HOPE An official publication of the University of Asia and the Pacific
November 2009
flows I of the Storm: UA&P weathers Ondoy CARITAS IN VERITATE Enabling the youth through BIGGKAS One with 10,000 Women Looking in, reaching out with CSR Dragons reign in WNCAA
Editorial An official publication of the University of Asia and the Pacific ✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽
Promoting people development Against the backdrop of the staggering devastation brought about by the recent floods, UNIVERSITAS wishes to highlight in this issue the capacity of the human person to transcend his own interests and to help those in need. UA&P realizes its responsibility to nurture this innate spirit and to promote a real sense of service for the common good. It thus underlines as one of the university’s hallmarks the promotion of people development. Aside from providing its students with a vision that can drive them to be and do their best, the University equips its students with the skills they need to improve the lives of their countrymen, especially UA&P is driven by the belief the underprivileged. Aside that a university is at the service from learning about civic of society and that students consciousness and the should be able to appreciate imperative for involvement their role...as agents of change, in civic and public affairs, development, and stability. students get to apply these ////////////////////// lessons in socio-civic projects such as BIGGKAS and the social advocacies of the Center for Social Responsibility (CSR). Equally important is the opportunity given by the University through Civitas Asia and Project Citizen to educate high-school youth in capably exercising their citizenship. UA&P likewise partners with other institutions in undertaking genuine development initiatives. These include Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women Business Training Program for underserved women, which was co-developed by UA&P and IESE Business School. There is also CSR’s Project ALFI, a technical assistance program in partnership with the United Kingdom Government, which helps underdeveloped LGUs source alternative funding for vital community projects. In these people development initiatives, UA&P is driven by the belief that a university is at the service of society and that students should be able to appreciate their role not only in providing relief during tragedies such as those wrought by cyclones, but more important, as agents of change, development, and stability.
Editor: Ms. Boots Ruelos Managing Editor: Mr. Daryl Zamora Associate Editor: Mr. Carlo Cabrera Contributing Writers: Mr. Gerardo C. Ablaza Jr. Mr. Luis Arcangel Mr. Carlo Cabrera Dr. Ma. Victoria Q. Caparas Kevin Chan Victor Cruz Martha de la Cruz Ms. Karen Dumlao Nannie Flores Stephanie Flores Ms. Hilda San Gabriel Dr. Jose Maria Mariano Gmenier Mendoza Dr. Caterina Lorenzo-Molo Jake Morales Ms. Tiffany Orbien Mr. Minyong Ordoñez Jessica Orleans Keren Zyra Pascual Mr. Philip Peckson Ms. Boots Ruelos Dr. Corazon T. Toralba Ms. Jel Tordesillas Dr. Peter L. U Jolo Valdez Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas Angel Yulo Mr. Daryl Zamora Contributing Photographers: Aris Acoba Mr. Ronilo Balbieran Mr. Carlo Cabrera Charade Castro Ms. Audrey Codera Ms. Karen Dumlao Ms. Pilar Estrada Thomas Huang Dae Lee Jovel Lorenzo AJ Luis Dr. Anna Maria Mendoza Kathleen Ong Ms. Tiffany Orbien Dino Placino Mr. Vikko Perine Maia Segovia Mr. Benjamin Sipin III Ms. Nannah Tobias Dr. Antonio Torralba Alex Tsai Mr. Erika Valera Martin Verdejo Mr. Bon Virata Angel Yulo Corporate Communications Office Staff: Ms. Beth de Castro Graphic Design: Jerry Manalili/Chili Dogs Printing: Apple Printers ✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽ You may contact us at: Corporate Communications Office University of Asia and the Pacific Pearl Drive, Ortigas Center, Pasig City Telephone No.: 637 0912 local 301/342 Fax No.: 637 0912 local 342 E-mail: universitas@uap.asia www.uap.edu.ph Schools/Institutes: College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) School of Economics (SEC) School of Education and Human Development (SED) School of Management (SMN) School of Communication (SCM) Institute of Political Economy (IPE) Institute of Information Technology Studies (IIT)
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UNIVERSITAS November 2009
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CONTENTS ✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽
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14 Stellar
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Optimism reigns in BEC Mid-Year Economic Briefing . . . . . . . . . IPE starts off Voters’ Education Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IESE expert: Turn workers into ‘solid citizens, not stars’ . . . . . . . CFA predicts lower agri growth for 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . UA&P academicians attend IESE’s Int’l Faculty Program . . . . . . UA&P, Australian Embassy celebrate week for indigenous Australians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Villegas predicts boom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mr. Clemente Camposano: New director sees research-oriented and outward-looking IPE . . Mr. Rolando Sison: New VP for Administrative Affairs . . . . . . . . Employees awarded for years of service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . OSA hunts for ‘OSAbles’ in 1st Student Involvement Week . . . . . Korean ambassador speaks at APEC Networking Series . . . . . . . Munich prof lectures on new applications of math theories . . . . . English Week goes green . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Buwan ng Wika fete brings barrio fiesta to UA&P . . . . . . . . . . . . New PhD holder: Winston Conrad Padojinog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Filipino dept chair wins in national essay contest . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crossroads 2009-2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A CEO’s tips for young marketing professionals . . . . . . . . . . . Value Ad’d: Cultural values as framework for effective consumer communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Work-Life Balance and Materialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why study Iliad et al? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Not quite) standing still: Economics at UA&P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Renaissance Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Special cover section: Reaching out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The CSR of CSR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Living the Ideals of Caritas in Veritate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In an Abundance of Good: In the darkness bind them... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A chance, a choice, an unforgettable way to reach out . . . . . Unitas is alive! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Project ALFI: Empowering LGUs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Project Citizen: Molding good citizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trained to Serve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Flying Start for 10,000 Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iKLR campaign: Love for real and for keeps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I Am STRONG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Enabling the youth through BIGGKAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Work and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CSR: Doing ordinary things extraordinarily well . . . . . . . . . . IMC alumni go worldwide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Leechiu: In Full . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tiffany Orbien: Communicating the Faith Down Under . . . . . . . Audrey Codera: A Heart for the Young . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neverland at the University of Navarra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stellar Scholars: Family and Friends Get Me Going . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Truth About Scholars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A (semi-imaginary) day in the life of a JMC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tales from Mindanao: Building monuments through the performing arts . . . . . . . . . . . Nation in Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crowns for Dragons: Dragons reign in WNCAA basketball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Volleyball team earns first WNCAA title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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News Optimism reigns in BEC Mid-Year Economic Briefing Dr. Victor Abola (left) and Dr. Bernardo Villegas
lasting until early June,” said Dr. Abola. “But still, weak economic fundamentals abroad are bringing stocks and bonds back to earth, while the domestic economy may recover from the recorded slowdown.” “On average, the economy should slow down to 2.4% from 3.9% in 2008,” he added.
2010 and beyond
“During the past two months, there has been a growing sense that the worst of the deep recession in the US that started more than 17 months ago is finally over. It seems that the financial tsunami is receding with no systemic bank failures occurring,” said renowned economist Dr. Bernardo Villegas during UA&P’s Business Economics Club 2009 Mid-Year Economic Briefing. “Economic analysts are heartened by the fact that although key economic indicators such as manufacturing output and employment are declining, they are declining at a slower rate.” Featuring economic analyses from experts Dr. Victor Abola, Dr. Ramon Quesada, Ms. Corazon Guidote, and Dr. Villegas, the briefing was held at the University in front of over 200 guests from the business sector. The theme, “2009—Year of the Ox: Ploughing through Peaks, Troughs, Recoveries and Relapses,” aptly described the ever-shifting economic state of the Philippine and the rest of the world as of late and, according to the speakers, in the year to follow.
“Extraordinary”
“We live in extraordinary times because of extraordinary mistakes,” said Ms. Guidote, vice president for investor relations of SM Investments Corp. She traced the source of the recession to “a reckless US monetary policy and the slack in corporate and financial regulation and supervision.” “Massive financial fraud flourished undetected for years,” she said. “Denial about its full extent prior to US elections could have worsened the crisis.” In spite of the crisis’ undeniable effect on the Philippines, however, the experts disagreed with projections that the country will experience zero or negative growth in 2009. “While the economy slowed to a 0.4% GDP growth in the first quarter, the financial markets were racing forward in an unusually strong rally Dr. Ramon Quesada
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UNIVERSITAS November 2009
Also remaining hopeful about the country’s recovery was Dr. Villegas who predicted that the Philippines would be one of the economies that would return to its pre-crisis growth rates in 2011-2014. “I am most optimistic about the so-called emerging markets led by China, India, and Brazil and followed by such other emerging economies like Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Korea, and Turkey,” he said. “I can say the same thing about the EU countries, led by France, in the recovery.” Dr. Villegas said that Japan, however, would have a more difficult decade ahead because of “its aging population, which is compounded by its general reluctance to allow immigrant workers to enter the country to help solve its labor shortage.” With regard to the US, “the most powerful economy in the world,” Dr. Villegas said “it will recover in 2010 but will have a relapse sometime between 2012 and 2014 as it grapples Ms. Corazon Guidote with the almost
“A permanent solution, however, depends more on change of moral values, business ethics, and increase in virtues...”
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insurmountable problem of significantly reducing its humongous double deficits, the current account, and fiscal deficits.” Dr. Quesada suggested that, rather than just focusing on re-aligning economic strategies, the world needs to get back in touch with its values. “Bailouts, increased capitalization, pump priming, government guarantees, fiscal and non-fiscal incentives, and private sector spending are necessary,” he said. “A permanent solution, however, depends more on change of moral values, business ethics, and increase in virtues such as prudence and temperance in materialism and consumption, and fidelity to God, family, and country.” Reminding the audience of the year and theme of the briefing, he added: “Let’s constantly reflect on the attributes of the ox—hardworking, loyal, persevering, strong, constant, and mission-oriented.” Mr. Carlo Cabrera Corporate Communications Office P H OTO S: M R . C A R LO C A B R E R A
IPE starts off Voters’ Education Program Anticipating the May 2010 elections, UA&P recently launched the Voters’ Education Program with a get-together with presidential aspirant Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro. Aiming to inform the public regarding the platforms of the presidential wannabes, the event was organized by the Institute of Political Economy, Office of Student Affairs, and the Asian Center for the Study of Democracy (a project of the CRC Foundation, Inc.). Secretary Teodoro presented his platform, at the crux of which is the reform of the current constitutional system, a system that he says was reintroduced in 1987 as a “remedy for a pre-existing situation”—the Marcos dictatorship. He believes that the constitution has run its course, so he now champions the institutionalization of a unicameral body where synergy and political cooperation can be fostered and developed. To differentiate his platform from those of the other candidates, Sec. Teodoro calls his a “platform of healing” as opposed to a “platform of vengeance.” Central to his beliefs is the idea of political healing, where candidates run on the principles of doing the country service as opposed to running with an agenda against other members of the political body.
Sec. Teodoro calls his a “platform of healing” as opposed to a “platform of vengeance.”
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According to Mr. Lloyd Bautista, IPE faculty member and officer in charge of the Voters’ Education Program, more presidential aspirants are due to visit UA&P soon. Victor Cruz SCM 5th Year
IESE expert: Turn workers into ‘solid citizens, not stars’ To properly develop professionals is to make them “solid citizens” in the workplace, not “stars,” said Dr. Ma. Julia Prats, head of the Department of Entrepreneurship at IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. In a September 2 lecture entitled “Managing Professional Service Firms,” Dr. Prats said that professionals are able to transcend their own interests in favor of those of the company. This results in delivering quality service and winning loyal clients.
Clients’ loyalty
Dr. Prats’s lecture centered on perennial issues that beset service-based firms. Such issues include loyalty-profit relationships and management of working professionals. “[Having] loyal clients,” said Dr. Prats, “lowers the costs of getting new clients through referrals from the ones you have and helps improve the business.” Many businesses, however, fail to realize that building trusting client relationships requires a lot of time and resources, she said. According to Dr. Prats, businesses should take into
account the quality of service the clients look for. “The expected service level is a product of your reputation, and it is always better to under-promise and over-deliver. Always try to surprise your client,” she said.
Virtuous cycle
Dr. Prats stressed that managing professionals well is key to achieving the goal of having loyal clients. She proposed that “[a virtuous cycle] begins with managing a working environment that is conducive to caring for the professionals.” Satisfied professionals then become loyal to the company and deliver high-quality service. The company, in turn, brings in loyal clients and generates more profits that can be used to further improve the working environment. Dr. Prats emphasized that good compensation, clear career prospects, empowerment through decision rights, and the nature of the work are key areas of the work environment which owners can focus on. Victor Cruz SCM 5th Year
Dr. Ma. Julia Prats
CFA predicts lower agri growth for 2009 The UA&P Center for Food and Agri Business (CFA) predicted a lower agriculture growth this year. At 2-3%, the low growth projection was traced to “abnormal weather conditions,” said CFA Executive Director Dr. Rolando Dy during the Mid-Year Food and Agri Business Conference last July 14. “Climate change has made the year 2009 quite an abnormal year,” said Dr. Dy. “Rains have already started as early as the first quarter.” Last year, the CFA projected a 4-4.5% growth in agriculture production for 2009.
Dr. Dy also traced the slow growth to the high fertilizer prices last year, making farmers hesitant to buy greater amounts. “In return, even poultry producers cut back on production because of high corn prices, which…led to higher chicken prices.” The CFA’s projection for next year, however, is optimistic. Dr. Dy said that a “modest growth of 3-4% is projected for 2010,” given that no El Niño would occur. He also said that “the presidential elections…can boost demand for food, and thus, agricultural products.” Various agriculture officials attend-
ed the briefing, including Dr. Frisco Malabanan, program director of the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) Rice Program; Mr. Benjamin Tabios, assistant director of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources; and Dr. Preceles Manzo, OIC assistant secretary of the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Ronald Mascariñas of the Bounty Agro Ventures, Inc. and other individuals from the private sector also attended the event. Mr. Daryl Zamora Corporate Communications Office
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
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News
P H OTO C O U R T E SY O F D R . A N N A M A R I A M E N D OZ A
Dr. Anna Maria Mendoza, Ms. Lota Kristine San Juan, Ms. Jesusa Bigay, Ms. Jodie Ngo (first row, 1st, 6th, 7th, and 8th from left, respectively), and Dr. Winston Conrad Padojinog (third row, 2nd from left) join 29 other particicpants in IESE’s International Faculty Program last June
UA&P academicians attend IESE’s Int’l Faculty Program
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ith participants from the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, world-renowned IESE Business School’s International Faculty Program (IFP) gathered in June 33 academicians for an intense three-week professional and personal development course. Five of the participants were from UA&P. School of Management faculty members Dr. Anna Maria Mendoza, Ms. Jesusa Bigay, Ms. Jodie Ngo, Ms. Lota Kristine San Juan, and Dr. Winston Conrad Padojinog of the School of Economics attended the program last June at IESE’s Barcelona (Spain) campus. According to IESE’s website, the IFP “concentrates on teaching methodologies in management education, research, and development of curricula...with the overall aim [of improving] the general quality of
management education.” “The main focus of the program is basically on how to use the case study method,” said Ms. San Juan. She affirmed that the method, as taught by IESE’s renowned faculty, has improved her skills in writing and presenting cases. The case study method is hailed by IESE as a “dynamic pedagogical tool,” which improves one’s communication and methodological skills. Designed with eight courses—including
The IFP “concentrates on teaching methodologies in management education, research, and development of curricula...with the overall aim [of improving] the general quality of management education.”
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Operations Management, Organization and Leadership, Persuasive Communication, and Course Design—the annual program also had “management games” and trips to nearby tourist and pilgrimage sites. When asked about the most important lesson she learned from the program, Dr. Mendoza was succinct: “I learned the importance of reaching out and communicating with students, colleagues, and administrators. One needs to see things from other points of view.” According to Dr. Jerry Kliatchko, vice president for academic affairs, UA&P will continue sending faculty members to the IFP every year. Last year, he himself attended the same program. Mr. Daryl Zamora Corporate Communications Office
UA&P, Australian Embassy celebrate week for indigenous Australians
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UNIVERSITAS November 2009
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enowned economist and UA&P co-founder Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas said that the Asian region is up for an economic flight in the next 20 years—and the Philippines will take a key role in it. Dubbed the “prophet of boom,” Dr. Villegas said in a media briefing that the Philippine economy may grow 4% at yearend, 5% next year, and even 7% and above by 2011. According to Dr. Villegas, several factors contribute to the realization of this scenario. First, “overseas Filipino worker (OFW) remittances continue to be strong at approximately $17 billion this year, a figure higher than the last.” Dr. Villegas refuted cynics speculating that OFWs will soon experience a decline.
‘Emerging engines of growth’
Dr. Villegas also identified “emerging engines of growth”—a group of economies known among economists’ circles as BRICA—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and the ASEAN region, which includes the Philippines. He pointed at these countries’ large consumer markets as a major driving force for growth. These countries will dominate the world’s economic scene in the next 20 years, he said.
Commenting on the Philippines’ export industry, however, Dr. Villegas warned against being overly dependent on the US and Japan as export markets and official development assistance (ODA) sources. He said that being among the countries hardest hit by the economic crisis, the US and Japan have low consumption of Philippine products. Mr. Daryl Zamora Corporate Communications Office
“ The Philippine economy may grow 4% at yearend, 5% next year, and even 7% and above by 2011.” /////////////////// “Filipino workers are always more qualified,” said Dr. Villegas. “[They are] more in demand than Mexicans, Indians, Turks...” He pointed out that OFWs’ qualifications go beyond technical knowledge. Many European employers, for example, prefer Filipino workers because they have better personal hygiene, he said. Second, the 2010 elections will spur a consumption boom. “There’d be so much money flowing into the economy,” said Dr. Villegas. He emphasized that running for president already means spending at least P5 billion. Third, current spending in infrastructure would also aid gradual development in agriculture. Dr. Villegas believes investing in agriculture—such as building farm-to-market roads and irrigation systems— is key in advancing Philippine economy. Exporting agricultural products to heavily populated Asian neighbors China, Taiwan, and Japan could help boost the Philippine economy in the next several years.
bo m Dr. Villegas predicts
UA&P recently took part in the NAIDOC Week with a special film showing organized by the Department of Pacific Rim Studies and the Australian Embassy. Held from the first to the second Sunday in July across Australia and at Australia’s diplomatic missions around the world, NAIDOC Week is a celebration of the history, culture, and achievements of Australia’s indigenous people—the Aborigines and the Torres Strait Islanders. “NAIDOC” stands for the National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee. This committee was once responsible for organizing national activities during NAIDOC Week, and its
Mr. Stephen Scott
acronym has since become the name of the week itself. Its origins can be traced to the emergence in the 1920s of Aboriginal groups which sought to increase awareness in the wider community of the status and treatment of indigenous Australians. The Australian Embassy’s Chargé d’affaires Stephen Scott attended the screening of “Island Fettlers” at Dizon Auditorium to introduce the film as well as to speak about the significance of Aborigines and Australia’s diplomatic ties with other countries, including the Philippines. Australia is also a committed partner in helping promote the culture and heritage
of Filipino indigenous peoples. “Island Fettlers” is a documentary that uses historical footage with current interviews and observational recordings. It unravels the story of Torres Strait Islanders who made an epic journey to the Pilbara in Western Australia to build railways between remote mines in the desert and ports on the coast. After 25 years in Australia, two of the men embark on a cultural pilgrimage back to their native land—to reconnect, to reconcile, and to ultimately realize just what it means to be from Torres Strait.
