using Robert’s Rules of Order. Protocol defines who could attend meetings and how the attendees should relate to each other. Robert’s Rules define how the meeting should be conducted and in what order the attendees should be allowed to speak.

More often than not, the attendees or the prospective attendees of meetings would tend to disagree with each other. It is because of this reason that they would rather not attend the meetings, or if they would decide to attend, they would not want to sit next to each other, or would not want to be near each other. As it usually happens, the lack of a defined set of protocols would prevent meetings from being convened in the first place, thus defeating the purposes for convening the meetings in the first place.

A classic example of disagreements that would have led to protocol problems happened in the summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in 1996. At that time, there were still three “Chinas”, and even before the start of the meetings, it was very difficult to bring them together to sit in the same conference table. To cut a long story short, it was fortunate that they all agreed to adopt a set of protocols, and the summit was successfully conducted.

It could be said that among the three, Hong Kong could be considered the passive element. It was a British Colony at that time, and they considered the other two Chinas as separate countries, even if their own handover to the mainland was just around the corner. It was the People’s Republic of China (PROC) that would not attend the summit and would not sit in the same table as the “other China”, if it was recognized as the “Republic of China” (ROC). After rounds of pre-summit negotiations, ROC finally agreed to be recognized as “Chinese Taipei”, and PROC agreed thereafter to attend, provided that they are not seated to each other.

The key to the amicable entry of the three “Chinas” into the APEC is the legal fiction that it is a forum of “economies”, and not a forum of “countries”. This is the reason why there are no flags in APEC meetings. It is also the reason why the delegates to the forum are recognized as “Heads of Economies”, and not as “Heads of State”. Otherwise, PROC would not attend any meeting where Hong Kong and Taiwan are also recognized as “countries’ carrying their own flags, and represented by their Heads of State.

The key to the success of APEC (and also of the ASEAN) is the sequential approach of doing the substantive work first in the level of the Technical Working Groups (TWGs) as a first step, before elevating the process to the next level of the Senior Officials Meetings (SOMs). For practical reasons, the TWGs are attended by those who have the rank of Director, while the SOMs are attended by those with the rank of Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister.

After the work process is completed by the SOMs, the substantive outputs are elevated to the level of the Foreign Affairs Ministers, in the Minister’s Meetings (MMs). Thereafter, the last and final steps are the Leader’s Meetings (LMs) that are attended by the Heads of Economies (or Heads of State, in the case of the ASEAN).

In the case of local inter-organizational meetings, the TWGs could be attended by their own sectoral committee heads, and the SOMs could be attended by their Vice Presidents. Going up the ladder, the MMs could be attended by their Presidents or Corporate Secretaries, while the LMs could be attended by their Chairmen or Board Members. In the case of local inter-municipal meetings, the TWGs could be attended by their assistant department heads or their senior sectoral staff members and the SOMs could be attended by their department heads. Going up the ladder, the MMs could be attended by their Vice Mayors or Senior Councillors, while the LMs could be attended by their Mayors or Administrators.

For practical reasons, all places (seats) at the conference table shall be marked by nameplates. All delegates shall be requested not to move the nameplates in order not to disturb the order of protocol. It might sound funny, but the importance of nameplates is taken lightly by many, not realizing its key role in protocol.

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KALINGA SA BAYANING PILIPINO

NFS Foundation Ministry, Inc.
2650 AHI Bldg., A. Bonifacio Street, Bangkal, Makati City
Tel No: (02) 889-3935 L558 | Fax No: (02) 889-3939
Email: dina_v@armadillo.ph

The FS Foundation Ministry was registered with the SEC on September 20, 2000 as non-stock, non-profit religious organization. Its primary task is to minister among the people and equip men spiritually.

FS Foundation Ministry is focused in three major areas, namely: a. Corporate Modelling- reaching out to the business communities by equipping and discipling able men/ believers in Christ.; b. Local Church Modelling – reaching out to the cities for Christ through the unity of the Elders of the City and the Body of Christ and c. Missions Modelling – reaching out through link-ups with organized Missions organizations.