Mr. Carlo Cabrera Corporate Communications Office
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
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Campus Life Mr. Clemente Camposano
NEW DIRECTOR SEES RESEARCH-ORIENTED AND OUTWARD-LOOKING IPE As the new Director for the Institute of Political Economy (IPE), Mr. Clemente Camposano has just taken his seat at the head of the IPE table, and there’s already a lot on his plate. Aside from a short stint at the IPE, his tenure at UA&P has mostly been spent in the Department of History. That the History teacher’s appointment to head IPE came from a collective decision from his peers is testament to the lasting impression he’s left and his capability to lead the Institute into the future. The first order of business for him was to bolster IPE’s capacities with regard to their research. “Among the key areas that I immediately focused on was developing a research thrust for the Institute,” he says. “Teaching and research are not really seen as separate. As an institute, we have to do both.” This renewed dedication to research will not only benefit the faculty’s output, but also raise the bar on requirements from the IPE graduate students. Mr. Camposano views higher standards not as a barrier for entry into the Political Econo-
my program, but as a chance to strengthen the Institute’s own efforts in better molding capable individuals. He says: “We’re making an effort to align their research projects with that of the teachers so that while our teachers pursue their research agenda, they are, at the same time, able to bring the students with them, and expose the students to higher standards of work as research professionals.”
“Professional competence alone is not sufficient, a person must have a social conscience.”
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Mr. Camposano started his career in education at the West Visayas State University in Iloilo. He moved on to the University of the Philippines where he stayed for 10 years; after another few years taking an active part in politics in electoral campaigns and as a consultant, he found his way to De La Salle University. Even now, standing at the helm of IPE, Mr. Camposano has yet to sever his ties with the political sphere, believing that having a hand in how the world works is just as important as teaching it. “While we’re in the teaching profession, we shouldn’t lose sight of the real world, especially in my field, which is quite dynamic,” he says. Mr. Camposano spends time away from his busy IPE schedule doing political consultations and performing his duties as chairman of the board for the Philippine Center for Civic Education and Democracy (PCCED). It’s his firm belief that educators must make an impact on society that drives his vision for IPE.
“We’re trying to bring together IPE and PCCED, which can serve as a vehicle for our extension work,” he says. Among the external activities IPE faculty have been part of through PCCED is working with and in the service of public school teachers in hopes of improving the quality of education in the country. “I’m convinced that if you are to be an effective teacher you need to be aware of what goes on outside academe. I also encourage our faculty members also to be part of a campaign or do consulting work.” Even the current thrust for more emphasis on research is a means for IPE’s students and faculty to reach out and change society. “Here at IPE, our struggle is to have graduates who have civic consciousness,” Mr.Camposano says. “When you do research, you do it because you want to benefit society. You’re not just making a contribution to the fount of knowledge; you’re trying to make a contribution to society.” “In the face of globalization, the issue of to what community we belong is quite complicated,” he says. “In the past, we could just say that we belong to the national community. Today, we have to understand we belong not only to the national community, but also to the regional as well as the global community. Many of the problems we confront today require the cooperation of nations and entities within nations to resolve. I’m quite hopeful that we are giving our students that kind of orientation.” One of the ways that IPE will be instilling that social and global mindset is set to be implemented next semester. “We are developing a magisterial curriculum: a series of magisterial lectures that would run alongside our regular courses, twice monthly lectures on social doctrine,” Mr.Camposano says. “The idea is for the student to find out how the social teaching of the Church can provide them with a clear and viable perspective on local, regional, and global issues. “This project would allow us not only to deepen our students’ understanding of the social teachings of the Church, but at the same time, to implement many of the principles of liberal education that the College of Arts and Sciences is emphasizing.” Eventually, Mr. Camposano hopes that the curriculum would become a full-fledged certificate course for professionals seeking continuing education at UA&P. “Professional competence alone is not sufficient, a person must have a social conscience,” he says. “The best way to do this is to take advantage of the strength of the University. We have people here who are experts on the social teachings of the Church, and we would like to tap that.” Mr. Carlo Cabrera Corporate Communications Office
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UNIVERSITAS November 2009
Mr. Rolando Sison
New VP for Administrative Affairs
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or the first 25 years of his career, Mr. Rolando Sison worked for some of the biggest chemical-based corporations in the world. Now, as UA&P’s new vice president for administrative affairs, Mr. Sison will be a catalyst for development in an altogether different field: the much more volatile world of higher learning. “I’ve always thought that the best investment is education,” he says. “You give somebody education and the returns multiply by the hundreds.” Take it from someone who knows. Before joining the University, Mr. Sison had worked as an investment consultant for firms abroad, on top of years of experience with the Philippine offices of leading multinational companies. He started out in Unilever, working in research and development, and eventually moved on to ExxonMobil, where he served for 16 years and became country manager, and Borden Chemical, Inc. as a senior executive. Later, he also became a senior executive at Red Ribbon Bakeshop, Inc. where he stayed for eight years. As a summa cum laude graduate of De La Salle University with a degree in chemical engineering and an MBA holder from the University of the Philippines, working in the industry allowed Mr. Sison to pursue his interests, both
“I’ve always thought that the best investment is education. You give somebody education and the returns multiply by the hundreds.”
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on the front lines of the processing end as well as on the corporate end. Because of his high regard for the value of education, he was eager to join UA&P when the opportunity came calling, and although it’s his first foray into the realm of university duties, he takes with him knowledge and experience borne from a long and productive career in the industrial sector. “For me, it’s also time to give back with whatever I’ve learned through the years, and maybe try to add value to the University while, at the same time, also learn,” he says. “Hopefully, I can have a good influence on the way the students are taught, the environment they’re in, the teachers, and all the staff that support the University. That’s been my aim: add value.” Entrusted to take charge of the school’s administrative affairs, Mr. Sison has ample opportunity to do just that. Human resource management, financial management, and assets and facilities management are some of the main facets to oversee in his new post. “My involvement here is in the support function, to make
C A R LO C A B R E R A
sure that the students and faculty are in an environment that allows them to concentrate on their core competence while the administrative group takes care of all the rest,” he explains. Transitioning from corporate honcho to university administrator will, of course, take some adjustment. “The corporate side is a faster-moving enterprise. The way decisions are made in the corporate culture is actually a lot faster,” Mr. Sison says. “In education, it’s a little bit slower, but at the same time, it’s more comprehensive. You get the views of a lot of people and you tend to really think over things before you try to apply them.”
Having built an enviable resumé amongst more profit-driven and highly competitive companies, Mr. Sison can’t help but point out UA&P’s distinctive edge over other top schools in the country: “One of the main advantages of UA&P as a product is the emphasis on personal formation and values. That’s probably why, for me, the students here come out more well rounded.” “But,” he adds, “there’s still a lot of room for growth.” Mr. Carlo Cabrera Corporate Communications Office
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
9
News
Employees awarded for years of service UA&P recently held the recognition ceremonies for the 2009 service awardees, honoring employees that have spent a significant amount of time in the service of the University. For the first time, the Service Awards took place separately from the University Day celebrations in order to further highlight the significance of the awards. Moreover, unlike other years, the ceremonies were open to the awardees’ family and colleagues. “We are currently working on the strategic plan for the next eight years, which will bring UA&P closer to its vision of being the leading university of choice. All of us who make up UA&P
25 Years
Dr. Rolando T. Dy
recognize the big part that employees, such as this year’s awardees, play in making this vision come to fruition,” said UA&P Vice President for Development Ruben Umali. “To say that this batch of awardees contributed to what has driven and what will drive UA&P to excellence would be, at the very least, an understatement.” Service Awards are given to University employees on their 10th year in UA&P, and again on their 15th, 20th, and 25th year.
Mr. Carlo Cabrera Corporate Communications Office
20 Years
Dr. Jose Maria Arsenio G. Mariano
Ms. Lenie G. Parales
Fr. Juan Manuel V. Perez
Mr. Renato J. Batis
Dr. Theta C. Ponce
Mr. Antonio L. Garcia
Ms. Estrellita M. Tan
15 Years
Mr. Ceferino S. Rodolfo
Ms. Nonna J. Parrilla
Dr. Roberto E. de Vera
Ms. Adoracion R. Relos
Mr. Lorenzo D. Lapira
Dr. Fe Gladys B. Golo
Mr. Colin L. Hubo
Dr. George N. Manzano
Mr. Juanito R. Tidoy
Mr. Jonathan B. Marturillas
Ms. Ma. Theresa P. Benitez
Dr. Peter L. U
10 Years
Mr. Joel G. Pira
Ms. Ditas R. Macabasco
Ms. Jennifer D. Delfino
Fr. Edgar F. Soria
Ms. Monaliza M. Go
Ms. Florence M. Sevilla
Dr. Winston Conrad B. Padojinog
Ms. Annette G. Dacul
Mr. Rommel B. Casipit
Mr. Vivencio M. Talegon Jr. P H OTO S: C A R LO C A B R E R A
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UNIVERSITAS November 2009
OSA hunts for
‘OSAbles’ in 1st Student Involvement Week
The Office of Student Affairs (OSA) organized the first ever Student Involvement Week last July 28 to re-introduce itself to the University community. The event, with the tagline “OSAble ka ba?” (Are you OSAble?), highlighted the diverse ways that UA&P students can become more involved and active in UA&P, ultimately encouraging them to sign up for the multiple worthwhile activities lined up for them. OSA Director Ms. Ces Resurreccion remarked that the unit not only makes sure that students comply with school policies. She said that by organizing Student Involvement Week, students become more aware “about OSA’s services, activities, and student organizations, [where students] are enabled to learn myriads of values such as excellence, responsibility, commitment, and dynamism.” The main objective of OSA is to promote the total formation of the student by acting as a “classroom without walls, where learning outside complements what is learned in class,” added Ms. Resurreccion. In this light, OSA also becomes the guardians of the students in their formation by enabling and empowering them through skills and values, she said. Among the activities handled by OSA are arts and cultural events through the office’s Kultura Desk. The Sports Development Desk takes charge of the varsity teams, while the Civics Desk leads activities that aim to advance good citizenship among the students. Lastly, the Services and Guidance Desks help students in their various academic and developmental needs. Victor Cruz SCM 5th Year
P H OTO S: C A R LO C A B R E R A
Munich prof lectures on new applications of math theories Amb. Joong-Kyung Choi
Korean ambassador speaks at APEC Networking Series
The Mathematics Department organized a lecture with visiting professor Dr. Eduardo R. Mendoza on the “Novel Applications of Mathematics and Information Technology in the Life Sciences and Medicine.” Dr. Eduardo R. Mendoza, professor at LudwigMaximilians-Universität in Munich and adjunct professor at the University of the Philippines, delivered a presentation on the practical applications of computational and mathematical theories in the field of biology last July 22. Biology and mathematics tend to view problems from different angles. Biologists tend to use communicational models or “cartoons“ when attempting to explain concepts. These are more graphic representations of abstract concepts. Mathematicians, on the other hand, explain their theories using equations and numerical figures. Among others, these fields make use of mathematical theories to generate computer models to predict the outcome of clinical trials. Researchers
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea to the Philippines Joong-Kyung Choi recently paid a visit to UA&P to speak during the “Day of Korea” of the APEC Networking Series organized by the Asia-Pacific Studies Program. A renowned economist, the Ambassador outlined the mutual, financial benefits of Philippine-Korean ties and how the two nations can work together in achieving economic growth. The relationship between these two countries has been a long and fruitful one, and 2009 marks the 60th year since it was forged. The Ambassador’s talk, “The Republic of Korea: Economic Partner of the Philippines after the Conclusion of the ROK-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement,” aimed to deepen the spirit of community building among the APEC economies and introduces the undergraduate students to the social, political, cultural, and economic dimensions of the Republic of Korea. What makes the visit more significant is that UA&P is the first university in the country with the honor of playing host to Amb. Choi. A relative newcomer to the Philippine diplomatic corps, the Ambassador was appointed to his post at the embassy in 2008, the same year he became Korea’s First Vice Minister of the Ministry of Strategy and Finance. He said that the Philippines’ “potential should be explored, and it is the proper time to introduce large-scale government-to-government industrial cooperation between South Korea and the Philippines.” During a visit to the Philippine Rice Research Institute earlier this year, Amb. Choi also cited the Philippines’ huge potential in agriculture, specifically in grain production and export, noting that the Philippines and South Korea could identify areas in agriculture where the two countries may cooperate. “The Philippines has the potential to be among the 10 economic powers of the world,” he said. To explore this potential, he introduced the idea of a Multi-Industry Cluster, where agriculture and agro-related industries co-exist in realizing what he believes is the fittest development model for a future economic giant. The two countries’ leaders, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and President Lee Myung-Bak, agreed on the launch of the “Feasibility Study on the Multi-Industry Clusters in the Philippines” during the Bilateral Summit Talk last May 30.
use mathematical models of virtual organs to better understand medical conditions such as hypertension and leukemia. Dr. Mendoza states that these models “explain the structure and dynamic properties of biological systems as networks of its molecular components.”
Mr. Carlo Cabrera Corporate Communications Office
Victor Cruz SCM 5th Year
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
11
News English Week goes
green
The English department, along with members of the Arts department and the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Dr. Marya Svetlana Camacho, formally launched English Week last July 28. This year’s celebration, which had the theme “Civic Responsibility in a Threatened Environment,” was organized with the following objectives: to create more awareness of our relationship with the environment, to highlight interdisciplinary dialogue, and to appreciate English use across the curriculum. In her opening address, English Department Chair Socorro Claudio cited Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Caritas in Veritate: “Nature expresses a design of love and truth… The environment is God’s gift to everyone.” She noted how everyone is obligated to care for the environment, reminding her audience that the environment is not just for themselves, but for future generations as well. English Week started off with an exhibit entitled “It’s in Our Hands,” a collection of photos about the environment and quotes from various writers, poets, and other
A J LU I S
Buwan ng Wika fete brings barrio fiesta to UA&P P H OTO S: C A R LO C A B R E R A
famous people. Several films about caring for the environment were also shown —“Home,” “Blast,” “A Convenient Truth,” “Coral Seas,” “The Deep,” “Frozen Seas,” and “Earth.” The week continued with a symposium that featured guest speakers Illac Diaz, a multi-awarded social entrepreneur, who talked about social enterprises and endeavors to alleviate poverty; Fr. Roberto Latorre, who explained the harmony of Christianity and science; Dr. Jay Lazaro, who shared his experiences in the field of genetic engineering; and Ms. Clare Amador, founder of the youthled, non-government tourism program YTRiP, who talked about tourism as a way in nation building. The week ended with an awarding ceremony that recognized the reading and writing skills of the students. Jessica Orleans, a sophomore, walked away with the prize for best interpretive reading, and Francesca Nicole Chan Torres, a freshman, placed both first and second in the creative writing competition. Victor Cruz SCM 5th Year
12
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
Suddenly the trees at the CAS Garden donned vivid banderitas. At the nearby Multi-Purpose Court (MPC), the best of Filipino dishes and delicacies filled the tables specially arranged for the day’s occasion. At first glance (and sniff), it would seem that some May barrio fiesta had been magically transported to UA&P on that wet August day. Indeed that was how the Department of Filipino capped their Buwan ng Wika celebration last August 28. But that was outdoors. Li Seng Giap Auditorium had a different story. Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera, National Artist for Literature and professor at the University of the Philippines, graced the cultural program in the jampacked hall. Speaking in Filipino, he said that the use of the Filipino language could be an ingredient in strengthening the Philippine republic, dismissing popular claims that the Philippines’ national language could hinder globalization. At the end of his speech, Dr. Lumbera exhorted the audience not to be afraid, but rather to speak and use the Filipino language: “Magsalita, huwag matakot, gamitin ang salitang Filipino.”
Musical presentations by students and some University employees, as well as several guest performers, made up most of the variety show. Among the more prominent musical artists were Maegan Aguilar, daughter of the renowned folk singer-songwriter Freddie Aguilar; award-winning native music artist Bayang Barrios; and acoustic artist Noel Cabangon. The show also featured the world-famous Bayanihan Folk Dance Company that wowed the crowd with their graceful glides onstage. Later in the day, the aptly titled Fiestang Nayon (barrio fiesta) continued under the florid banderitas and at the MPC banquet. The event provided the University community with an opportunity to bond with each other—of course, while some old folk music played softly in the background. According to Dr. Leodivico Lacsamana, chair of the Department of Filipino, the “fiesta mood” in the Buwan ng Wika’s culminating activity was a “celebration of the Filipino spirit and values.” Mr. Daryl Zamora Corporate Communications Office
New PhD holder: Winston Conrad Padojinog
Bravo
The School of Economics (SEC) adds another doctor to its esteemed faculty. Winston Conrad Padojinog, an alumnus of the Center for Research and Communication (the forerunner of UA&P) and a senior economist at SEC, recently attained his doctoral degree in business administration from the De La Salle University Graduate School of Business. Dr. Padojinog’s dissertation was titled “Strategic Franchising Decision and Pricing of Franchise Rights by Philippine Franchisors.” In it he surveys and analyzes various behaviors of Philippine franchisors.
Franchise country
Franchising, loosely defined, is licitly operating a business following the philosophy, trademarks, products, etc. of another firm (franchisor). In his study, Dr. Padojinog found out that “Philippine franchisors exhibit an integrative approach in making their franchising decision, and that the franchising decision is most frequently directed toward resource acquisition, achievement of scale economies, and reduction of transaction and agency costs.” He added that his study shows that “international expansion by Philippine franchisors may be due to saturation in the domestic market.” In the course of his research, Dr. Padojinog saw an “interesting” profile of Philippine franchisors. He said, “[M]ost franchisors belong to the food sector; franchising is adopted by firms of various sizes, even micro-enterprises; regardless of asset size, franchisors tend to own less than half of their outlets; small-scale firms tend to franchise earlier than larger firms and have less experience in franchising than larger companies; and charging of franchise rights or fees is the dominant practice over charging of royalty rates.” But why a study on franchising? The dearth of academic literature on the topic was not the main reason. Dr. Padojinog had observed that the Philippines has the most number of “franchise concepts” in the Southeast Asian region. According to him, in 2005 there were 868 franchise concepts in the Philippines, compared to only 380 in Singapore, 360 in Thailand, 300 in Indonesia, 240 in Malaysia, and 92 in Hong Kong. “This is an interesting fact,” he said, “considering that these countries have higher gross per capita incomes than the Philippines.”
Out[Stan]ding
Prior to working in UA&P starting 1999, Dr. Padojinog helped create the Iloilo Business Club, which is now among the most active business clubs in the country. He was the managing director of the Strategic Business Economics Group from 1993 to 2005, then recently the vice president of the Center for Research and Communication Foundation, Inc. as well as the vice dean of SEC. A published author of several academic articles, Dr. Padojinog also sits as a board member of the Comprehensive Initiative for the Transformation of Organizations, Inc. and the Innova BPO, an engineering and architectural outsourcing firm. Now Dr. Padojinog sees himself still in UA&P in 20 years’ time, “serving [it] and its mission while remaining very active in business consulting and community work.” He plans to obtain a SAP accreditation and become a Certified Financial Analyst. He is also an advisor of several medium- and largescale companies involved in real estate, port logistics, information technology, among others. But when the day’s work is done, you could catch Dr. Padojinog hitting tennis balls as he used to back in college, being part of the varsity of his undergraduate school, UP-Visayas. Otherwise, you’ll find Daddy “Stan” talking to his daughter, Regina, or his wife, Primrose. Being a decade-old faculty member of UA&P, Dr. Padojinog’s philosophy in life may not be surprising: “It is in serving others unconditionally that I find my God, my true worth, peace, and happiness.” Mr. Daryl Zamora Corporate Communications Office
C A R LO C A B R E R A
Filipino dept chair wins in national essay contest Dr. Leodivico C. Lacsamana, chair of the Department of Filipino, won second place in this year’s Gawad Surian sa Sanaysay for his essay entitled, “Bayang Binigyan ng Wika, Wikang Nagtanghal sa Bayan: Ang Paglaganap ng Wikang Filipino Mula Baler Hanggang Buong Pilipinas” [A LanguageGiven Nation, a Language that Presents a Nation: The Spread of the Filipino Language from Baler to the Entire Philippines]. Dr. Lacsamana received his award at the Century Park Hotel in Manila last August 28. Gawad Surian sa Sanaysay is a national essay competition organized by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, which oversees the development and spread of the Filipino language in the Philippines. The contest was held in celebration of the Buwan ng Wika (Language Month), which carried the theme, “Wikang Filipino: Mula Baler Hanggang Buong Pilipinas” (The Filipino Language: From Baler to the Entire Philippines). In his essay, Dr. Lacsamana discusses how various individuals and institutions —private and public—have helped in shaping and strengthening the development and propagation of the Filipino language from 1935 to the present. He narrates the sometimes-turbulent path of the language as it triumphs as the Philippines’ national language, overcoming challenges posed by time and globalization. Dr. Lacsamana teaches Filipino Language and Literature and Literary Theory and Criticism. He earned his doctorate in Philippines Studies from the University of the Philippines and received the 1989 Metrobank Outstanding Teacher (Secondary Level) award while he was still teaching at La Salle Green Hills. Currently Dr. Lacsamana is working on two big projects: a Filipino translation of Dante’s Inferno and a biography of National Artist for Literature Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera. Mr. Daryl Zamora Corporate Communications Office
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
13
r Cross a d s
2009-2010
The General Assembly Address of UA&P President Dr. Jose Maria Mariano 24 June 2009
14
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
Features
M
ay I begin by reading from this book of poems entitled Breaking Into Light, which was published in 1976 by the Center for Research and Communication (CRC), our University’s parent institution? The last poem of the collection is a short one entitled:
CROSSROADS Faces of rapidly. things
dreams turn It is ripe with the
inward for new same roots.
In the
dark, Asia
calls
the men where are
in grim remorse is struggling
places shed. Who with births?
They say
it is time
we see ourselves.
The poem holds for me a double significance. It was written by Fr. Marciano Guzman, one of two perhaps littleknown pillars of our University to whom, during the early half of this month, we said our last farewells in this life and for the repose of whose souls we offered the noon Mass yesterday. Dr. Jesus P. Estanislao, our first university president, had earlier paid tribute to both men, to Fr. Guzman, who was one of his research assistants in the early years of the CRC and whom he remembers as “a young man, fresh out of college... who shared a dream with a few other young men who wanted to make a difference”; and to the other, Mr. Robert “Bob” Paluzska, whom Dr. Estanislao said was “the one [though many may not know it] most directly instrumental in setting up the Information Center of CRC...[He was] the very heart of a center that needed facts and figures, systematically collected, stored, and made ready for easy access and professional analysis, to be able to do the foundational task it purported to do.” Both men shared the same hope, reports Dr. Estanislao— “the hope that this University would keep making a positive difference in the Philippines and in the Asia-Pacific region by clinging to its core values and foundational principles, which were the bases of [their] dream[s].” I have my own testimony to their hope. A month before his last illness, Fr. Guzman handed me a plastic folder containing about 140 sheets of poetry, his poems, collected from 1966 to 2008, that we have decided to publish before this first semester of school year 2009-2010 would have reached the half-way mark, under the title he himself chose: Tongues of Men, Dream of Angels. His pabilin to me then (little did I know it was to be among his last) was: “This is my small contribution to the Christianization of Asia.” Fr. Guzman included his 1976 poem “Crossroads” in this collection. One significance then, which that poem has for me, is that after a hiatus of three years, we can launch, in earnest, our University’s dream to publish at least one book every year. We have four titles in the pipeline, and another four developed
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
15
concepts, enough to average two book publications for the next four years. The call for academic research and publications that we made last year during this assembly has begun to bear fruit. A lot more can be done, and will be done, to gain us a position of leadership in academic research and communication. I’m sure you will want to know how we fared in the rest of the goals we posed for ourselves at the beginning of the academic year just past. I shall, during the course of this talk, mention some of our achievements, as well as a few goals that we did not quite attain. Today, I would like to focus on the other significance that Fr. Guzman’s “Crossroads” has for me. It arises from an unexpected convergence between the poet’s sentiments, an institutional goal for this year, and a visitor’s impact on that goal. The over-arching goal that we have to achieve this academic year is a vision for our institution for 2018. In the planning cycle that the University institutionalized in 2006, next school year—2010-2011—is fixed as the beginning of the new eight-year period. This year, therefore, our over-arching key result area is a university strategic plan for the period 2010-2018. Some of you have been invited and have graciously sacrificed precious time to participate in focused group discussions on strategic issues confronting UA&P. More time may be asked of you and of others as we figure out where we are, where we want to be, how we shall get to where we want to be—in other words, to participate in the planning process that will run through the rest of 2009. By January 2010, that strategic plan—with its vision, milestones, and accountabilities—will be ready for cascading down for business planning for the next academic year. The poet’s sentiments can inspire us to see ourselves, this academic year 2009-2010 that we began officially last Monday with a Mass of the Holy Spirit, at a crossroads. We shall be setting aside “time [to] see ourselves” as we are, with sober realism, yet with a daring optimism that we are “ripe for new things with the same roots.” The visitor was the Honorary Grand Chancellor of our University, Bishop Javier Echevarría, Prelate of Opus Dei, who graced the halls of UA&P for the second time—the first was in August 1998—last July 2008. It was all too short a visit. Most of the University community could meet him only in a get-together he had with the wider public at the Mall of Asia. Some students managed to be with him in this same auditorium with other young people from other universities, and he was able to squeeze in a few precious minutes of conversation with the university officers. But during that brief visit, he said much that had a direct impact on what our vision would be for our institution. I shall attempt to summarize that impact in three points.
First.
Our Grand Chancellor encouraged us repeatedly, and in many ways, to remain steadfast in our institutional mission. This means, to my mind, nothing less than full fidelity to the mission— the “same roots”, the poet says—that the founders of our University committed to in 1994-1995. At the same time, among the many principles articulated by the founders of the University, and as a way to focus our efforts during the eight-year period 2010-2018, I would like to highlight our commitment to contribute, as a university, to the humanization of society, according to the charism that inspired St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei. By “contribute”, I mean to express our desire to collaborate more vigorously with other universities and institutions of learning in the Philippines. The specific strategy adopted by the founders of our University has always been to identify and develop areas of learning and education where there is as yet a relative vacuum—in content, or approach, or methodology—rather than choose those already served extensively and excellently by other entities. By “the humanization of society”, I mean our participation in man’s constant struggle to renew his humanity—because each age threatens with its own brand of savagery and its own brand of barbarism, because each age presents new challenges to our sense of the dignity of the human person. We shall contribute in a way that is consistent with Christian principles, consistent too with a firmly secular approach, and in a way that creates through education, through academic research and communication, a new and effective curiosity about the Catholic faith. And by “society”, I would like to refer to the region that is named in our seal—Asia and the Pacific—upon which we shall now direct
16
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
our international outlook, while keeping ourselves rooted in the concerns of our nation, and with our attention concretely focused on the immediate community in which we operate.
Second.
A catchphrase that our Grand Chancellor repeated in many ways during his brief visit here was: “Aim for the top.” I would like to propose the challenge for us to envision UA&P, circa 2018, as a university of choice among the upper echelon students of the Philippines, an academic institution that scores high at graduate employability because of our vigorous industry-academe partnerships, and a recognized leading research-based teaching institution in the Asia-Pacific Region. For each of these big-sounding ideals, we have to provide the appropriate metric. Much of the work of strategic planning that we face this year is working out a set of metrics and accountabilities that will stretch our capabilities but will be realistic, and that will have been benchmarked against the top universities of the country. But the poet also says “Asia calls...”, and UA&P would like to heed that call. The past school year has seen some modest gains in expanding our reach to the Asia-Pacific. Last February, Professor Hau Lee of Stanford University, world-renowned for his contributions in the field of value chain management, addressed an audience of top company executives in this very hall. Professors Lluis Renart and Pedro Videla from the IESE Business School, ranked among the top five MBA schools in the world— also came to share with us their economics and marketing expertise. Scholarship in the field of Spanish colonial Philippines received a boost as history professors from Spain and top universities and historical institutions in the Philippines gathered together in the seminar held last March as a tribute to the pioneering efforts of Dr. Lourdes Diaz-Trechuelo. In May, we launched our participation in the 10,000 Women initiative by international financial firm Goldman Sachs. Hand in hand with IESE Business School, we are pooling our intellectual resources to provide underserved Filipino women with world-class business education, networking opportunities, and professional mentoring services. Another social initiative that has been in place since 2008 is being conducted by our Center for Social Responsibility. Though its beneficiaries are local government units, CSR’s partner is, like 10,000 Women, a foreign institution, the British Embassy. The Alternative Financing Options for Local Government Units Project (Project ALFI) provides technical assistance to LGUs to make them financially stable by tapping alternative modes of resource generation. Last but not least, our Integrated Marketing Communications Effectiveness Awards—now called Tambuli Awards—has expanded its jury to include top advertising CEOs from Singapore and Australia. The awarding ceremony, participated in by twice the number of advertising groups compared to 2006, is scheduled for July 10. These successful efforts to make a common cause with the region’s top institutions are achievements we can build on.
Third.
Our Grand Chancellor urged us to be optimistic: “Dream, and your dreams, with the grace of God, will fall short.” But the reality will fall short, unless we take “time [to] see ourselves”, to discern more clearly the gaps we still need to work on. We “struggle with [our] births,” as the poet says, as evidenced by the various inputs we have received from the focus group discussions that form part of the institutional review we need for our strategic planning. Let me mention how we can address three of the more important ones that have reached me: With resolve and optimism, we will continue to refine our structures of governance to reflect more and more the principle of subsidiarity, while at the same time ensure that decisions made at the subsidiary levels confirm the principle of solidarity—as expressed by our commitments to the foundational mission. We will have to vastly improve in our efforts to communicate with one another, from top-down and sideways, inside and out to our external stakeholders. We have several projects in gestation—among them, a more comprehensive and integrated online information and
Features communications network, and a restructured and redesigned corporate website. But the effort to communicate is incumbent on us all. Above all, we shall complete, ready for implementation starting January 2010, an integrated support system for career pathing, competence training, and our people’s succession planning that we had not quite been able to get off the ground.
sibility research and advocacy. CSR shall promote the UA&P hallmark of people development. 8. Our Center for Students and Alumni (CSA) shall make UA&P a center for student cultural, civic, and sports development activities for the community in which the University operates. Through its activities, CSA shall showcase the UA&P hallmark of values education.
Elements of the vision
Our faculty
Now, I would like to share with you some elements of the vision of UA&P for 2018 that I presented to the Board Executive Committee and the University Management Committee at the beginning of this month. This summary is by no means our complete and final strategic vision; the consensus we reached was on what should be included as inputs to two subsequent iterations of the basic planning process— reviewing, visioning, strategizing.
Our schools
1. We wish, first of all, to confirm our commitment to liberal education as the intellectual gateway to all the disciplines. We aim to continue embodying this commitment in a strong liberal arts core curriculum for all our program offerings. We have just completed a common framework for liberal education and a specialization major in our fouryear bachelor’s programs, consistent with a more reasonable student load, and are ready to apply for CHEd (Commission on Higher Education) approval, for a June 2010 opening. 2. We aim to build our prestige in five discipline-areas: (1) in business education and related disciplines, (2) in communication, (3) in law and political education, (4) in the humanities and in pedagogy, and (5) in science and technology education, particularly engineering, on the one hand, and the life-sciences and biomedicine, on the other. We have received the first drafts of feasibility studies for Applied Mathematics, Engineering, and Law. Other programs, still under deliberation, will be included among the milestones for the next eight years. 3. Of these five discipline-areas, we shall pay particular attention to business education, and the niche that our parent institution, CRC, carved out during its first 17 years—business economics. We have decided to retain distinct units to take care of the current program offerings in Economics and in Management, and put up another school—the Business School—to take care of our future MBA and various Executive Education Programs. We are awaiting the return of soon-to-be Dr. Stan [Winston Conrad] Padojinog from a summer study program in IESE to give impetus to these advanced management programs. 4. To administer our new course offerings and research programs, new graduate schools will be erected, and we shall come closer to completing the original list of nine proposed in 1994. Candidates include the School of Engineering and Technology, the School of Law and Public Policy, and the School of Health and Sciences. 5. We will have started PhD programs in at least two disciplines.
9. We shall have identified the fields that feature in our course offerings where PhDs are crucial for fulfilling our institutional mission, and shall have made the required number of professorial appointments. Though we may not envision degree program offerings in Psychology, Sociology and History in the next eight years, we realize the need for experts to inject the Christian dimension in these fields and shall have appointed professors charged with that responsibility. We shall also have identified and established professorial chairs for those fields where Christian-dimensioned research and communication efforts are most needed. 10. To give full impetus to our efforts to imbue all our teaching and research with the Christian dimension, all our faculty members shall collaborate on a web-based Academic Information Resource that, beginning with their course syllabi, shall represent the dynamic intellectual capital of the UA&P faculty.
Our students
11. We shall consider directing our marketing efforts to attracting a yearly freshman intake of 600 students with 85%-and-above and 90%-and-above high school average. This intake represents 13% (a little more than an eighth of the upper 50% ranked according to high school performance) of the freshman intake of the current top three universities of choice in the country. 12. We have been successful this year in maintaining last year’s freshman intake figures and reaching our goal of 100 freshman scholars. Moving forward, we intend to maintain 100 financial grantees per year level in our undergraduate programs, about half of whom are merit scholars with 90% and above high school average and are enrolled in our honors programs—the five-year MA/MS. The total count will therefore be 16-17% of 2,400 undergraduates on financial grants. 13. Mentoring shall be a niche. We shall have developed an expertise in coaching, mentoring, and counselling that we can share through publication and extension activities.
I would like to highlight our commitment to contribute, as a university, to the humanization of society, according to the charism that inspired St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei. //////////////////////
Our centers
6. Following agreements recently forged by the governing bodies of the Center for Research and Communication and our University, we can now jointly pursue our institutional research and communications agenda, and, by CRC’s vigorous collaboration with research institutes that pursue a similar research agenda, it shall be known as the Asian counterpart of similar endeavors in the Americas and in Europe. The CRC shall represent a focus for the UA&P hallmark of research and communication, and ensure that the edge that their 25-year experience in data-gathering and analysis, concrete professional issues, and current social needs can give, our research will remain strong. 7. Our Center for Social Responsibility (CSR) shall be known in the Asia-Pacific region as a leading force in corporate social respon-
Our administration
14. We shall be a two-campus university, with (a) the main campus just outside Manila, where the central administration, the College of Arts and Sciences, and all Graduate Schools, except the Business School, are located, and (b) the Ortigas campus, where the Business School and branch offices of the business-oriented graduate programs are located. We have consolidated our options for property outside Ortigas and, with tenacity and divine providence, may be able to clinch the deal before academic year 2009-2010 is over. 15. We have not quite completed last year’s goal to develop a business plan that will allow us to bridge the effects of a more demanding selection policy. We now resolve to complete this plan, so that through the activities of the Development Office and the high level of efficiency in our administrative services, we shall be able to employ, throughout the period 2010-2018, a “bridge” business model that relies less on tuition income. I offer these 15 elements as inputs that can now be shredded, expanded, turned inside-out, or maybe adopted in toto in the strategic planning sessions scheduled up to September 2009. I hope many of you can participate in these sessions directly or in and through your units. Your contributions to this process are crucial to creating the vision for UA&P that we will launch in June 2010.
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a ceo’s tips for YOUNG marketing PROFESSIONALS Mr. Gerardo C. Ablaza Jr.
S
even months ago, I marked 35 years as a corporate executive—which probably means that I started working when most of you were not even born yet! Over those many years, I went through four major career shifts. I began work in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, spending over four years in Philippine Refining Co. (PRC, now Unilever), and two years in a start-up marketing company called Amalgamated Creameries Corporation. I moved into the agribusiness field, where I worked for three years, learning about the production and sales of hogs and cattle in Monterey Farms, and then poultry in San Miguel Corporation. In late 1983, I entered the world of banking and stayed there for 15 years. I joined Citibank at a time when it began hiring professionals with a nonbanking background to help propel its new consumer banking business. And in 1997, I accepted the challenge of participating yet again in a new sector I was thoroughly unfamiliar with—telecommunications. I was blessed with the opportunity to lead Globe Telecom from being a troubled start-up with merely 50,000 subscribers 12 years ago to becoming a major service provider with over 25 million customers when I handed over its leadership to a new CEO early this year. I learned my marketing ABCs at PRC. It was there that I began to understand some core marketing fundamentals. Among them: Marketing is about serving and satisfying consumer needs profitably. A solid consumer proposition must have a coherent and compelling marketing mix revolving around 4 Ps: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. To achieve success, a brand must have sustainable competitive differentiation. Those who manage it must be able to answer: “Why should I choose and buy Brand X over Brand Y? “ The brand must be value-creating, not value-destroying, for
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the enterprise. Thus, the brand manager must be accountable for the brand’s P&L (profit and loss) and its resource utilization. As basic as these principles may sound, I have found them to be true and unchanging regardless of the business or industry. Beyond these fundamentals, I gained other insights and lessons from my early stint as brand assistant, brand manager, and product group manager in almost five years at PRC.
Humility
The first lesson is humility. You graduate with honors from a reputable university, you have consistently received A’s for your tests and term papers, you are used to engaging in academic debates and intellectual analysis. Therefore, you feel you know everything, and are prepared to conquer the world. Then, you find out quickly enough that the real world is a different place. In school, you made an effort to submit long and involved term papers, crafted for beautiful language (sometimes, even flowery language) to impress your professor with your command of English. I did exactly that on my first memo to my boss, a Nigerian from the royal Ibo tribe, educated in Cambridge. He massacred my paper, and scrapped big pieces of it. Less than a third survived. Business communication is about simple and clear language that directly exposes the objective of the report, the problem or issue being addressed, the alternative solutions in light of the business context, and the recommendation and the rationale for it. The rest is fluff, therefore irrelevant. It was a humbling experience. This experience taught me humility. It is an important one because humility is about acknowledging that you don’t know everything. In fact, you know very little. Consequently, you open yourself up to learning and growth. Graduation from school is not the end of learning, but must lead to the continuation of it. Keep this in mind when you begin to practice your profession.