Currently, FS ministers to the employees of Armadillo Holdings, Anito, Kabayan, Balikbayan, Legend and Status Hotels. They also provide prayer rooms in these hotels that are open at anytime of the day. FS also partners with Mission Organizations and with the Local Government of Pasay City and Palawan.
May I request your donations for the NFS Foundation Ministry, Inc., who is now leading the project to convert the old Anito Lodge in Caloocan into a refugee center for displaced OFWs from Libya, Egypt, Japan and other countries. The project is also called KALINGA SA BAYANING PILIPINO.
The project aims to turn the refugee center into a one stop shop that will provide lodging, counselling, training and financing for the displaced OFWs. It will also have a medical clinic that will provide medical and psychological treatment for those who need it.
Please send your donations via bank deposit or remittance to:
BPI Account Number 0681001425

For more information, you may send me email at iseneres@yahoo.com or text me at +639997333011
Very truly yours,
IKE SENERES

NATION BUILDING AND CLIMATE DAMAGE

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 061
By Ike Señeres 03/24/2011

NATION BUILDING AND CLIMATE DAMAGE

In a recent television interview with former Senator Sonny Alvarez who is now the Chairman of the Philippine Climate Change Commission, I ended with the comment that all our efforts for nation building will go to waste if what we build will just be destroyed by the damage brought about by climate change.

Dr. John Topping Jr., the founder of the Climate Change Institute in Washington, DC was also my guest in the same show, and he told me the story about how mangrove trees were able to reduce the damage of a tsunami that ravaged the coast of Ceylon.

From my interview with Chairman Alvarez and Dr. Topping, I was able to draw the conclusion that even if climate change is a macroeconomic issue, it has a direct impact on so many other microeconomic issues that affect the daily lives of people everywhere. Much more than that, climate change is literally a threat to their lives.

In that same interview, I pointed out to both of them that the importance given by the general public to the threat of climate change is directly influenced by their awareness of the gravity of the problem. Alvarez was quick to add that earthquakes and tsunamis are just potential threats, whereas climate change is already a real and an existing problem that is already happening.

Taking a cue from the good Chairman, we could actually conclude that technically, climate change is no longer a threat, because it is already a reality with a verfiable scientific certainty. Hearing this, I am reminded of another technicality that mathematically speaking, a problem does not exist if it could not be solved. Fortunately or unfortunately depends on how you look at it, we still have a problem with climate change, because it could still be solved.

Strictly speaking however, the problem of climate change could no longer be solved and all we could do is to adapt to it. That is what is meant by climate change adaptation . In other words, all we could do is to live with it, in such a way that we could minimize the damage that it could bring to us. On the upside, we still have the oppurtunties to prevent the problem from worsening, from the already bad state that it is in now. That is what carbon reduction is all about. All of these are tied in to the issue of money, in particular to the concept of carbon credits.
Whether we like it or not, the problem of climate change will always be tied in not only to the issue of money, but also to the issues of livelihood, health and public safety. A good example of this is the issue of emmissions from the diesel engines of jeepneys. The emmisions directly threaten public safety, but aside from that, it also threatens the health of the jeepney drivers. If we ban the jeepneys, it will affect their livelihood, and it will also paralyze our transportation system.

Dr. Toppings told me that an Australian company will soon introduce a device that will cut down the emmissions of jeepneys. What is remarkable about this initiative however is not the technology used, but the financing scheme that was developed in order to start and sustain it. In effect, the devices will be on lease to the drivers for one peso a year, but the proponents will make money from the carbon credits, supposedly sharing some of the incomes with the drivers in the long run.

Foreign technologies may be good, but there are local technologies too that could be just as good, perhaps even better. AreoNox is one good example. It is a device that not only brings down fuel costs it also lowers emmissions. Developed by local inventor Erano Evangelista, it has recently won a Presidential Award for science innovation. Pertua is another good example it is a fuel additive that also lowers fuel costs and emissions, developed by local inventor John Simon.

Disaster risk reduction is the logical adjunct of climate change adaptation. As we adapt to climate change, we could also reduce the disaster risks that are climate related. Seemingly looking like a chicken and egg situation, we could also adapt to climate change by taking care of our environment, through environmental restoration, protection and preservation. If we do all these, we will also reduce the disaster risks that are environment related.

Moving on in the chain of inter-relationships, we could also ensure our water supply and our food security if we restore, protect and preserve our environment. In this connection, I commend the initiative of former Congressman Allen Quimpo to create the Aklan Rivers Development Council (ARDC). Because of ARDC, all the 17 towns of Aklan are now united in cleaning their rivers, and tapping these for economic purposes. On the invitation of Congressman Quimpo, I am now organizing a team of scientists that will assist ARDC in the river cleanup, and in developing hydro energy, irrigation, municipal waterworks and inland fisheries.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

REVIVAL OF THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 060
By Ike Señeres 03/18/2011

REVIVAL OF THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT

I was a victim of the inefficiency of two cooperatives, and that is why I lost interest in the cooperative movement for so many years. In one case, a coop forfeited my shares for the simple reason that I was no longer connected with the government agency that I used to work for. It gave me a bad feeling, because I was instrumental in giving them a profit center that enabled them to earn millions even after I left. In another case, the coop has not given me my shares of stock for so many years until now, citing the reason that they could not locate my records.