Features Market awareness
Another early lesson is that a good marketing man needs to be aware of his market, in all of its important dimensions. He must have a sense of the ecosystem made up of the consumer and his milieu, the distribution structure and how its different segments behave in the delivery of his product to the consumer, the other products and brands that directly or indirectly compete with his brand, and his suppliers who form an important part of his product’s cost and supply chain. I realized early that the key to good market awareness is to understand that it does not reside within, but rather outside oneself. None of us is representative of the consumer; therefore we must continuously validate our hypotheses about him—his lifestyle, wants, needs, and behaviors—through actual customer contact, immersion, and marketing research. It is not sufficient that we are able to imagine what goes on in the distribution chain and in various trade channels; we must go out and see for ourselves.
Product cycles
I am sure you are familiar with the classical product cycle: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. As sure as night follows day, products go through a life cycle. Even great brands die. I had the privilege of being a product group manager for one of them—Royco Chicken Noodle Soup. Royco was one of the well-established household brands in our time. It was part of the home. It was a dominant market leader with a 75% share of the Soups and Broth category. Because of its market strength, Royco was also the most profitable brand in the Foods Division of PRC. In some parts of the country, Royco was consumed not only as a soup but also as a viand. Its use as a viand surfaced in the geographies where there were more lower-income households who considered it nutritious enough as stand-alone ulam (viand) and satisfying enough when eaten with rice. It may not have been fully evident to us then, but this behavior should have tipped us off to an emerging consumer need: that of an inexpensive, easy-to-use, but Value of brand filling viand substitute. I also learned early that a brand’s value or equity goes beyond the It was long after I had left PRC that Royco faded away, and in product’s functionalities. The brand has an emotional character formed its place emerged the instant noodle product. Instant noodles are by reputation, heritage, as well as quality and performance perceptions better suited for main meal consumption. They were more robust and that ultimately determine consumer choice. Throughout the length of satisfying, had better taste (and eventually offered a wide range of my stay with the Fats and Oils Product Group, PRC’s refrigerated marflavors), easy to cook, and most of all, affordable. Today, it is reported garine product consistently beat that of P&G in all blind product tests. that more and more lower-income consumers, especially workers, get It had superior taste, better melting values, more appetizing smell, and by for lunch with instant noodles, rice, and a bottle of Coke. Instant a more attractive color. But in part 2 of researches where we tested the noodles for taste and nutrition (whatever little it margarine products on a branded basis—our Milkreprovides), rice to feel full, and Coke for the energy ma against P&G’s Dari Crème—we were always kick from the sugar! clobbered. Exactly the same respondents evaluating The lesson is: every product will inevitably go the same products gave different judgments. Dari through a life cycle. At some point, it will decline Crème’s image was simply superior. The name conand give way to another product. This decline can noted creaminess and butter-like qualities; its adverbe triggered by any one of a whole range of reasons tising played on motherly care (“Pinipili ng mapiling such as the introduction of a superior product, a ina.”) and benefited from a long heritage of leadership change in consumer behavior, a new technology, or and acceptance in the Filipino home. a change in the factors of production that make the product unprofitable. Therefore, as marketing manProduct performance agers, we need to keep an eye on clues and emergConsistent product performance is a ing trends that may possibly hasten the life cycle of necessary and minimum condition for a brand’s our products. We must constantly search for ways continued success, if not survival. In fact, there by which we can lengthen that cycle either through was a saying in our early days as marketing functionality and feature enhancements, marketing practitioners that “good advertising kills a bad to new consumer segments, opening up of new product faster.” The brand promise that is conveyed through advertising and other forms of marketing The marketing manager distribution channels, or improving the price-value equation of our offering. Most of all, we must plan communication must be fulfilled with every must put a stake experience the customer has with the product. in the ground, establish for our own product’s eventual replacement. If we don’t, somebody else will. Otherwise, purchase is unlikely to be repeated, a destination for and the brand’s reputation will be undermined. his brand, and create During my stint as Milkrema Brand Manager, we man as enterprise leader a sense of purpose that TheInmarketing lined up a range of new sandwich spreads that would my years at PRC, I realized that a marketing the organization in its extend the brand and expand the range of choices greatest contribution to his enterprise various parts can rally to. man’s that we would offer to the consumer for breakfast, is providing effective leadership. And yet, the snacks, and other meal occasions. One of these was /////////////////// marketing man often does not have the hierarchical Milkrema Choco Spread. It was similar to the product authority over all the functions in the enterprise. Nutella. It was targeted towards children and younger consumers. The This suggests that he needs to lead, not by formal authority, but by packaging and advertising were geared towards this market. It took off influence, or better yet, by inspiration. I remember being a 22-year like a rocket. In its first few weeks, off-take was 2-3 times the planned old branch manager working with a 45-year old sales director to try volumes. Then disaster struck. The product began to develop molds and get him to allocate sales resources in support of my brand’s on the shelves and in the store bodegas. I can no longer remember the marketing programs. He was more senior in age and experience, and technical issues, but it had to do with how that particular formulation he did not report to me. Unless I had ideas powerful enough to make of sugar, cocoa, and vegetable fats promoted the growth of molds. We him listen, you can imagine how easily he could simply walk away. had to recall the product and correct the formulation. We tried to reAs a leader of his brand, the marketing manager must put a introduce it, but the trade had lost confidence. stake in the ground, establish a destination for his brand, and create a This example is dramatic because it speaks of a large and visible sense of purpose that the organization in its various parts can rally to. problem that caused a product’s demise. But there are many more As important, he must ensure that enterprise resources are lined up examples of products that go through a slow and attritional death betoward the fulfillment of that brand vision. cause they are unable, in more subtle ways, to meet the customer’s exThese are some of the lessons from my years at PRC that have pectation of quality and performance that were promised by the brand. stuck with me over the years. I believe they are as relevant today as There is, furthermore, a supplementary insight in this: that even they were in the mid-70s, although there are, today, even richer exfailures bring valuable lessons. This is important to the marketing amples that give evidence to the principles underlying those lessons. professional who needs to be on the edge of innovation, identifying evolving consumer needs if not creating them, who should be willing Mr. Gerardo C. Ablaza Jr. is the Senior Managing Director of Ayala Corporation to experiment and try new things. And yet, no one can be a perfect and the former CEO of Globe Telecom Inc. This article is an excerpt of a recent batter. If we accept that there will be misses, we can use them to lecture he delivered at UA&P to a class of IMC students, sharing his knowledge make adjustments towards achieving a powerful hit. and insight gained through decades of experience in the corporate world.
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Value Ad’d
Cultural values as framework for effective consumer communication Mr. Herminio Ordoñez
The Tambuli Awards, now on its third successful year, was established to honor advertising success which incorporated values as added value for enhancing brand benefits. The award is unique because it gives tribute to the accomplishments of both client and ad agency not only for generating more sales but also for a remarkable partnership work style. I was requested by the organizers of Tambuli to give a talk on the role of human and social values in advertising before an audience composed of heads of ASEAN-based global agencies, agency management and clients, marketing executives, media managers, members of academe, and communication arts graduates. I have been a consistent incorporator of human values in many of our ad campaigns since the ‘80s. I have the benefit of hindsight in identifying insights on values as the critical element for effectiveness in creating advertising. Values-oriented advertising is naturally inspired by Filipino culture in a macro sense and family values in a micro sense. In 1986, after the EDSA revolution, our agency convinced our client DBP to advertise promoting Filipino virtues, namely, palabra de honor and katapatan as the hallmarks of professionalism. The advertising had a judo-effect in changing the DBP image from a crony bank to a professional institution. A series of Jollibee TV commercials in the ‘80s and ‘90s centered on Filipino family values as the conceptual framework, giving our client, Jollibee Foods, the cutting edge in beating Mcdonald’s. “Langhap Sarap” is now a legend in marketing. People still remember Jollibee ads such as “Ligaw”, “Lola”, and “Jennifer” 25 years after airing.
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Duty Free’s “Bababalik Ka Rin”, a saccharine TV campaign, which we launched in the late ‘80s, hit the raw nerve of homesick OCWs and the client cried all the way to the bank. Coca-Cola, winner of this year’s Tambuli Platinum Award, used family togetherness as the heart-stirring theme to boost the sales of its big sized bottle. In most value added campaigns, a dimension of brand goodwill enhances brand benefits to fill the need for a consumer relationship, that aspect of advertising that fosters brand loyalty and continuous brand growth. In retrospect, my talk enabled me to rationalize values advertising in a more profound and holistic context. In hindsight, values communications took the role of a necessity instead of an option. For good reasons. The true paradigm of advertising is love and respect for the consumer, the neglect of which results in low esteem for the advertising profession. “It’s only advertising,” says Lola Luz or “Don’t believe everything you see in advertising,” says Mang Leon, my barber at Bruno’s. The most difficult comment to handle came from the famous British historian, Arnold Toynbee who said, “Advertising makes people buy things they don’t really need.” The big universe of total media populace that views advertising is oftentimes shunned aside by niche marketing by focusing only on the target market psychographic. When there’s an overspill in viewership, flawed
Features judgment happens. This was obvious in the case of a TV ad that portrayed teenagers acting out bad manners meant as humor. The agency justified it because a research among the teen target market considered the scene funny and not offensive at all. But what about the rest of the viewers who were parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts who were raising their children on tenets of good manners? And what about that liquor brand that used an idiom for pornographic double-talk as attention getter; when decent people protested, the client sent its lawyers to argue that withdrawing the objectionable ad was a violation of free speech? Insulting the intelligence of the consumer is an ancient complaint against advertising. So is treating women as sex objects. Must the protesting public be called narrow-minded and medieval? Or should the advertiser be rebuked for disrespect and bad taste? To avoid indiscretions, creators of advertising must periodically revisit the enormous power of their craft. They must not lose sight of the reality that their branch of communication conveys the ephemeral and substance aspects to the viewing public. The ephemeral deals with changes, transitions, and aspirations; the substance aspect, with truth, permanence, and transcendence. The culture of advertising and the culture of the consumers differ in size and orientation. Advertising is fundamentally a business of
strategizing, crafting, and producing sales materials. On the other hand, the consumer culture looms larger than life, replete with multi-faceted realities in life that deal with conflicts of virtues with vices, struggles between success and failure, confrontations with human immortality or nothingness after death. The world of the consumer is so awesome, the task of choosing what brand of toothpaste to use for brushing one’s teeth is too picayune in the scheme of things. Values are cultural. It is axiomatic that values are the most natural content for much of persuasion communication. The power of value lies in its ability to mirror identities, empathize sentiments and connect the thoughts between the sender and the receiver of messages, both of whom are natives of the same tribe. When communicated, values are instant and visceral. Trendsetters, freedom lovers, and rule breakers often say It is in our homes that traditions, orthodoxies, and conservatisms are anachronistic values and virtues are in this day and age. Let’s check them out: Parental care and learned, nourished, character formation in raising children. Generosity and helppracticed, and passed fulness within the family. Respect and obedience towards on from generation parents and elders. Good manners and right conduct in the to generation. workplace and social settings. Law-abiding citizenship. For us to live coherent, honorable, and happy lives, there’s abso/////////////////////// lutely no irrelevance nor obsolescence in all of the above. It’s inevitable that most added values in advertising are Filipino family values. Our best behavior and silent virtues inside the family circle and its extension speak volumes on the fecundity of values. It is in our homes that values and virtues are learned, nourished, practiced, and passed on from generation to generation. By coincidence, it is also in the home where brand loyalty is initiated, sustained, and passed on from one generation to another. Mr. Minyong Ordoñez is a retired chairman of PublicisManila, a freelance journalist, and a member of the Manila Overseas Press Club. He delivered a lecture on cultural values in advertising during the Tambuli Awards Conference last July.
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Academics
UNIVERSITY DAY LECTURE:
Work-Life Balance and Materialism
How young people can help their working parents set the right priorities
A
s the theme of every University Day is “Civics, Society and Patriotism,” I wish to contribute to nation-building through this research. I believe that our country’s development cannot be sustained in the long run with great disparity of income coupled with fixation on status and acquisition of more material possessions. When we compare ourselves with our wealthier neighbors, no matter how much we possess, we will always feel deprived relative to the neighbors who have more. My research supports the view expressed by the distinguished developmental psychologist and educator Professor Thomas Lickona that being happy is not having what you want but wanting what you have. As a nation, we need to eradicate poverty but at the same time, be wellgrounded in what really constitutes happiness.
Research in the family-responsible employer study
This research forms part of a continuing advocacy for greater work-family balance in companies through the IESE Family-Responsible Employer Study, now on its fourth year in the Philippines. The most recent survey results show that professional support as part of a workfamily balance program is hardly available to employees. Included in this category is training on family issues and work-family balance. Such training may come in the form of formal mentoring programs with a third party, such as a counselling company or professional experts. Usually, the HR department provides counselling services to the employees. In informal settings, employees can seek advice from their immediate supervisor, fellow employee, or teammate.
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The companies may be constrained from providing these types of training either because they lack a budget or there is scarcity of data as regards their relevance. This research addresses the second constraint.
Work-life balance and materialism
Recent years have seen dramatic changes in the intersection between professional and family lives. Many employees are simultaneously juggling paid work and unpaid family tasks in dual-earner households, single-parent families, and families caring for elderly people. Many work-family conflicts, that is, the frequent incompatibility of the role demands in both domains, have arisen. A lot of studies have identified the causes of work-family conflicts to be time commitment (e.g., 24/7 work schedule), family and household demands (e.g., care for children and elderly), and the organizational culture (e.g., a supervisory style that looks positively on those who always work overtime and considers them “loyal employees”). Personal values have not received much research focus as a source of work-family conflict, even if they are generally seen to drive the choices people make as regards their work and family. There is growing, though limited, research on materialism. Materialism has been defined in the literature as a “value system that emphasizes wealth, status, image, and material consumption.” It has also been defined as “a value centered on acquisitiveness, the desire to buy and own things, the enjoyment of these objects....” According to the definitions, people are materialistic not because they buy things but because they center their life on acquisition, or emphasize the material over non-material aspects of life.
Working parents tend to fall into materialism when they buy what their children want. Guilt-ridden parents give their children material things to make up for the time they spend in the workplace or out of the home, mistakenly thinking that material things make their children happy. They focus more of their time and energy on work, because it gives them tangible rewards and the material means to indulge their children. However, given the nature of material goods and their inability to satisfy intrinsic aspirations, materialistic workers aim for higher material goals and thus always feel overburdened with work, have insufficient time to accomplish their tasks, and regard nonwork demands (including family) as disruptive. In this aspect, we can say that materialism can predict work-family conflicts. Materialism decreases the possibility of work-family balance. Parents transmit their (materialistic) values to their children through parenting styles, communication, and socialization. In a study of 540 pairs of parent and their children ages 9-14 years, Goldberg and others (2003) concluded that materialistic parents tend to have materialistic children. In the US, materialism is a significant concern. Purchases for children or by children or recommended by the children to their parents are estimated to have reached $290 billion. More and more parents are asking, “How do you know when you are giving your children too much?” There are no easy answers for them. Most are afraid to say no to their kids, in part because of guilt in being away. So they tend to overcompensate or overindulge their children with material rewards. But affluence did not increase American happiness index, leading a famous author to ask, “If we are rich, why are we not happy?” (Csikszentmihalyi 1999).
In the Philippines, a UP sociology professor was quoted by GMA News (9/23/08) as saying that “parents usually splurge on their kids, giving them material luxuries—such as cellphones—to make up for their absence in the family.” Not many parents believe this though. In the 1/24/09 Inbox of The Philippine Star, which asked the inbox question, “Do you believe that most parents are remiss in their role of raising morally upright children?” not a few respondents didn’t believe so. “They just need to work to sustain the family’s basic needs and to boost their limited income,” said one respondent. This, unfortunately, exposed the children to the risk of the barkada’s bad influence.
Origin and methodology
This research joins the debate and provides some insights about how the children themselves view their parents’ work and fulfil their family duties. The main objective is to help improve the way parents work, minimize the work-family conflicts, and foster the healthy development of families. This research draws inspiration from the landmark study Ask the Children by the Families and Work Institute in the US. I first disseminated the survey in 2006 as part of a course activity. My attention was called by some answers to an open-ended question “What is the best thing about having a working father/mother?” You can have more things that you want. I get to have more money for luxury. Allowance and perks You can afford what the advertisement wants you to buy. You can always ask allowance from them. If the mother doesn’t want to give, you can always run to your father. They don’t just give what you need. They even give you what you want. I wanted to find out if college students outside UA&P would respond in the same way. I also wondered how the parents of these respondents balance work and family if they have to earn a lot to provide beyond the basic needs. Hence, I aimed to get a bigger sample. Through the help of some student assistants, I got 197 completed surveys from UERM, DLSU, CEU, and ADMU. Forty-one percent of the respondents were male and 52% were female. Their ages ranged from 19 to 22. Eight students gave these answers: Live a luxurious life Buy almost all Get to travel to a lot of places Get money to visit many countries Have extra money to buy whatever we want For this study, I compared materialistic students with the non-materialistic students who answered quite simply: “Income to support the family, can provide needs, money, financially stable.” In this regard, materialistic means “the tendency to focus on luxuries and perks.” I did not measure their desire for these luxuries.
Limitations
The study is limited in many respects. First, the identification of the sample of materialistic children is not immune from the subjectivity involved in the labeling process. Other researchers may have potentially different ways of labeling this sample. Second,
our sample consisted of students from four universities, which is not representative of children of working parents in general. The eight students extracted as a sub-group of the sample are not representative of materialistic children. Any claim on the generalizability of the conclusions is thus tempered by the limitation of the sampling.
Results
What do the data say about the children’s perception on their parents? My first hypothesis was: materialistic children will more likely perceive their parents as working too much and not putting their families before their jobs. These children can make their parents feel guilty about their lack of time with them and get what they want to buy. The results show that the materialistic students, with a slight difference from the non-materialistic students, tended to view their parents as working too much. The next result showed a bigger difference between the two groups. Materialistic children, compared to non-materialistic children, are less likely to view their parents as putting their families first before their work. Besides parental values, culture has a lot to do with the development of materialistic values. Both parents and children live in the same culture and are susceptible to the same cultural messages. For example, success has a lot to do with status and material goods and little to do with character (Levine 2007). In this regard, success in terms of attaining materialistic goals is always elusive. In evaluating success, the mind uses a strategy of escalating expectations such that the person is hardly satisfied for long with what he possesses or what he has achieved (Csikszentmihalyi 1999). Hence, I hypothesized that materialistic children, compared to non-materialistic children, are less likely to judge their parents as very successful in managing work and family. The results show a very slight difference between the two group.
“There are no great discoveries and there is no progress as long as there is an unhappy child on earth.” —Albert Einstein
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I also hypothesized that materialistic children, compared to non-materialistic children, are less likely to imitate their parents in managing work and family should they have a family in the future. The results show, with a marked difference between the two groups, that the materialistic children would manage their own family somewhat differently from their father’s work-family management style. My last hypothesis was: Given the chance to change the way their parents work, materialistic children are more likely to wish for greater material benefits. The results were far from expected. The means of the two groups’ responses were almost the same. Everyone wishes to have more time with his or her parents. Their answers revealed what they
felt they need. In this regard, their being materialistic could only be a coping mechanism for low self-worth and low selfconfidence. Given the chance to be heard, the children would admit they would be happier with their parents’ time rather than the material compensations. The results could also mean that I should revisit my grouping. Perhaps these eight “materialistic” students do not desire luxuries; these are given to them without their asking, and hence they tend to focus on the luxuries and perks. But in truth, they want more time with their parents.
Conclusions and recommendations
This study explores the values that people hold in life and the consequences in the work-family interface. It adds to a growing body of literature about the negative effects of materialism on personal and family well-being. Materialism as a personal value may explain the lack of work-family balance. Parents tend to spend more time and energy in the work domain if they value the tangible rewards it offers. If children are formed in the materialistic values of their parents, they are more likely to judge their work and work-family management as unsatisfactory. For them, their parents work too much as a way to get more material compensation from their absence in family life and do not give more priority to family over work. They would find their parents wanting in work-family effectiveness. However, the children are not so sucked into materialism that they would not ask for anything else other than material good and thus, adversely contribute to their parents’ workaholism. The results show that materialistic children, like their less materialistic peers, also want time with their parents. They imply that the real happiness of the children as well as adults is outside the realm of material possessions, regardless of how convincingly a consumerist culture may advertise to the contrary. Based on the data we have examined, what are the young people telling their working parents? You know you are working too much when the children play the “guilt card” and their demands are escalating ever higher. Successful parents lead by good example. Most children need time, not money. As the popular quote says: “Your children need your presence more than your presents.” But considering the strong demands of work (where there are performance standards and regular evaluation), parents may be present at home but their minds are in their work. An author referred to this as “absent presence.” My work-family balance speeches usually end with a quote from the great scientist Albert Einstein: “There are no great discoveries and there is no progress as long as there is an unhappy child on earth.” Today I should perhaps say that there are no lucrative businesses and there are no flourishing careers as long as there is an unhappy child on earth. Let us aim less for material rewards to achieve more work-family balance. Dr. Ma. Victoria Q. Caparas Assistant Professor, School of Management
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Features
Why study Iliad et al?
M
y student days have made me keenly aware of the students’ misconception that classes in literature are useless and will not at all help after graduation. Having become a literature teacher, I deemed this mindset as an occupational hazard. I did not wish to stand before a class silently accusing me of wasting their time. I sought to convince them that just because the purpose of studying Homer’s Iliad is harder to perceive than, say, the purpose of learning how to build a bridge, this does not mean it has no purpose. Through the course, I hoped my students would realize that rejecting art (which includes literature) by embracing pure practicality—by wanting only to build bridges—is to rebel against their own human nature. A very basic reason for literature classes can be traced to the paintings on the walls of Altamira, a cave in Spain. These striking works of art are more than 15,000 years old and were created in very primitive circumstances. Despite a harsh world, the primitive “painters” chose to expend resources on a thoroughly impractical pursuit. On their cave wall they drew bison and deer and made outlines of their hands. What thoughts passed through their minds as they painted? We cannot know with certainty, but they must have expressed simple things—a fascination with the form of the surrounding wildlife, a love for the look of color on a bare rock wall, a need to reflect on and express the experience of living, however brutal. Creating these paintings gave no food nor clothing nor shelter, but they did answer a human need as intimate and as necessary. The artwork in Altamira reveals that there are and always will be in human beings needs other than practical—and the literature class is one acknowledgement in education of this very obvious but commonly ignored truth. Today, the goals of practicality are essentially the same as in Altamira: people still need food, clothing, and shelter, though they now want these in abundance and refinement. These are legitimate desires, but they should not satisfy our search for meaning. These classes are also founded on a purpose of art that is implied in Altamira and became more apparent as humankind progressed, and this is art as a reflection on (or wrestling with) the meaning of life. In art is expressed, sometimes implicitly, those things that we wish to live for. “Literature courses aim not to tell students what the meaning of life is, but to guide their desire to participate in the making of meaning in their own lives.” It does this well because great
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novels, poems, and plays so sublimely describe those life experiences before which we are mute; the teacher is able to put precise questions to life despite the confusion and seeming ineffability of existence. Literature, therefore, pauses the flux of life, allowing it to be questioned, with itself providing materials for part of the answer. This careful questioning of life through literature heightens our awareness of the many forces that influence us. Through the Iliad, students confront mortality and evaluate the Greek and Trojan response to it, which was to gain honor as recompense for the shortness of human life. Soon, students realize that unavoidable death makes real the risk of a meaningless life—a risk the ancient
“Literature courses aim not to tell students what the meaning of life is, but to guide their desire to participate in the making of meaning in their own lives.”
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warriors understood very clearly and acted on. Students then ask deep and enduring questions: If the time of my death is inevitable, how do I live my life meaningfully? Why haven’t I? These questions are inexhaustible but every person who wishes to mature into wisdom must come to terms with their own answer. Beginning in ancient Greece, the classes’ train of thought now arrives at their own mortality, our own age, and the countless postponements thrown before us that dull awareness of death. Death today is sold everywhere, but is avoided by science and seldom confronted. Students then realize that although we have a finite life, there is hardly a call to honor in everyday culture. Everything that matters is in the palpable now, in what you purchase, and in what you own. “What then, for myself and my age, is honor?” If taken to heart, their answer to this question will greatly contribute to life’s meaning. Because it helps the student know himself, literature is one of the few, and fast disappearing, university courses that directly address the elevation of a student’s character. The satisfaction of this goal cannot be ignored if a university aims to produce good persons, the same way it cannot ignore the teaching of anatomy if it aims to produce competent physicians. We must not forget that the university exists not only to train experts in various professions but also to turn children into ennobled men and women. Mr. Philip Peckson CAS Faculty This article was first published in The Philippine STAR on August 6, 2009.
J O V E L LO R E N ZO
(Not quite) standing still:
ECONOMICS AT UA&P The Industrial Economics Program, or IEP as it is more popularly known, is the oldest academic program of UA&P. Right from the beginning, it was offered as a master’s program in the forerunner of the University, the Center for Research and Communication (CRC). Indeed, the history of the institution is very much intertwined with the history of the IEP. To understand IEP is to understand the origins of CRC, and therefore, UA&P. CRC was founded by Dr. Jesus P. Estanislao and Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas soon after their return from their doctoral studies in economics from Harvard. They saw the need for an economic think tank that would cater to private sector business by analyzing developments in the business economic environment and translating them into implications for business strategy. Thus IEP would be born with a very business-oriented brand of economics. Very soon they realized that they needed the help of other economists in their endeavor. However, they found that traditional economics training in the Philippines emphasized economic analysis for the purpose of government policy formulation but largely ignored the concerns of businessmen. They saw that they had to retrain the young analysts who were working with them. Thus, they drew up a training curriculum that would school future economists in the concerns and viewpoint of business. When presented to the then Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports, it was pointed out that what they had was sufficient for a master’s degree. Thus was born the Master of Science in Industrial Economics in 1969. Early stalwarts of IEP include current Department of Trade and Industry Senior Under-
secretary Tomas G. Aquino, while other early IEP graduates remain active faculty at UA&P: Dr. Victor A. Abola, Dr. Emilio T. Antonio Jr., and Dr. Rolando T. Dy. Other later IEP graduates would leave their marks in their respective fields, though most joined the financial sector because of its natural affinity with economics, like former National Treasurer Omar T. Cruz (Citibank, PhilamLife) and Dr. Vaughn F. Montes (Citibank). Today’s Industrial Economics Program is a direct descendant of that early tradition. The core curriculum in today’s 4th and 5th
IEP produces economists who, while well equipped in the mathematical and statistical science of economics, also have a deep understanding of the nature of man.
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years of IEP can be traced back to the early courses in IEP. It is a curriculum that has truly stood the test of time and relevance. Though some may think it risky to tamper with success, IEP has not remained static. Originally, IEP accepted only college graduates. But when UA&P introduced its innovative five-year straight master’s programs, the IEP was woven into the current setup where the first three years are spent primarily with the College of Arts and Sciences. Here the future economists would be steeped first in the liberal arts, before embarking on their highly technical training in economics in their fourth and fifth years, which formally constitute IEP. This imparts a well rounded formation to IEP graduates.
Another innovation will be introduced next school year with our four-year degree program, the AB major in Industrial Economics. Students may even opt to earn a second degree in Humanities by taking some additional units and graduate with double degrees in the humanities and economics. This is not to say that the early generations of IEP graduates were one-dimensional. In fact, they benefited from the wisdom of UA&P University Professor Rev. Fr. Joseph de Torre, who was the main teacher of Social Ethics and Social Economics in IEP up to the mid 1990s. They would pore over Fr. de Torre’s book Roots of Society (or the lecture notes that would one day evolve into that book) as much as their texts on mathematical economics, econometrics, macroeconomics, and microeconomics. This approach is in keeping with the vision of producing economists who, while well equipped in the mathematical and statistical science of economics, also have a deep understanding of the nature of man. Ultimately, economics is concerned with allocating scarce resources to create a better material world for man. It would be difficult, and even dangerous, to attempt to do this without a proper conception of man. We might just end up with dehumanizing economic institutions and policies instead. Thus, IEP graduates are also schooled in the social doctrine of the Church, a training that perhaps no other economics program in the world offers. As the world grapples with a global recession at the onset of the new millennium, it is safe to say that we will find IEP graduates at the forefront, working with professionals from all fields and nations to craft a newer and more just world. And they will be well equipped to do so. Dr. Peter L. U Dean, School of Economics
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Features
enaissance ngineers
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f all goes well, UA&P will be home to a new generation of “Renaissance engineers” this time next year. The UA&P Executive Committee signed a Memorandum of Agreement back in May, establishing a project office headed by Dr. Jose S. Sandejas tasked with starting an Engineering School at UA&P by school year 2010-2011. As Chairman of the Development Board for the proposed school, Dr. Sandejas explains that, although the project is long overdue, an extra decade spent in the backburner has only added more fuel to the fire; on its way is a new program that is more than just (and sounds nothing like) your run-of-the-mill engineering course.
Birth of the idea
“We started working on this in 1995 when Dr. Estanislao was still the UA&P President. We were ready to start by school year 1998-1999, but many things happened at the time; the Asian financial crisis was one example. So, we decided to postpone everything. This was a blessing in disguise since we had some more time, ten years or so, to fine-tune our plans,” he says. “We are designing a oneof-a-kind engineering program that combines the humanities, math and science, engineering, management, economics and on-the-job training and education. We want to produce a new breed of engineers who can come up with great solutions to complex problems. Our engineers will be good communicators of ideas and values. Obviously, we’ll educate them in the fields for which UA&P is famous. We’ll call our program the Bachelor of Science in Management Science and Engineering, or MS&E in short.” Named after the Stanford University program on which the slated course is based,
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MS&E is set to raise the bar for professional standards in the field and beyond. “Our program is much more than just industrial, civil, mechanical, or electrical engineering. In fact, our dream is to educate engineers who can excel in any engineering field they choose. We’ll give them the intellectual preparation to do just that, to be a software engineer, a builder of complex structures, or a designer of machines. Or even to work as a consultant for any kind of business. Our engineers will have a passion for learning and applying what
“We want our UA&P engineers to do to the modern world what the giants of the Renaissance did, coming up with structures, software, and technology solutions that are not only beautiful to look at but would also last a long time.”
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they learn to solve any sort of problem.” With that blueprint in mind, Dr. Sandejas is optimistic that UA&P will be able to build a legacy that is not unlike every engineer’s goal: a foundation that lasts. “I think the MS&E Program would enhance the UA&P brand, maybe even help it in some way, because our graduates would meet the requirements of a true Renaissance engineer,” he says. “Think Renaissance and you get images of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Bernini, artists and engineers, geniuses whose works endure to this day, inspiring the spirit and comforting the body. Forgive me for waxing romantic, but “we want our UA&P engineers to do to the modern world what the giants of the Renaissance did, coming up with structures, software, and technology solutions that are not only beautiful to look at but would also last a
long time”. This is nothing new. We’ve faced this issue since we started designing the program more than a decade ago. But it was only in the last five to six years that the rest of the world started taking this more seriously. They’ve realized that engineering solutions do not come in isolation. They affect other, perhaps more important, dimensions of our life.”
A tough program
Reaching that caliber of expertise, however, won’t be easy. Students will be expected not only to excel in the classroom but also to be able to apply their lessons in the real world, professionally and responsibly. “Up front, I have to admit that the MS&E Program is tough. You have to love math and science. You need to have a passion for solving problems, for squeezing your brain and your physical energy to cope with the demands of the course,” Dr. Sandejas says. “Our engineering program would hopefully help our students solve challenging problems in the best possible way: elegantly, humanely, sensitively (to the environment and other social issues), and of course, ethically. Our MS&E Program is really a multidisciplinary program. It’s not enough to come up with a scientific solution to a problem, whether simple or complex. “We have an Industry Alliance Program similar to Stanford’s and MIT’s Media Lab models. We will work with local and foreign companies on real-world projects, not only in the last two semesters, but starting with the first semester. We want students to enhance their classroom learning right away with exposure to the challenges waiting for them in the field.”
All the right ingredients
That isn’t to say that the MS&E classroom would send them off without giving them the right tools to get the job done. He says, “Put together top students, great professors, the right learning environment, and use all the available multimedia—iPods, laptops, streaming video, all the information technology firepower we can get our hands on—together with an exciting plan of study in school and in the workplace, and we have all the ingredients for a unique engineering program. Right from the first semester, we’ll start getting our students thinking like engineers. We’ll give them simple problems to solve and invite successful engineers to inspire them with lectures and challenging experiences. Engineers, after all, like solving problems using math, science, and lots of common sense.” Seemingly, everything’s set for UA&P’s Engineering School, that is, everything but the paperwork. “We have to convince CHEd, or the Commission on Higher Education(CHEd), that we have a good product,” Dr. Sandejas says. “We hope to get the permit by the end of 2009 so we can start marketing the program to the best students of this schoolyear’s high-school graduates. We hope to get 60 of the best students. Money is not a problem, because UA&P’s scholarship program is moving along very well. We are all confident that we’ll get enough students to start next year.”
Mr. Carlo Cabrera Corporate Communications Office
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The University exists not only for itself or for those who currently form part of it. Among its ideals are for the University to be responsive to the real needs of society as well as to form and encourage individuals to serve with civic responsibility and initiative the community in which they work and live. For these reasons UA&P has, as presented in this special section, included in its curriculum and established programs that develop a humanistic culture and a firm commitment to serve society. UNIVERSITAS November 2009
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CSR CSR THE
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“This has always been our long-standing resolve: to mold committed professionals who, armed with a deep sense of civic responsibility and personal initiative, can help build just social structures in the communities within which they find themselves.”
Today, four years after UA&P President Jose Maria Mariano uttered those words at the inauguration of the Center for Social Responsibility*, the resolve he referred to continues to gain strength through the Center’s activities. UA&P has now become among the country’s top educational institutions that specialize in corporate social responsibility (CSR) education. It has also reached key cities across the country through the Center’s various extension projects involving hundreds of participants and some foreign collaborators. The Center is on a roll. *Commonly known as “CSR.” But to avoid confusion in this article, we will call it the “Center.”
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Previously known as the Office of People Development (OPD), the Center for Social Responsibility handles UA&P’s social responsibility courses and initiatives. Its mission is derived from the University’s commitment to form people who will produce a positive impact on society. Hence, the Center carries out three groups of activities: First, the Center handles the delivery of academic content, specifically through (a) the state-imposed National Service Training Program, which aims to enhance students’ civic consciousness and defense preparedness; and (b) the three-unit course, Introduction to People Development - Corporate Social Responsibility (IPD-CSR), which carries the University’s banner in CSR education. Second, the Center is involved in social advocacies, which currently revolve around (a) those that are done in Barangay San Joaquin (Pasig City), which UA&P has adopted as prime beneficiary of its extension activities and (b) the I Am STRONG…I Am Responsible character education program (held in tandem with the I Keep Love Real chastity campaign). And third, the Center’s staff and faculty are involved in various consultancy projects with other organizations. Of particular note is the Alternative Financing Options for Local Government Units Project (Project ALFI), a technical assistance program in partnership with the United Kingdom Government, which helps underdeveloped LGUs source alternative funding for vital community projects.
CSR and the Pope
At first glance, the Center for Social Responsibility may seem to teach and carry out the same CSR undertakings held by many companies. The Center’s programs focus on upholding human dignity, promoting good citizenship, helping those in need, protecting the integrity of creation (environment), and developing the potentials of each person to be economically productive and personally fulfilled. True. But Center Director Dionisio Papelleras Jr. says the Center teaches a higher kind of CSR. UA&P’s CSR principles transcend the bounds of what he calls “elementary CSR”— limited to mere philanthropy—which is rampant among various industries. Mr. Papelleras says that the brand of CSR which UA&P is teaching finds its definitive description in Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth). In that social encyclical the Supreme Pontiff says:
ness firms. The Center views genuine corporate social responsibility as involving not just external activities—which are often heavily publicized to boost corporate image—but beginning primarily with the premise that the business firm has the obligation of pursuing integral human development for all of its internal and external stakeholders, and weaving that understanding into its core activities. To do that, the business firm requires a change of mindset, which the Pope stresses in Caritas in Veritate: from the pursuit of profit at any cost to the pursuit of profit as an instrument for achieving legitimate human and social development. The business firm that understands this therefore sees that CSR is not just an external appendage imposed by a demanding public or an occasional face-lift that has little to do with the firm’s core business activities, but is rather an organic part of everyday business behavior— which, among other things, involves the ethical ordering of business goals and processes, above-board and transparent corporate decision-making, good management practices, fair and compassionate treatment of employees, upholding consumer welfare, and a real development partnership with the firm’s external stakeholders (including the local community in which the firm operates).
Everyday CSR
Thus, concretely, the Center for Social Responsibility teaches that CSR encompasses the corporate entity as whole as well as each individual who composes it. University President Mariano says that the social responsibility of a real estate development firm, for example, should be manifest not only in its “official” CSR activities (such as conducting a community clean-up), but should also be evident in how each of its employees works conscientiously in pursuit of the company’s goals to promote the common good of society. Indeed, UA&P teaches that Juan de la Cruz, wanting to become a socially responsible individual, should not create a dichotomy within himself: that of being a “good worker” (working conscientiously for his company) and being a “good citizen or socially responsible individual” (say, visiting indigent families on weekends). Rather, he is a socially responsible individual if he works well and conforms to his company’s socially responsible mission. He can practically do CSR everyday. But, of course, there’s no stopping Juan in engaging himself in volunteer projects. Still he can—and even should—be visiting indigent families occasionally, but that should not lead him to think that that is all he needs to do to be “socially responsible.” Therefore, the Center’s brand of CSR emphasizes not so much the dramatic but occasional corporate dole-out, but rather the thorough-going moral transformation of the business firm’s operations—a “lifestyle change,” so to speak—that not only makes the business firm profitable, but also raises the welfare of all individuals with whom the firm interacts as well as society as a whole. Now, indeed, the Center for Social Responsibility (and the University as a whole) sees its own specific raison-d’être in spreading this particular mold of social responsibility. And while this endeavor is yet to be fulfilled in time, the Center faces the challenge of tirelessly advancing its work up an inclined plane. People development, carried out through UA&P’s brand of CSR, has to be its primary concern. The Center has to inculcate sound business and citizenship principles among students, government leaders, and company executives; assist the underserved in their needs; and help others find the social and transcendental value—the grandeur and the poetry—of ordinary work done well.