Had it not been for Dr. Virginia Teodosio of the University of the Philippines School of Labor and Industrial Relations (UP-SOLAIR), I would not have restored my faith in the cooperative movement. She showed me the true picture that many cooperatives are now successful, and are now being run efficiently. Thereafter, it was Mr. Orly Peña of Asian Business Consultants (ABC) who convinced me that the cooperative movement is actually our last chance now to democratize the fair distribution of wealth in this country.

In a manner of speaking, it could be said that the failed or failing cooperatives in this country reflect a microcosm of the bigger reality in the Philippines. Their leaders are probably corrupt, and their members are seemingly indifferent. In the same manner that the new leadership is showing a determination to move away from the path of corruption, there is now a chance within the cooperative movement to reform, and move towards a righteous direction.

Since the apparent problem is not just corruption but also the mismanagement of the cooperatives, the logical solution is the training of their managers so that they could be professionalized and be properly equipped to lead their members towards a more orderly and a more profitable conduct of business. Before that however, they should comply with the basic requirement of the cooperatives law that tells them to engage the services of professional managers, and not to appoint managers from among themselves.

Just like any modern enterprise, it is now time for the cooperatives to adopt new technologies in order to improve the conduct of their businesses, and that should start in the computerization of their business processes. This should of course include the adoption of new information and communications technologies (ICT).
For so many years now, I have been thinking about ways that would make it possible to make use of ICT to benefit agriculture in this country. I have thought of many ways, but recently I had the chance to come across some new ways of using programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to control the quality of fruits and vegetables, so that this would conform exactly to the specifications of the buyers. To some extent, it could be said that PLCs are the heavy duty versions of personal computers (PCs).

In theory, PLCs could be used to control any outcome in any process, and that is why this technology is very useful in manufacturing, and happily now in farming or agriculture too. This would include controls in color, shape, size, temperature, humidity and even in the pattern of looks or appearances. In some ways, optical mark reader (OMR) and optical character recognition (OCR) technologies could also be used for this purpose.

As PCs and laptops have become smaller, so have point of sale (POS) machines, thus making it now possible for small and medium enterprises, of course including the cooperatives to use these devices since these are now affordable. As an extra benefit, these gadgets now come in handheld versions that are equipped with transmission and communications features, thus making them ideal for use in electronic commerce transactions.

In the same way that big corporations are now making money and saving money by using ICT, small enterprises and cooperatives could do that too now, and there are no more limitations for them to do that. The best way for them to start however is to plan their systems very well, and they should know that we are not lacking in local talents who could help them to do it right.

As additional good news to the cooperatives, ICT technologies have now moved towards “cloud computing” sometimes called “software as a service”. What this means is that small businesses could now computerize their operations without having to buy their own servers or without putting up their own data centers. In this approach, they would just pay per transaction or per service provided. As usual, I would say that machines are just tools for people to use, and having said that, I would now emphasize that what is more important is for the leaders of cooperatives to modernize their thinking first, for the good of their businesses.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

UNITY IN GOVERNANCE

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 059
By Ike Señeres 03/10/2011

UNITY IN GOVERNANCE

A new show will soon replace the old Government Financial Institutions (GFI) show in the Global News Network (GNN), also known as the GFI Hour. I am going to produce this new show that will be named Government United in Action (GUIA). It will be a show about the entire government being united in its action to deliver programs, projects and services to the Filipino people.

This unity will take the following forms: (1) Unity of the Executive and Legislative branches. (2) Unity of the national government and the local government units (LGUs). (3) Unity of the mainstream government agencies and the government owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) and (4) Unity of the civilian government and the military establishment.

GUIA will be a live weekly show every Monday from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM. I am planning to have one theme for each week, as follows: Week One, Unity in the Social Agenda. Week Two: Unity in the Economic Agenda. Week Three: Unity in the Political Agenda. Week Four: Unity in the Scientific Agenda.

The idea of unity in the scientific agenda might sound alien to many of us, but we do need to have a clear agenda for science and technology in our country, in order for us to progress and keep pace with the other developing countries. In the usual practice of the government, the social agenda and the economic agenda are usually lumped together as the socio-economic agenda.