“The Center’s brand of CSR emphasizes not so much the dramatic but occasional corporate dole-out, but rather the thorough-going moral transformation of the business firm’s operations.”
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When we consider the issues involved in the relationship between business and ethics…it would appear that the traditionally valid distinction between profit-based companies and non-profit organizations can no longer do full justice to reality, or offer practical direction for the future. In recent decades a broad intermediate area has emerged between the two types of enterprise. It is made up of traditional companies which nonetheless subscribe to social aid agreements in support of underdeveloped countries, charitable foundations associated with individual companies, groups of companies oriented towards social welfare, and the diversified world of the so-called “civil economy” and the “economy of communion”. This is not merely a matter of a “third sector”, but of a broad new composite reality embracing the private and public spheres, one which does not exclude profit, but instead considers it a means for achieving human and social ends. (46) According to Mr. Papelleras, the enterprises which the Pope is talking about are the ones which the Center—and UA&P in general— strives to help build through education. And this is where the Center’s advocacy of CSR diverges from run-of-the-mill, often purely cosmetic, CSR initiatives of many busi-
Mr. Daryl Zamora and Mr. Emmanuel Sator
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Academics News
Living the Ideals of Caritas in Veritate Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas University Professor, School of Economics
In his recent social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), Pope Benedict XVI gives an important insight into how we can learn from the ongoing global economic crisis that has devastated both developed and developing countries all over the world.
M
any accusing fingers are being pointed to capitalism or the free market economy as the culprit for the worst recession the whole world is experiencing since the Second World War. A good number of pundits are now suggesting that the cure to the failure of the free market economy is the tightening of more regulations, restrictions, and other government intervention into the national economy. The rationale for more regulation is that the failure of the institutions of the market (Federal Reserve, Securities and Exchange Commission, credit rating agencies, Insurance Commission, etc.) should be replaced by other institutions that are meant to curb the greed, imprudence, and corruption of the different players in a market economy. Well, these well-intentioned reformers will be in for a great surprise. No amount of tightened restrictions, heightened regulations, and an aggressive return to the “commanding heights” culture of the socialist, mercantilist or protectionist eras of the past will prevent another Bernard Madoff or the fictional Gordon Gekko from making a come-back. The human ingenuity to do evil knows no limit. No amount of restriction or regulation can stop someone who wants to cheat or embezzle from committing his evil deeds. We just have to make sure that society is producing a critical mass of virtuous people who are determined to give everyone his due and to work for the welfare of others without expecting any return. If we do not have enough of these virtuous people, no system will ever result in authentic human development.
Errors of ‘Institutionalists’
Pope Benedict pulls no punches in criticizing the error of the “institutionalists”:
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“In the course of history, it was often maintained that the creation of institutions was sufficient to guarantee the fulfillment of humanity’s right to development. Unfortunately, too much confidence was placed in those institutions, as if they were able to deliver the described objective automatically. In reality, institutions by themselves are not enough, because integral human development is primarily a vocation, and therefore it involves a free assumption of responsibility in solidarity on the part of everyone.” The gross error of the likes of Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan was precisely in theorizing that the institutions of the free market economy were sufficient to automatically promote the common good through the mechanism of pure competition and the free play of market forces. They misunderstood the message of Adam Smith by putting words into his mouth, such as the so-called “invisible hand” that automatically promotes consumer welfare and the progress of society through the enlightened self-interest of the butchers and the bakers. Their mistake was to project the very limited economic power of the bakers or butchers to the entire gamut of very complicated sectors and industries of a modern economy. It may be true that not much virtue is needed for a baker not to cheat his customers with low-quality products or unreasonably high prices. The prospect of numerous other bakers competing with him in the same neighborhood may be enough to keep him honest. In a modern economy dominated by large financial institutions, global multinational corporations, monopolists, and oligopolists in key sectors of the economy, only the willingness of the key players in these influential organizations to practise the virtues of integrity, justice, and charity will guarantee authentic human development. These influential
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people (and I include all the business executives and government officials reading this column) should be the first to respond to the “vocation” of which Pope Benedict speaks: “Finally, the vision of development as a vocation brings with it the central place of charity within that development. Paul VI, in his encyclical letter Populorum Progressio, pointed out that the causes of underdevelopment are not primarily of the material order. He invited us to search for them in other dimensions of the human person: first of all, in the will, which often neglects the duties of solidarity; secondly in thinking which does not always give proper direction to the will. Hence, in the pursuit of development, there is a humanism which will enable modern man to find himself anew.”
The Virtue of Gratuitousness
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and continues to be misconstrued and emptied of meaning, with the consequent risk of being misinterpreted, detached from ethical living and, in any event, undervalued. In the social, juridical, cultural, political, and economic fields—the contexts, in other words, that are most exposed to this danger—it is easily dismissed as irrelevant for interpreting and giving direction to moral responsibility. Hence the need to link charity with truth not only in the sequence pointed out by Saint Paul, of veritas in caritate (Eph 4:15), but also in the inverse and complementary sequence of caritas in veritate. Truth needs to be sought, found, and expressed with the ‘economy’ of charity, but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed, and practised in the light of truth.” She was always in search of truth and never compromised the truth when she found it. But in asserting the truth and exposing untruth, she never offended the human dignity of even the most serious offender against truth. She was very conscious of the Pauline dictum that we have to fight for the truth, but always with charity, condemning the sin in the most vigorous manner but having compassion for the sinner. In this, she was truly a disciple of Jesus Christ who was the paragon in distinguishing between the sin and the sinner. Although compassionate, she was no sentimentalist. She understood that charity that is not linked to truth degenerates into sentimentality, as Pope Benedict XVI clearly states in Caritas in Veritate. There were those who, in the name of helping the poor, would advise her to give up her pro-life or pro-family stance. But even before the present Holy Father wrote the following words, she had been living the principle of charity in truth: “Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word ‘love’ is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite.”
Because the encyclical is addressed to all men of good will and not only to Christians, is it possible for all business executives and government officials to heed the call to justice and charity? The answer is absolutely affirmative. Every man has the natural law imprinted in his conscience and knows that he has to do good and to avoid evil. Any thinking person can discover what it means to give everyone his due, which is what the virtue of justice demands. But also everyone has the capacity to go beyond the love of attraction (called eros) or the love of friendship (called philia, which is especially developed in Filipino culture). Everyone, whether he is conscious of it or not, is made unto the image of God. Since God is Love, every man has also the capacity to love with the love of benevolence, that is to seek the good of others without expecting anything in return. We have to be convinced that in every person there is a Tony Meloto (of Gawad Kalinga fame) or a Muhammad Yunus (of Grameen Bank fame). We have to build a society in which we nurture these inclinations to love unselfishly in every Filipino, with special emphasis on those whose actions or decisions have wide repercussions on society. Pope Benedict XVI has an optimism based on the reality that every human being has the capacity to be Godlike, that is to love with caritas or agape, seeking the good of others without expecting anything in return. Our human intelligence is meant to always search for the truth and to live the truth. But Truth needs to be sought, our human will was made to move towards the good. found, and expressed with Virtuous Leadership Thanks to the mercy of God, much of this good is the ‘economy’ of charity, naturally attractive to our will (food, pleasures of the The leadership of Cory Aquino has been imbut charity in its turn senses and the mind). This is what we call love of atmortalized in a book written by a European manneeds to be understood, traction. Especially in our culture, much of this love agement expert, Alexander Havard, entitled Virtuconfirmed, and practised ous Leadership. Together with such famous world also comes naturally to us because of our treasuring in the light of truth. family and friends. This is called love of friendship. But leaders as Robert Schuman of France, Karl Franz //////////////// we also have to constantly remind ourselves that we Josef von Habsburg-Lothringen of Austria, Ronald are all capable of loving others with the love of benevReagan of the US, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn of Rusolence, which motivates us to do things to promote the welfare even sia, Pope John Paul II, and Lech Walesa of Poland, Mrs. Aquino was of strangers who constitute part of the human community in which we held up as a paragon of Virtuous Leadership. I quote here some of live. Pope Benedict calls this virtue “gratuituosness.” Only by recognizthe passages alluding to the virtuous leadership of our beloved former ing and nurturing this ability to love unselfishly can we promote an inte- President: “I assumed the powers of the dictatorship, but only long gral human development in our country and in the whole world. enough to abolish it. I had absolute power, yet ruled with restraint. I created independent courts to question my absolute power, and finally a legislature to take it from me.” A Paragon of Gratuituosness Author Havard continues: “Mrs. Aquino’s vision was a moral one. The recent demise of former President Corazon Aquino brought to national and international attention a supreme example of the virtue She felt that it was her duty to strive for the common good and that this meant creating a just social order for each and every Filipino. She never of gratuitousness. The ideals contained in Caritas in Veritate were accepted the idea of democracy for democracy’s sake. ‘Without the the very same ones that Cory Aquino worked for untiringly when she right values in the people,’ she said, ‘a democracy is only a confederawas President of the Philippine Republic and after, till the very end of cy of fools.’ Mrs. Aquino was a singular example of sincerity, simplicity, her life. Against many odds, she wanted to attain development for all and integrity in politics. She served for one six-year term and chose not Filipinos and for the whole person of every Filipino. She understood to seek re-election. Long after she ceased to be President, Filipinos still very well what integral human development is: the development of looked up to her as a leader who united the nation.” These words of an every man and of the whole man. As a leader in government and in objective observer and management expert from the European contithe private sector through the NGOs in which she was active, she worked not only for the material welfare especially of the poor but also nent demonstrate the fame of Cory Aquino in the global scene. We are fortunate that we have been witnesses to the life of a person for their political, social, cultural, and spiritual progress. She was not in whom was incarnate the ideals contained in Caritas in Veritate. I pray only pro-poor but also pro-life, pro-family, and pro-faith. that the youth today will be inspired by her example to work untiringly for I thought about Cory Aquino as I read the following passages from the integral human development of every man and of the whole man. Caritas in Veritate: “I am aware of the ways in which charity has been
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W
hen Typhoon Ondoy In the darkness bind them... (international name: help could be used everywhere, October 7. 11:45 pm. It’s but eventually I chose to bundle been three hours since our vilKetsana) hit Luzon rice and snacks. lage had a blackout. NevertheThe task was pretty easy. less, I continue to say, “We are last September, The only challenge was to survive still lucky.” As I write this article, the heat while working inside the I could only imagine the victims hundreds of thousands lost their tent. But despite that, it was a who are still experiencing “darkremarkable sight to see people in brought about by Typhoon homes and livelihood, while almost ness” action all for one purpose: to get Ondoy. However, like in any dark 300 died. It was the National Capital situation, there is always a ray of these goods ready to those who need them—fast. light that tries to seep through, Region’s most fatal flood in 40 years. igniting a spark of hope. This “ray At around 6:00 pm, we had Then a miracle happened. The “evil” that the flood wrought was countered—nay, drowned—in an abundance of good. Along with thousands of individuals and groups around the world, UA&P students, employees, and alumni launched a massive relief operation immediately after Ondoy’s onslaught. Their Facebook and Twitter accounts were brimming with prayers and calls for donations. A Facebook shoutout by one alumnus even persuaded 1,200 people to volunteer and donate goods to a relief center set up at an events venue owned by a former UA&P instructor. UA&P’s unitas and the Filipino’s “bayanihan spirit” had never been more palpable among members of the UA&P family. Cooperating with various organizations, including the Philippine National Red Cross and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, UA&P collected and packed relief goods and deployed volunteers to the inundated areas. The Office of Student Affairs, Office of Alumni Affairs, Human Resource Management Office, and the CAS Student Executive Board facilitated the operations. As of October 14, monetary donations received by the University totaled about P52,000. Tall stacks of food and clothes from at least 300 donors were also turned in. Throughout the six-day relief operations for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy, 288 students either helped prepare the donations or were sent to the flooded areas of Pasig City, Marikina City, Quezon City, and some towns in Rizal province. *** Today as we continue helping the flood victims rebuild their homes and their lives, we laud the countless nameless heroes who gave till it hurt. But more important, we share in the optimism that when life’s storms have passed, Filipinos can always rise from their storm-stricken homes and witness the rainbow and the calm that their fellowmen give: not a transient relief, but love, the relief that lasts.
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of light” radiated within the walls of Megatent as student volunteers from different universities came together to pack and bundle “bags” of hope for the flood victims. And I’m glad to say that to be part of it was truly an honor.
It was a remarkable sight to see people in action all for one purpose: to get these goods ready to those who need them—fast.
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Last September 29 and 30, I decided to swing by UA&P to help out with segregating the donations for pick-up. On the 30th, since the focus had turned to distributing the donated goods, I decided to go where help was needed more at that time. That meant Megatent for the rest of the afternoon. Upon entering Megatent, I felt a sense of urgency all over the place. Students were working in different stations, packing and preparing the basic goods to be distributed—canned goods, biscuits, rice, water, toiletries. My
to place all the packed bags outside for loading into vans, military trucks, and a Red Cross truck. It would be very time-consuming to ask all the students to grab a bag and load them onto the truck. The solution: a human chain. The concept is simple. People form a line and the bags are passed from one person to another until they are loaded onto the truck. I don’t know how many bags we were able to give away that night, but I’m pretty sure that it went a long way. After the last bag was placed on the truck, everybody on the chain applauded. It was sign of a job well done and time to call it a day. Working for a few hours at Megatent was quite an experience. But what continues to amaze me (even up to this day) was the sight of students from different walks of life gathering and working together for one purpose. Truly, they were able to bind together to be a ‘ray of light’ amidst those dark days.
Gmenier A. Mendoza SCM 4th Year
P H OTO S: A R I S AC O B A , M A R T I N V E R D E J O, DA E L E E , D I N O P L AC I N O
A chance, a choice, an unforgettable way to reach out Unitas is alive! It was Sunday night when I made my way to the Red Cross station in Shaw Boulevard, along with some of my friends who wanted to be deployed to the disaster sites. Like so many others, we did not want to just sit around and watch the floods on TV. We were deployed to a place in Cainta called Vista Verde. The village was harshly affected by the storm: there was no electricity; people were trapped inside their homes; and about 40 to 50 people had perished because of the flood. We arrived at the outskirts of the town at around 12:30 am. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. There were hundreds of abandoned cars all covered with mud. The place seemed practically devoid of life. Except for the lights from fire trucks, military and police vehicles, and other Red Cross vehicles, the place was absolutely dark. After an hour, people started coming out of the village. I still recall the haunting sight of those people slowly walking out in stupor, weak weakened by hunger and fatigue. Their body and clothes muddied, they were shivering and coughing. At around 2:00 am on Monday, among the people who came out was the village guard who looked as if he would faint at any moment. He was pale and shivering, and had not eaten for two days. After getting the packed food, he immediately made his way back to the village. When I told him that he should rest instead, he said that he had to go back to the 7 Eleven store where there were hungry and sick people whom he had been watching over since Saturday. When I heard this, I felt admiration for his selflessness. I told him that we would take care of
bringing food to the sick and having them treated. The team was again called together at 3:00 am. We were told to go inside the flooded village and bring food to those who had not known that relief had arrived. As we waded through the thigh-high waters, people started coming out of their houses or down from their roofs. We tossed them food and water and told them that it was safe to head out of the village. We had been trudging through the flooded village and handing out food for about two hours, when, as we approached a certain house, we heard calls from inside. There was an old lady who was alone trapped inside her house for two days with hardly any water, and no food. The front door was jammed so we had to ram it open. It was 6:00 am when I emerged from the flooded village. After my team and I parked the boat, we went on helping to distribute the goods. Looking around, I smiled because of the look of hope and joy in the faces of the people. Such a contrast from the dark and lifeless village I saw the previous night. The sight of us, the rescuers, showed them that there were people who cared for them, who would go out of their way to help them. It may have seemed so little, but I knew from the way the people looked at me, that to them, we were all heroes. This episode was the beginning of a week of unconditional charity from a lot of people—a week to help those who were devastated by the storm, a tremendous opportunity to go out of ourselves and reach out.
If some of us had hints of skepticism whether we are genuinely living the spirit of Unitas, the tragedy that was Typhoon Ondoy erased all shadows of doubt. Despite the difficulties and anxieties each one was trying to cope with, the students eagerly and cheerfully helped out the typhoon-stricken. When Ondoy submerged almost the whole eastern part of Metro Manila on September 26, a lot of us got stranded in school, on the way home, in the dorms of our friends, and even in the parking lot. Nobody could have imagined the magnitude of the devastation brought by the typhoon. When the University’s relief operations began, I came to school to keep myself useful, but more than that, to pay a debt of gratitude for being spared from the typhoon’s fury. Almost as heavily as the rains descended on that fateful Saturday, the donations poured in the following days. Tremendous compassion and charity emerged and those who lent their help felt the exhilaration of being part of other people’s lives. When I “Facebooked” friends to invite them to volunteer, I got inquiries on how they could help and where they could go. The fact these people took action gave me a sense of achievement, even though I did not get deployed to gravely devastated areas.
Jake Morales CAS 2nd Year
Martha de la Cruz SCM 4th Year
When the University’s relief operations began, I came to school to keep myself useful, but more than that, to pay a debt of gratitude for being spared from the typhoon’s fury. ///////////////////////// It did not a matter that we were far from where the real action was; we were able to touch other people’s lives in whatever way we could. We may not be able to give them back their lost loved ones or properties, but we can make them feel that they are not alone. It was one instance that the students’ complaints were not of the heat, the inconvenience, or exhaustion—theirs was from having nothing else to pack and deliver. We did not talk much but we worked hard—even perhaps harder than others. At the end of the week, those who volunteered were exhausted. But I believe I am speaking in behalf of those who helped out—it was all worth it.
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News
(from left) Dr. Antonio Torralba, Mr. Joseph Imperial (Program Manager, British Embassy), Mr. Colin Hubo (CSR), British Ambassador Stephen Lillie, Dr. Jose Maria Mariano (President, UA&P), Mr. Dionisio Papelleras Jr. (CSR) and Dr. Winston Conrad Padojinog (SEC) meet in Iloilo City for Project ALFI’s Mid-Project Assessment last September.
PROJECT ALFI
Empowering LGUs The Alternative Financing Options for Local Government Units Project—otherwise known as Project ALFI—comes as a champion for local government units, helping them generate more income and uphold higher standards of economic governance.
In partnership with the British Embassy, the Center for Social Responsibility (CSR) conducts Project ALFI to second- and third-level municipalities in Luzon and the Visayas. Having seen the generally impoverished situation that many Philippine towns find themselves in, CSR and the British Embassy found it crucial to provide the leaders of these communities not merely with a “one-shot” technical assistance, but with an ongoing one— something that even spans three years. Project ALFI helps participants become more financially independent from government financing by tapping other revenue generators. Aside from conducting conferences and workshops on alternative financing options, Project ALFI also holds professional mentoring sessions with the program’s participants. Mentors come from UA&P’s experienced faculty. Project ALFI’s three-year program completes a training, mentoring, and project implementation package. According to Rosales (Pangasinan) Mayor Ricardo Revita, “Project ALFI gives participants the hope to realize their much-needed projects.” He says that Project ALFI provides them with “the proper tools to analyze and evaluate the soundness of a project.” San Joaquin (Iloilo) Mayor Ninfa Garin adds that Project ALFI also aids her council in convincing stakeholders to support their project. To date, Project ALFI has already conducted trainings in Luzon and the Visayas, attracting 71 local government officials, including 22 mayors. On September 30, the Project ALFI team and British Ambassador Stephen Lillie flew to Iloilo City to conduct a mid-project assessment with 16 participating LGUs from both Luzon and Visayas. Also present in the event were UA&P Chairman Dr. Placido Mapa, UA&P President Dr. Jose Maria Mariano, and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Director Mr. Malcolm Sarmiento.
Mr. Daryl Zamora Corporate Communications Office
Project Citizen: Molding good citizens Project Citizen is a program that promotes responsible participation in civic affairs by monitoring and influencing public policy. It is an initiative founded by the Center for Civic Education (CCE), an American nonprofit, non-partisan educational corporation that is dedicated to promoting responsible citizenry. The program is now present in 60 countries including the Philippines. Project Citizen in the country began in 2001 at UA&P as a course requirement for the Philippine Politics and Governance class. During its early stages, the program had students conduct focused-group discussions in barangays to as-
certain the needs of these local communities. The students would then propose feasible solutions to these problems, which could be implemented by local government agencies. In 2007, the University, in partnership with Philippine Center for Civic Education and Democracy (PCCED) and the Tan Yan Kee Foundation, received a grant from the CCE to expand the program to include public high schools in the National Capital Region (NCR) region. Ms. Monica Ang of the Institute of Political Economy notes that “adolescence marks the beginning of political consciousness, making high school students the perfect participants.” The University also hosts training workshops where high school teachers are taught the principles and methodology of the program. “Pedagogy,” shares Ms. Ang, “is the main thrust of Project Citizen because its main goal is to inculcate democratic, civic citizenship education among the participants. Focus is on values such as those
essential in reaching consensus through debate and discussion, because they foster the spirit of Project Citizen.” The program essentially remains the same: students are tasked to take a close look at existing problems in local communities and to prepare public policies that local agencies can pass as ordinances. With the funding received from the CCE, the Institute of Political Economy has been able to hold competitions and award the best project proposals. Schools that have won were given computer showcases, and the students were granted scholarships to UA&P. The program is currently partnered with 19 public high schools in the NCR, most of which are located in Quezon City, Caloocan City, Mandaluyong City, and Muntinlupa City.
Victor Cruz SCM 5th Year
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SPECIAL COVER SECTION
Trained to Serve
Reaching OUT
News
Through the state-imposed National Service Training Program (NSTP), the University recognizes the vital role of the youth in nation-building and realizes the importance of advancing their involvement in public and civic affairs. Since its inception, the NSTP has been the venue through which UA&P faculty and students and partner institutions share their time and effort in undertaking various development activities. The program puts emphasis on civic consciousness and volunteerism.
The following are some of the NSTP projects in the University: • Tutorials at various public schools such as San Joaquin Elementary
School, San Joaquin Kalawaan High School, and Rizal High School. Subjects include English, Science, Math, Culture and Arts, and Sports. This activity includes preparatory steps such as sessions with the tutees to find out their background and learning styles, home visits to better understand the tutee’s life and situation, and preparation of lesson plans and activity sheets for the weekly tutorial session. At the end of the program, NSTP students are to assess the tutees based on the their improvement via post-tests. At the end of each school year, tutors prepare a culminating activity for the tutees such as parties, quiz bees, talent shows, or sports tournaments.
• Project-based outreach projects for different beneficiaries, which include Barangay San Joaquin, Hospicio de San Jose, White Cross, CRIBS, and Unang Hakbang Foundation. These projects include tutorials and field trips to Museo Pambata, sports clinics, and feeding and medical missions. • Community-based survey: Profiling of Barangay San Joaquin
Last summer, the freshman students did a simplified community-based monitoring system that allowed the students to visit and interview families in Barangay San Joaquin, UA&P’s adopted community in Pasig City. After a pretesting of survey instruments, a survey was conducted in the urban poor puroks of Villa Bernardo, Villa Concio, Villa Hernandez, Villa Munsod, and Villa Tupaz. Key data gathered included educational attainment, health and sanitation, nutrition, housing facilities, utilities, sources of livelihood, income versus expenditure, presence of community internal and external resources, and vision for family and community. For five days, they learned how to interact with members of the community, from old grandfathers, vendors, tricycle drivers, factory workers and were enlightened in terms of sharing their vision for a peaceful community and having a happy family. • Projects for the UA&P community Some groups have implemented projects for the benefit of the UA&P students and nearby community. These include a voters’ assistance desk for the previous election at the Multi-Purpose Court. With I Keep Love Real and other NGOs, such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the students assisted in the promotion and fulfillment of the advocacies of their chosen group. Students were also involved in house-building through Gawad Kalinga. The Center for Social Responsibility takes
advantage of the NSTP program as an expression of the University’s hallmark of people development. Through NSTP, students are honed to be individuals who are equipped not just with the academic know-how but also with the social skills and responsibilities expected of them as they mature. It is impressed upon them that no matter how young they are, they must be able to recognize their worth and value as productive members of society.
Through NSTP, students are honed to be individuals who are equipped not just with the academic know-how but also with the social skills and responsibilities expected of them as they mature.
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Ms. Karen Dumlao and Ms. Hilda San Gabriel Center for Social Responsibility
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
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Campus Life News iKLR campaign
Love for real and for keeps
A Flying Start for
10,000 Women ness insights and access to markets. Dr. Julia Prats, Head of the IESE Department of Entrepreneurship, gave the introductory lecture on entrepreneurship last September 3. Dr. Prats’ primary area of interest is the entrepreneurial process, which includes the identification, evaluation, and implementation of opportunities in any context. Launched in 2008, Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women is a worldwide initiative that supports partnerships with universities and development organizations to provide a generation of women in under-served areas around the world with business and management education. The initiative is grounded on the belief that expanding the entrepreneurial talent and manaThe Business Training Program is a 150hour modular course that UA&P and IESE Busi- gerial pool in developing and emerging economies—especially among women—is one of the ness School co-developed. Spread out over three months, it focuses on helping the women most important means to reducing inequality and ensuring more shared economic growth. grow their existing businesses by teaching Goldman Sachs is a leading global them how to refine their business plans or investment banking, securities and concepts, improve their business set-up and operations through a deeper understanding of investment management firm that provides a wide range of services worldwide to a the basics of financial management, managsubstantial and diversified client base that ing business operations, hiring and managing employees, as well as marketing their products includes corporations, financial institutions, and services while achieving work-life balance. governments, and high net-worth individuals. Other academic partnerships that enlisted Module One of the Business Training Program support for the firm’s 10,000 Women are covered five subjects—self-mastery and perSaïd Business School, University of Oxford sonal effectiveness, accounting and control, marketing, human resource management, and in the UK and Zhejiang University in China, HEC Paris in France and Tsinghua SEM in business problem solving analysis. The members of the first class of 10,000 China, INSEAD in France and Singapore and Fundação Dom Cabral (FDC) in Brazil, IE Women scholars come from Metro Manila, Business School in Spain and FGV-EAESP Laguna, Batangas, and as far as Misamis in Brazil, London Business School in the UK Oriental. They are owners and managers of and the National Entrepreneurship Network businesses ranging from manufacturing to a Wadhwani Foundation Initiative in India, butterfly breeding and culture to printing and information technology. Outside of classroom and University of Cambridge represented by training, they will receive 50 hours of mentor- Judge Business School and the Cambridge ing from established local entrepreneurs and Assessment Group in the UK and Camfed from the staff of Goldman Sachs. On-site vis- International in Zambia. These partnerships will help future generations of entrepreneurs its of their enterprises will also be conducted and managers by strengthening the throughout the duration of the program. The underlying quality and capacity of business program will allow these selected entrepreeducation through professor training and neurs the opportunity to network with industhe development of innovative curricula and try experts coming from the most diverse sectors of the economy and to gain new busi- locally relevant case studies. UA&P, in partnership with the IESE Business School, successfully rolled out the first run of the 10,000 Women Business Training Program in the Philippines last September 14-19 at the Meralco Learning and Development Center in Antipolo City with the first batch of 10,000 Women scholars. Twenty Filipino women entrepreneurs qualified to form the first class of 10,000 Women scholars in the Philippines.
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It’s a revolution. Over the years, love has been the talk of the town, the center of debates, and, sometimes, the cause of massive mayhem. (I know you’ve heard the cases of Paris and Helen, Romeo and Juliet, Paolo and Francesca in your literature classes.) Thus, to reduce further confusion that may lead to more chaos, a group of youth under the I Am STRONG program decided to start a campaign to educate their peers about the meaning of love, sexuality, and relationships. They called it I Keep Love Real (iKLR). What is now a worldwide endeavour began merely as a session in the whole I Am STRONG seminar for high school students. The organizers observed that 80 percent of the questions raised were regarding boy-girl relationships. Consequently, they decided to give the topic more focus by creating a whole movement based on that particular module. It seems such a trivial issue—love, I mean. I watch movies that tell me: “Hey, this is what love is all about!” But my friends show me something different. On the other hand, I see my parents and all they’ve been through that tell me otherwise. So what is the real deal? The campaign answers that. There are different kinds of love—agape, patriotic, filial, platonic, and lastly, romantic, which is the focus of the campaign. “Romance” is something commonly associated with sappy love songs, huge bouquets of roses, and sweets that come in boxes of various shapes, colors, and themes. But, according to the campaign, “romantic love is the love that a man and a woman reserve for their lifelong companion in marriage.” The iKLR campaign is focused on better appreciating romantic love. It stresses love as a personal choice that entails knowing the answer to a whole gamut of questions, and preparing for all the responsibilities that come with it. The decision to love entails living out the virtue of chastity, which goes beyond the physical aspect of the person and involves the mind, body, heart, and soul. What iKLR teaches breaks the barriers of religion and sector. For example, last year the seminar was held three times in Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim nation. Also, iKLR holds seminars for the youth in the provinces in cooperation with some government and private entities. There are, by the way, blogs and projects, such as surveys, kept alive with the help of student volunteers. (So, if you are a student and you want to help out, or maybe you no longer are but you still want to lend a hand, that’s your cue.) With so many people writing about it, talking about it, and singing about it, wouldn’t it be a good idea to explore love further—find out what it is and how to know if it’s real. And when you do, wouldn’t it be awesome to tell others about it? Join the revolution! Let’s keep love real.
Angel Yulo CAS 2nd Year
SPECIAL COVER SECTION
Reaching OUT
News
“After three years with I Am STRONG, I realized that it has become a big part of my life and that I would not be the same girl now if it were not for the program. IAS does not only help the participating youth, but it also helps the members of the program itself. This program enabled me to relate easily and make friends with different types of people. It helped me overcome my stage fright and express myself freely, may it be in a classroom or an outside setting. Most of all, IAS taught me to live a life of virtue. An IAS member once said, ‘I Am STRONG is not just something to be taught, but a lifestyle to be lived.’ And I agree.” —Cathy Bautista, IAS volunteer since 2006 “[My husband Greg and I] always felt like if we were going to use our relationship to help others, we would be thrice blessed. That’s what was in our minds when we started to be IAS facilitators—that we could make a difference, that we could be a couple of service. But after a few IAS runs, a big, humbling discovery was made: that while we were busy ‘serving others’ through our D R . A N TO N I O TO R R A L B A talks, mentoring, and peer counseling, it was we who were actually being helped the most. The messages of sexual purity, of freedom and accountability, of always doing the right thing no matter the temperature of the heart—all made their journey slowly but surely into our hearts. We are grateful for what [IAS] has done to prepare us for the not-always-so-romantic-butI Am STRONG… I Am Responsible (IAS) is a character education always-blessed life of married couples. We are indeed thrice blessed.” —Lora Tan-Garcia, IAS founding member program designed for high school students as well as their “IAS is a reminder of the values you need to hold dear in your teachers and parents. “It deals with universal principles related heart and mind in order to be a positive force in people’s lives. It’s to deeply personal and intimate issues arising from studies and also a check and balance so you don’t forget who you’re supposed friendships, home and family life, career and social responsibility, to be in this world. I found my wife because of and relationships and lifestyle,” says Dr. Antonio Torralba, IAS program IAS; more important, I found the kind of man I director. With modules on the various issues encountered by the youth, the needed to be in order to be the husband she program strives to complete the adolescents’ development in virtue. deserves and to be the father our kids need.” —Greg Garcia, IAS founding member “STRONG” stands for Steadfast, Trustworthy, Respectful, Open-minded,
I Am STRONG
Noble, and Gutsy—the values which the program emphasizes most especially. While IAS has done its part to inspire its high school audience to live these virtues, it has a stronger impact on the people who make it move:
Prepared by Victor Cruz SCM 5th Year
Keren Zyra B. Pascual CAS 1st Year
Enabling the youth through
BIGGKAS
CHAR ADE CASTRO
Teaching public school kids how to read can be both taxing and gratifying. This I found out when I signed up with BIGGKAS. BIGGKAS is a socio-civic university-wide extension project handled by the Office of Student Affairs-Civics Desk and Pharos, the official student organization of the School of Education and Human Development (SED). The acronym BIGGKAS stands for Basa, Isip,
Gawa, Galing, Katekismo, Arte, at Sport—the six components that the volunteers teach pupils at San Joaquin Elementary School. This year, BIGGKAS is focusing on Basa and Katekismo to address the reading problems of San Joaquin’s third-grade pupils. Teaching volunteers were trained by Ms. Divina Asuncion, a volunteer for BIGGKAS and currently in SED’s Educational Leadership
Program. She shared the pedagogical techniques we need, especially the use of Phonics in teaching Beginning Reading, a program she herself developed. BIGGKAS started with the tutorial sessions last September 5 with a diagnostic test given to about 80 Grade 3 pupils. This initial evaluation helped determine the pupils’ level of reading and comprehension. The formal tutorial sessions started the succeeding Saturday, and I was fortunate enough to form part of the pool of tutors. Ms. Anna Alejo, BIGGKAS project moderator, assigned me and my friend to three tutees. In that session, we reviewed the letters of the alphabet and the sound that corresponds to each. After the review, we gave them exercises to check if they understood the lesson. At the end of that Saturday’s session, two BIGGKAS volunteers presented a short skit that entertained the kids. I found the whole session challenging and heartwarming. It was a bit hard because the kids took a long time in making the right sounds for the letters we were teaching them. I saw in one girl’s eyes how she wanted to give up, but she finally succeeded after frequent repetitions and encouragements. The session was especially heartwarming since we were reaching out to those kids and they accepted us with joy. It was inspiring to see how they were excited to learn from us and looked up to us as if we were their heroes. I’m thankful that through this small activity, I became a part of these kids’ lives and they learned from it. Most of all, I have come to realize how much these kids need our help. They need people like us to lead them, through education, to a better life.
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Reaching OUT
SPECIAL COVER SECTION
Work and Society Dr. Corazon Toralba Chair, Department of Philosophy
T
he course description of the subject Work and Society reads: “It is a study of work in the light of its philosophic-anthropological and ethical dimensions. This course seeks to highlight the reality of work as a human activity, contributing thus to the development of the worker, co-workers, culture, and society. The ethical dimensions treated here are focused on the individual’s personal development as worker regardless of specialization and therefore are applicable to any given job at any given time. The more specific professional ethical issues are left to the respective specialization’s curricula.” The course objective is this: “By the end of the course, the students should possess an understanding of the person’s significance and role as a worker in society and be able
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to appreciate their role in society as agents of change, development, and stability. This is applicable to any field as they become future practitioners of their chosen field of expertise.” Basically, the course content is a philosophical explanation of the social doctrine of the Church, which was developed by Leo XIII’s great encyclical Rerum Novarum. Here, Leo XIII gives guiding principles on the social issues of his time that were brought about by the industrial revolution and includes the subsequent documents that shed light on these issues. Rerum Novarum is a great defense of the rights of the workers and sheds light on man’s vocation to work. A century and a decade have passed since Rerum Novarum and work continues to be the “key to the whole social question.”1 The course focuses on the notion of work in its two-fold dimensions: i.e., the subjective and objective and the reciprocal relationship between them. The subjec-
tive aspect looks at the personal and social values of work, while the objective looks at the product of work, i.e., culture. Nonetheless, priority is given to the subjective value of work. In other words, emphasis is given on work’s value in so far as it perfects the person in the first place and the world in the second place.
Work in its objective and subjective dimensions
Work could be defined as “a human effort which creates goods, that is to say the effort which puts itself at the service of a piece of work, a creation of labor, itself destined for the service of humanity, an effort personal in its origin, but fraternal in its ends.”2 In its objective dimension, work is man’s way of dominating the material world. Man finds himself in that world and everything it has to offer. The physical world is an external reality that he experiences as something to
be transformed, used, and dominated. Dominion here is understood as governing the world in a way that serves man. By dominating the world, he leads it towards its purpose, which is to serve man. This means using whatever he finds in this world to satisfy his existential needs. Some of these needs are enjoyed without effort; others are obtained through work. Still others are “hostile” to man’s existence and should therefore be tamed and/or made man-friendly. Following the teachings contained in the encyclical Laborem Exercens, emphasis is laid on the subjective over the objective aspect of work. The agent and the first beneficiary of man’s work is the worker himself because through work he attains the perfection that is due him both in the ontological and operative levels. In the former, he actualizes human potentials through the engagement of his intelligence and free will. He grasps the essence of things and the purpose of their existence. He can consequently use things according to their essence and/or redirect them to something beneficial to him. Man is in the world not simply to survive but to live well. He works to live a more dignified human existence; that is, to have the modicum material means to support himself as well as others since he is a social being. Man’s happiness consists not simply in having the needed means to survive but also the means to help others and contribute to the needs of society. To achieve this, man has to transform the world so that the beings he finds therein may not only satisfy their existential needs but others’ as well. In this process of transformation, he produces goods or creates things that are useful for everyone and for the rest of created beings.This contributes to the improvement of the world because it provides material that can be used by all. Sometimes these products can lead to greater efficiency in man’s everyday life. Man explores and exploits the world in the positive sense, that is, he develops the world without destroying it. He is a steward of the world; hence he is tasked not only to develop but to conserve it and its resources for the future generations. Because man is an historical being, he is linked with both the past and the future. Man lives in the present based on the innovations of the past. The world is for him to preserve and improve for future generations. The transformation of the world is achieved through man’s intellect and will. By working, the person transforms the world and himself by becoming the person he should be. The world is transformed according to the designs of the worker. Man transforms the world through his knowledge of the nature of the world and its purpose; he thus leads the world to its original purpose of existence. He not only prepares the world for the use of future generation but, more important, follows God’s divine order of subduing the world. The worker does not simply enjoy what he finds as ready-to-use but through his understanding of what and why things are,
he improves what he or she finds. The entire man, not just his intellect and will, is engaged in transforming the world. It is not enough for man to understand the inner workings of the universe; he must also intend to transform the world. Through consciously choosing to work in activities that demand effort and toil, man goes against the easy way of grabbing what he needs from others through force and violence. By going against his beastly tendencies, man is able to know and realize his true value and dignity—that he is not like a beast and that he must act according to his dignity. If he does so, he grows towards self-possession and self-governance, ultimately towards his perfection. Work perfects man because it makes him a better person through the virtues he acquires while he works. He cannot exploit things arbitrarily. When he discovers the nature of the things he finds in the world and decides to transform them to suit his purpose, he has to obey nature’s laws so that things could be useful to him and serve him as they should. Man learns by obeying the laws inherent in things. He learns to be
Man’s happiness consists not simply in having the needed means to survive but also the means to help others and contribute to the needs of society.