The importance of the political agenda is not pronounced, and the scientific agenda is usually not mentioned. In the case of GUIA, I propose that the more practical approach is to combine the socio-political agenda on one hand and the techno-economic agenda on the other hand.

It is good to know that both the Legislative and Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) and the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) have started meeting again under the new administration. LEDAC and PCSD were very active during the past administrations, but both practically died under the Arroyo regime. In a manner of speaking, the LEDAC somehow enables us to have the functionality of having a parliamentary system of government without resorting to Charter change.

Aside from being the producer of GUIA, I will also be producing the newly improved daily GNN coverage of the House and Senate proceedings, now known as CONGRESS TV. In the past years, the usual practice was to just install fixed cameras in the session hall, and no reporters and commentators were assigned. This time around, we will be interviewing the Congressmen and Senators about their bills and resolutions, before and after the sessions.

This new format of CONGRESS TV will give all private citizens and interest groups to participate more in the legislative process. As time and resources would allow, we will also cover the LEDAC meetings, so we could report the complete picture of the process as it flows. In fairness to the lawmakers, we are going to submit our questions to them ahead of time, so that they could study the questions in advance. My own show KA IKING LIVE will also be renamed soon to ASEAN POLITICS, to take advantage of the expanded reach of G-SAT all over Asia. Two new shows, ASEAN ENVIRONMENT and ASEAN TRAVEL are also planned.

DR. ERNESTO GONZALES WROTE: Please count me in as one of your resource persons for GUIA. I know the issue because this had been the focus of my scholarship and eventually dissertation and published by the London School of Economics (LSE). This is a strategic move to influence the dynamics of narrow conflicts as is common to democratic system in order to realign to the bigger dimensions of nationhood for the country. Yes, media through your TV program could provide a strong indirect force to unify all sectoral efforts towards a unity of action for our much awaited convergence of concerns and passions to start working to build the Philippine nation. A unified framework is urgent. The Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) which is based on the Neoclassical Philosophy of the Free Market Forces to industrialize our country is currently on a freeze with Civil Society advocates. In this area of the unified framework, you need a mastery of the Sustainable Development Philosophy. I will send you a copy of my research done at the LSE about this dilemma of humanity today. The title of this paper is "Piloting a Unified Framework of Sustainable Development: Asian Perspective Philippine Experience. This was published by LSE last 2005, but nobody appreciated it in the Philippines. Maybe it was written well ahead of its time. Your current search is related to it.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

KEEPING TRACK OF FILIPINOS WORLDWIDE

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 058
By Ike Señeres 03/02/2011

KEEPING TRACK OF FILIPINOS WORLDWIDE

Whether we like it or not, there will always be Filipinos abroad who will fall under the category of being “undocumented”. Since they have apparently not complied with the documentation rules of the Philippine government, they are supposedly on their own, and the government has no legal obligation to rescue them in times of danger. In actual experience however, the government still has the moral duty to help them, and that is when the problem of looking for them starts.

Fortunately for them, most Filipino communities abroad are tightly knit, and they more or less know each other’s identities and whereabouts, thereby making it easier to find them in critical situations, regardless of whether they are documented or not. This is of course generally speaking because many of them shun the rest of the other Filipinos, fearing that their “undocumented” status could be discovered.

Despite frequent calls from our embassies and consulates urging Filipinos in their jurisdictions to register with them, many of them who are “undocumented” would rather not do that, fearing that our diplomats and consuls would report them to the local authorities. Truth to tell, there have been instances in the past wherein they were reported by these officials who fell for the temptation of collecting rewards.

At the outset, I would say that if we really want to, we could build databases of all Filipinos regardless of where they are, and regardless of their legal status in their host countries. What could make this easier to do however is a new law that would protect their privacy as soon as they are included in the database, meaning to say that it would be illegal under our own laws to report them to foreign authorities.

As it is now, many of our embassies and consulates have set up local phone numbers that would enable overseas Filipinos to call them in the event of problems and emergencies. It would be better however for the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to set up a call center back here in the home office for any Filipino in trouble to call toll free, using any available mobile phone or landline.

It is ironic that the Philippines is the call center capital of the world, and yet our own foreign ministry does not have a call center that could cater to our own overseas citizens. It could be argued that this could be a very expensive proposition, but there is really no price to the safety of our own citizens.
Due to its current relevance, I will again mention what I wrote last week, that the government should have an integrated database and communications systems for the purpose of tracking down and servicing overseas Filipinos, meaning a system that would work seamlessly and jointly as a combined database and communicator. This is a systems development strategy that I have already used and tested when I supervised the creation of the APEC Communications and Database System (ACDS), during the 1996 APEC Summit here in the Philippines.

For the second time, I will again say that as an ideal systems development strategy, all government agencies including the COMELEC should build integrated database and communications systems, this being a very practical and useful approach. So much could be said about the advocacy of convergence, but suffice it to say that for now that it would make information and communications systems not only safer, but also cheaper, being able to combine two goals in one.

According to the law, all Filipino citizens abroad should be given the option to vote where they are, and this is already being done to some extent. This being the case, it would be reasonable to think that the COMELEC database, should it have one that is accurate and reliable, could also be used as the same database that could track down Filipinos all over the world, assuming that they would come out to register where they are now staying.

Vice versa, whatever data that could be gathered abroad because of overseas registrations could be used to update the local databases that are being kept over here. What is important is for us to know what data to get, and what data to use. With all the high tech assets that are being used in database management, what is still most important is the database design, meaning the rhyme and reason for it.

The President has expressed his intention to appoint a COMELEC Commissioner who has an ICT background. That is a step in the right direction, because almost everything that the Commission is mandated to do has something to do directly or indirectly with Information and Communications Technology (ICT). As it is, the acronym ICT already denotes convergence, and that by itself is a good clue. With a Commissioner who has an ICT background, the Commission would have a better chance of making right what has been done wrong before, in terms of wrong technologies, and the wrong approaches to database management.

Tune in to KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Join Coffee Clutch Fridays

CONVERGENCE OF DATABASES AND COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 057
By Ike Señeres 02/24/2011

CONVERGENCE OF DATABASES AND COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

As the political situation in the Middle East worsens, two important questions are now being asked in connection with the rescue of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who are caught in the turmoil there. How do we know who they are and where they are? How are we going to communicate with them assuming that we will know who they are and where they are?

Even if these are basically political questions, I could see the technical aspects instead, leading me to conclude that these two questions are basically related to database and communications issues. Simply put, we would know who the OFWs are and where they are, if we had databases that would record their identities and whereabouts. We would also know how to communicate with them under normal conditions, but the equation changes when crisis situations would occur.

Any time now, the plain old telephone systems (POTS) and the cellular phone systems there could go down, possibly even their Internet connections. With these three systems knocked out, how could we continue to communicate with them? With all terrestrial systems out of commission, the only other technology that could be used internationally is satellite radio, and this is sure to work. I hope that our rescue team going to the Middle East would make use of this technology.

Of course, single side band (SSB) radio could still be used locally. When I was the head of telecommunications and management information systems (MIS) for the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), we were still able to communicate during the Gulf War when the POTS and the Internet went down there, simply by using SSB relay from post to post. This could still be used today, but our diplomats and consuls will not be able to communicate to the home office from the field where our OFWs are.

It was during my DFA days when I had an actual experience in making databases and communications systems work together, in tandem with each other. Included in that stint was my being head of the APEC Communications and Database System (ACDS), during the 1996 APEC Summit here in the Philippines. The system was later lauded by the APEC Leaders Forum for its excellence in data security and versatile communicability.
The success of ACDS was attributed to the fact that the computerized databases and the communications systems were planned and implemented as one combined design from the start. In other words, the addition of the communications system was not an afterthought that was added later. This has a lot to do with being compatible and seamless with each other, aside from the added advantage of being designed to be uniformly secure as joint system.

During the last election, it was evident that the computerized databases (whatever they had at that time) and the communications systems of the COMELEC were apart from each other, and were in fact bid out separately. Even if this appears to be the case, the situation is not hopeless, because many improvements could still be done in order to make these two components work well with each other. Of course, the underlying goal here is to secure the data as these are stored, and as these are transmitted, two parts of the same system that should work seamlessly.

As it is now, it would appear that the DFA had to wait for crisis situations to emerge in the Middle East, before they could realize that they have no data to help them track down the endangered OFWs, and that they have no critical means of communicating with them. Having learned this lesson, the entire government should now review their systems to anticipate database and communications related problems in the future, and that includes the COMELEC.

As a side note, it would also appear that neither the Bureau of Immigration (BI) nor the Department of Tourism (DOT) has a dependable system of tracking the data related to the departures and the eventual destinations of all migrant Filipinos, not just the OFWs. If this not true, then the DFA would not have any problem now in knowing where the OFWs in the Middle East would be, and how they could be contacted.

I find it unusual that some members of the mass media are justifying the fact that it is impossible for the DFA to track down the OFWs in the troubled spots, because there are too many of them. To me, this is just a computing challenge, because that is what computers are supposed to do, to keep records of large numbers of data sets, no matter how many entries are involved. I could not imagine disfranchising some voters, just because the number of citizens is just too many to handle.

Tune in to Universal Access 2 to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 KHZ and KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Coffee Clutch Fridays 3 to 6 PM at the Elks Club

ACCURACY MUST TRUMP SPEED

BANTAY GOBYERNO SERIES 056
By Ike Señeres 02/19/2011

ACCURACY MUST TRUMP SPEED

Reader Mr. Jose Z. Osias says that there should be no debate between the choices of speed versus accuracy when it comes to the issue of what is important in the automation of the election process. He explained that truth could be twisted by speed if only the partial and unverified results are transmitted early to create trending. He concluded that the goal of achieving accuracy should start with the Voters List.

In the many years that I have planned and managed computerized systems, I have always followed the three pronged framework of Manpower, Infrastructure and Content, or MIC for short. Like my favorite dish of the Ilocano region where Mr. Osias comes from, the anchovies, tomatoes and okra must always be present and should converge to complete the menu, with no element missing. Without MIC coming together, there could be no complete computerization.

At this point, I remember what veteran Management Information Systems (MIS) expert Mr. Rene Relucio always tells me, that in the end, it is the MIS systems administrator who is king, because he holds the keys to the system. While it is true that in the end, content is the real king, Mr. Relucio is absolutely correct, the systems administrator holds the keys to the content, including what could be read from it, and what is written into it.

As a political scientist, I would always say that there should be a balance of power or equilibrium between Manpower, Infrastructure and Content, but in the real world out there, it is the Manpower who holds the real power, being the only living and thinking element of the trio, the other two being innocent and harmless non- living inanimate elements.

Each time I explain the concept of computer security to other people, I always give them the analogy of Fort Knox, supposedly the most secure Infrastructure in the whole world. Of course Fort Knox is secure by design, but just like any ordinary house, it has keys that could open the locks from the outside. It is therefore not the security of the locks that is the question, but the integrity or the reliability of the Manpower who holds the keys that could be questionable.

Many years ago, some ballot boxes were stolen from inside the Congress, where these were kept in custody, supposedly under tight security. Just like Fort Knox, we could say that the Congress is relatively secure, but as it turned out, somebody either gave the keys to someone from the outside. What could be worse than that, is that somebody might have opened it from the inside, disregarding the need for keys. In other words, it could have been an inside job.

Going back to what Mr. Relucio said, it is the systems administrator who is the king, because he holds the power to grant the rights to read from the system, or to write into it, either acting on his own, or under the authority of his superiors. He also has the power to command what data could be stored, or what data could be forwarded or transmitted. “Read and Write” and “Store and Forward” are two computer jargons that watchdogs of computerized systems should memorize.

Also going back to what Mr. Osias said, it is the systems administrator who has the power to decide which data to store and which data to forward and when to store and when to forward the data, indicating that data could actually be withheld due to human intervention, or conversely, it could be forwarded ahead of time, to show a trend that could influence the outcome of the voting, assuming that it is still ongoing at that time.

On the subject of Content being the king, we should all remember that the Voters List is the core of the COMELEC data, the “soul” so to speak. In a manner of speaking, it is the Infrastructure that is the “body” of the system. Even in layman terms, it would not be right for a “body” not to have a “soul”. In the past elections, so much importance has been given to the process of forwarding or transmitting the data, but how could we bring out the true will of the people if many qualified voters are not even in the Voters List?

In technical terms, the characters and images that are seen in the COMELEC Voter ID cards are just simply the printouts of the data that are stored in the Voters List. In other words, the ID cards are just derivatives of the Voters List, the latter being a database. Following the dictum of “Garbage in, garbage out” (GIGO), the Voters List could only produce ID cards for the citizens who are in the list. “What you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) is another dictum that we should bear in mind.

Tune in to Universal Access 2 to 3pm Monday to Sunday in DZRJ 810 KHZ and KA IKING LIVE! 6 to 7pm Thursdays in Global News Network (GNN), Channel 8 in Destiny Cable. Email iseneres@yahoo.com or text to +639997333011. Visit www.senseneres.blogspot.com. Coffee Clutch Fridays 3 to 6 PM at the Elks Club