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patient because the results are not always those desired or they come ill timed. Tilling the land, sowing, and harvesting are done respecting the seasons of the year and the biological cycle of the crop. Even technological advances are not achieved by chance but through the patient exploration of the “secrets of the universe.” By recognizing that he was given a mission to work and to realize the value of this truth, man realizes his vocation; that is, he realizes that to work is part of the reason why he exists. By working, he fulfills the divine mandate (ut operaretur) out of love for God and when done in the best way, work becomes for him a sanctifying and sanctifiable reality. Through that piece of work, man reflects the divine image in him; he becomes God’s helper in the transformation of the world and redirects God’s creation back to its Creator.
Work and culture
Work also creates culture in two senses: firstly, man develops himself by working, and secondly he develops goods that make the world a more human place. The priority given to the subject worker over the object produced is manifest in the culture since the latter reflects the self. That is to say, the development occurring within the subject “radiates into the world of products.”3 Through work, man cultivates himself “because what-
ever we make in our action, whatever effects or products we bring about in it, we always simultaneously ‘make ourselves’ in it as well; in acting, we ‘create ourselves’.”4 In the selftransformation process, we make ourselves more human and the non-human realities also more human.
Work and civilization
Through work, man is able to learn to live and live well. While work benefits the worker primarily, it also benefits other fellow humans because work is done by man for man and with man. Work as defined earlier is personal in origin but fraternal in end. Note that the term fraternal is more appropriately applied to the family setting because among siblings, love rules as the motor of cohesion. Work done with love and for love of others is the key motive for improving the lot of other human beings. The person is fulfilled when he engages in work for this reason. Work, therefore, is service to others and done with others who pursue the same good, the good of the community. Work is the “cause of civilization and a necessary condition to it while at the same time work is the effect of civilization. It is an act of justice that science, art, and religion should scatter their benefits upon work and that, each in its way, should exalt and justify it, should glorify work and lighten its burden. Not only does work create civilization; it is in itself a civilizing gesture; there can be no civilization without a principle of communion. Now the product which labor gives is a bond between man and work which permits an exchange of services and is thus one of the experiences of brotherhood among men.”5 Work civilizes man. Teaching man how to work, endowing him with the taste for making useful efforts curbs man’s warlike instincts that urge him to seize by force those things necessary for life. Work also delivers man from the temptation to make war. Through work, man’s brute physical strength and natural urge for domination is channeled towards that of making something useful. Work relieves man of boredom that could be the bench work for destructive ideas. As stated earlier, work is a strong cement of community building. Unity of goals forges a cohesive force that makes men cooperate with one another in the pursuit of common goals while respecting the natural diversity of men; each one’s contribution to the enterprise becomes the measure of usefulness and not the desire to be like someone else. Moreover, working together for the same goal makes them see each other as partners rather than as competitors. John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, 3 Borne and Henry, A Philosophy of Work (London: Sheed and Ward,1938), p.98 3 Wojtyla, Karol. “The Problem of the Constitution of Human Culture through Praxis” Person and Community Selected Essays (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), p.265 4 Ibid p. 266 5 Borne and Henry. A Philosophy of Work (London: Sheed and Ward, 1938), p. 96 1 2
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Reaching OUT
SPECIAL COVER SECTION
CSR: Doing ordinary things extraordinarily well Dr. Caterina Lornezo-Molo Assistant Professor, School of Communication
Faced with criticism for their contribution to the problem of obesity, a popular children’s network launched a program through a lobbying initiative to reinstate recess periods—and the exercise that comes with them—in schools. The campaign garnered considerable public support, and also benefited the network. A company that produces milk, fruit juice, and smoothies through environmentally sustainable and socially responsible processes that consider effects on both its internal and external audiences, launched a corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaign that encouraged buyers to purchase healthy food, while automatically initiating the donation of money to grow a tree in India.
CSR defined
Virtually everyone agrees that good corporate citizenship is essential and that the most popular measure or gauge of this has been corporate social responsibility. It is popular among the Fortune 500, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and international clubs; and it has become particularly significant in the aftermath of a market economy that flourished and thrived in the 20th century, bringing with it a string of social attacks directly related to its negative face. Simply put, CSR is firms behaving responsibly; and to be perceived to be doing so, corporations engage in acts of doing good usually outside the regular scope of a company’s core business interests (i.e. philanthropic and ‘do-gooder’ activities), which are consciously crafted to gain positive reviews, publicity, and effects from stakeholders. Everyone has certain responsibilities; while we might not often realize it, we all have a lot of them on our plate. We all wear many hats, and with each hat come a host of responsibilities. But what happens when we add even more hats to our collection of regular hats? We would definitely not have enough time to prepare ourselves to wear all
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of them; and most might just rot in our closets. In a similar manner, if we spread ourselves too thinly, we would probably become quite mediocre and even irresponsible with the main roles we have to play. What will happen to a corporation if it focuses on doing charity and philanthropy to attain competitive advantage? What about those acts of a corporation that are directly related to the core business of an organization (i.e., employee relations, transparency, attention to the effects of commercial messages on society)?
True CSR assumes that practitioners are ethical. This requires the business leader and other members of the organization to be well versed in business ethics even before engaging in front-stage CSR.
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Front-stage and back-stage CSR
To quote from Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, “He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.” As it is generally practiced, the primary problem with CSR is that it is often contrary to the core business of a corporation. This is the premise of my latest paper entitled “Why Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Remains a Myth: The Case of the Philippines”, published in the latest issue of Asian Business & Management (ABM), an academic business and management journal also concerned with understanding social issues. CSR in its market organizational environment is understood as the governance of externalities by firms. Thus, a corporation may do considerable public service work and charity (front-stage CSR)
but systematically pollute the environment, misappropriate money from their employees’ pension fund, or pursue discriminatory labor practices (back-stage CSR). There is a big difference between the the CSR program of the children’s network and that of the milk and fruit producer mentioned earlier. The former is a network that often showcases TV programs that are not suitable for children at the same time dubbing itself a children’s network, while the latter attempts to constantly produce goods that are good enough for both its owners and internal company audience, as well as its commercial audience.
CSR in the Philippines
CSR in the Philippines is largely a front-stage practice primarily focused on education. Corporations in the Philippines are often criticized for the amount of money they spend on CSR. They are often believed to be too low in relation to company profits. But if philanthropy is not a requirement of citizenship for individuals to be considered good citizens, why should it be for corporations? To oblige corporations to do philanthropy will not necessarily make them socially responsible. What critics fail to recognize is the manner in which corporations conduct business and what the core business is all about. Employee relations, for instance, is very low in the Philippines, based on an Asian study on CSR. Another issue involves producers and sellers of ‘sin’ products such as alcohol, tobacco, and pornography—which often blur the ethical problems of their business and the dangers posed by their products. Tobacco companies, for instance, are among the most active in reporting their CSR accomplishments either on their websites or through their annual sustainability reports; but they are also among the most controversial firms in things relating to their core business.
True CSR
Albert Einstein, one the world’s most celebrated scientists once said, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching.” Similar to the struggle of the individual soul that works hard to become an apostle of men, so too should a corporation, which potentially has much more far-reaching effects on others. To quote St. Josemaría Escrivá, “It is necessary that you be a ‘man of God,’ a man of interior life, a man of prayer and of sacrifice. Your apostolate must be the overflow of your life within.” Christianity teaches that the soul of the apostolate is the overflow of one’s interior life. In the same manner, front-stage CSR should be the overflow of back-stage CSR. A front stage without a back stage is artificial. How can an empty glass quench your thirst? Not even a glass half full would do it. True CSR assumes that practitioners are ethical. This requires the business leader and other members of the organization to be well versed in business ethics even before engaging in front-stage CSR, because business ethics will fuel and drive CSR. CSR cannot be a mere replacement for the absence of ethics. Only when we can honestly say that we’ve been doing what it is that we already do very, very well, can we sincerely and effectively do an ethics-driven approach—the only correct approach to CSR. To quote Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, philosopher, and physicist, “The power of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing.” Just like the soul of the apostolate epitomized by St. John of the Cross—who was known for his poetry and studies on the growth of the soul—a corporation must have a well managed and well maintained back stage, just as true apostles of men must have an interior life. Corporations must simply do ordinary things extraordinarily well; and once this becomes second nature and, in the case of the corporate world, institutionalized and part of business culture, then there will certainly be a need for a front stage to carry over the overflowing CSR coming off the back stage.
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Alumni
IMC alumni go
Ms. Jel Tordesillas SCM 2007
worldwide
“Are you ready for the challenge?” So goes the question addressed to students who want to enter the world of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). But what happens after graduation? Can they still live up to the challenge that the “real world” demands? Several IMC alumni we interviewed confirm that, yes, IMC does prepare you for the “real” world. After all those presentations, overnight meetings, countless quizzes and papers, they were ready to face the frenetic, professional world of communication. Let’s take a tour around the world and hear what they have to say.
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Pam Abastillas-Gilford ‘02 Company: L’Oréal Paris, New York City, USA Position: Interactive Digital Manager
“While I now live thousands of miles away, the experiences, knowledge, and friends UA&P gave me continue to help shape my life today.” In the city that never sleeps, Pam works in L’Oréal Paris as an interactive digital manager, handling two of the make-up company’s brands, Pureology and Redken. She conceptualizes and manages online marketing efforts. Prior to this, she has worked with other companies such as Digitas, Time Inc., Brand Loyalty, and J. Walter Thompson. Pam highlights three values she has which she attributes to her years as an IMC student—teamwork, people skills, and presentation skills. She also mentions how her 5th year IMC revalida instilled the value of team-work and fondly mentions her group’s presentation being hailed as Best Communication Plan. PowerPoint presentations also still play a major role in her career. She explains that in L’Oréal, she needs to communicate her ideas effectively while being as concise as possible.
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“IMC is consumer-driven and channel-focused, increas and these are the key elements that really aid in increasing traffic inside a store—which is what supermarkets want in the end.” Let’s travel all the way down under to Austra Australia, where Vikko Perine now works as category manager for Moraitis, supplier of fresh produce to three of the largest retail stores in the coun country: Woolworths, Coles, and Aldi. Basically, his task is to convince retail chain stores to allow them to be category captains of the hard-produce category in their stores. He does this by managing a research process with the company’s communication agency and in the end, coming up with a presentation that will hopefully convince the retail stores. “Direct Marketing, Market Re Research and IMC Theory Classes,” he enumerates when asked what sub subjects helped him the most. In relation to what he does, he uses what he learned in IMC to communicate the health benefits of red potatoes (an (anti-oxidants), as well as the benefits of pre-packed pre-peeled onions (they won’t make you cry). A form of communication comes in the form of loyalty programs. In his company, gourmet C recipes targeted to Vikko Perine ’02 mothers (decision Company: Moraitis, Australia makers) are given Position: Category Manager weekly.
“Perhaps the biggest professional challenge I’ve had so far is launching eight websites in a span of two months (on top of everything else I had to do!).” All the way in Madrid is IMC graduate Pilar Estrada. In a span of three years, Pilar managed to work her way to becoming a projB ect manager for Pilar Estrada ‘05 Allfund Bank’s Company: Allfunds Bank, Spain United Kingdom Position: Project Manager accounts. Half of her time is spent in handling projects, the other half is spent on market research—competencies which she traces to her years in UA&P. It was in the University where she learned “individual initiative, attention to detail, and time management skills.” “The exposure to different audiences, friendly or critical, a quick mind in terms of knowing the product and the client, performing under stress—the general experience of it all does provide the confidence and professionalism required in the real world.” Knowing how to deal with people also played a role in her success. Being a woman in a man’s world, it’s all about consumer insight, how to overcome being overlooked by understanding and knowing how to best relate to the English businessman.
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“The [IMC] program has served me well. Pushed and stretched beyond my perceived boundaries, I can say that the rewards outweigh the pain ten-fold (any IMC student will know what I mean).” Now based in Vietnam as an account director for marketing E communications agency Erika Valera ’02 Riverorchid, Erika is faced with the Company: Riverorchid, daily challenge of multitasking: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Position: Account Director she juggles pitching proposals, overseeing different accounts, and assisting in the company’s financial management. Happy and thriving in her career, she shares advice to IMC students or anyone who wants to build a career in advertising. Things you should have: • Heart. The passion for what suits you, for creativity that sells, for great ideas that may change the world. • Guts. Sometimes you just have to dare yourself to do what isn’t normally done. • A few loose screws in the head. What’s it all for if you can’t have fun along the way?
“Both the company’s top management and the client recognized the improvement I made by simply applying the things I’ve been doing in IMC to my very own projects.” Bon is not only a master’s degree recipient of the IMC program, he also received the program’s Most Outstanding Student award. Now he is a partner of Alatus Media, Ltd., as well as frontend developer of Touchpoint, Ltd., New Zealand’s leading multinational marketing company. His position fuses his information technology (IT) abilities and IMC skills. As front-end developer, he transforms newsletter designs to HTML codes for distribution, updates promotional websites, and creates SMS campaigns. Bon says that entering Touchpoint was not easy. Competing against hardcore programmers, he seemed to be no match. Until he was hired and was told that what separated him from the other candidates was his holistic view of D marketing Bon Virata ‘04 as well as his organizaCompany: Touchpoint, Ltd., New Zealand tion skills— Position: Front-end developer things he Company: Alatus Media Ltd. learned Position: Partner in IMC.
“I got myself online, and discovered that it’s so easy to conquer the world with just a click.” Having IMC as her background, Nanna Tobias learned the value of consumer insights, which help her in deciding what to propose to clients. “Consumer behavior and trends across global markets do make sense,” she shares, and explains how examining the brand and targeting the right consumer are very important steps to take before any execution. IMC has helped her be synergized in the way she thinks. This is really handy in dealing with a world as wide D the as digital one. Forward planning—a trait that she learned from IMC as well—still applies to her now in her profession because she constantly has to come up with things that will yield the best results for the client. She advises those who want to try her profession: “Build a Facebook page, get followed on Twitter, know what SEO is, upload videos on YouTube!”
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Nannah Tobias ‘04 Company: Young and Rubicam, Singapore Position: Digital Account Manager
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Alumni “UA&P reinforced the reality that an individual can make a difference— that big things come from small things...that the good spreads itself and we have to give back.”
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DAVID LEECHIU
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avid Leechiu’s philosophy in life isn’t all that unique or complicated, but it’s easier said than done, and it just so happens to be something he picked up at UA&P. “Live life to the fullest,” he says. “UA&P education has provided me with a holistic worldview and taught me to live life to the fullest.” Mr. Leechiu graduated from the University (back when it was still the Center for Research and Communication) in 1994 with a degree in entrepreneurial management. He came into the real estate business soon after graduating and is currently the regional director and country manager of Jones Lang LaSalle Leechiu (JLLL), the largest real estate advisory and consulting organization in Philippines. The firm offers integrated services delivered by expert teams worldwide to clients seeking increased value by owning, occupying, or investing in real estate. Mr. Leechiu traces this success in the world of realty to a good dose of reality, courtesy of the University. “UA&P allowed me to see things from different points of view and assimilate these different perspectives,” he says. “UA&P reinforced the reality that an individual can make a difference—that big things come from small things, that everyone deserves a chance, that each of us at an early age has to be clear with what we want in life and what role we play in the stage of life, that the good spreads itself and we have to give back, and that we need to remind ourselves of the end and act accordingly.” Looking back at his student days, he finds that his first experience with UA&P has also been the most memorable. “None of the usual college choices accepted my application, but there was this obscure start-up called CRC College of Arts and Sciences (CAS),” he recalls. “After barely passing the entrance exam, I was called for an interview, and I said, ‘Gee, no one’s ever bothered with me before.’ Post-interview, I realized: here is an institution that looks behind the numbers and the sketchy record and is willing to take a chance on me. Entering what was then CRCCAS changed everything in my life for the better, and I could say that it was the greatest inflection point in my life.” Despite being the head of a multinational corporation, however, Mr. Leechiu hasn’t lost sight of his maxim. In the 11 years since marrying his college sweetheart, he has raised a family of three boys and one girl, and even finds the time to take up gymnastics. But the future, he says, is yet to be set: “I’m still defining the details, but the end in mind is how to make the biggest difference to people in the next few decades I have left.”
IN FULL Mr. Carlo Cabrera Corporate Communications Office
J O V E L LO R E N ZO
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Twenty-four-year-old IMC alumna Ms. Tiffany Orbien combines fun and faith and conveys them to Australian youth. After working for the World Youth Day (WYD) in Sydney last year, she now handles the marketing and communications efforts of the youth arm of the Archdiocese of Melbourne. In the interview below, Ms. Orbien explains how her UA&P education is helping her enjoy life advancing the Faith.
How exactly do you create a “Catholic consumer experience”?
Most young people have been baptized Catholics but never really discover more about the faith outside their religion class or Sunday Mass. What our office tries to do is make sure that young Catholics learn more about their faith through as many varied experiences as possible. An example is the Catechesis Series with Bishops that our office is offering to parishes and schools across Melbourne. We recently held one in a city church where one of What sort of work do you do? Our office aims to provide as many oppor- our bishops discussed the topic: “Can you have tunities as possible for young people (primarily Jesus without the Church or the Church without Jesus?” Obviously the answer is no(!), but 16-35 years old) to develop and deepen their young people today want to know why—and in Catholic faith, from youth events to an online resource. It’s a fairly unique job, since I haven’t a language they can relate to, rather than just through textbooks! It helps having a person of taken the usual route of entering the advertising or marketing arena (that most graduates do), but instead I’m using my knowledge in marketing communications to promote the Catholic faith to young people. I see myself as a brand manager of the Catholic faith, and it’s my job to create a meaningful and enduring “Catholic experience” for my young customer. I need to make sure that the faith is promoted in a way that young people can relate to—so I also do a lot of graphic design, website production, writing, and event planning.
authority (the bishop) talk to them and answer their questions directly. A positive experience like this then spurs the young people to think more about their faith and how it is relevant in their life. It’s then our office’s responsibility to make sure they’re given as many ways to discover it more, moving forward.
How has the IMC experience helped?
Most people don’t really know how to react when I tell them that I do marketing and communications for the Church! The Church, like any major corporation that wants to remain relevant to its consumers, needs to be able to communicate its message in a clear, appealing, and professional manner— “Tiffany Orbien: Communicating the Faith...” continued on page 49 >>
TIFFANY ORBIEN
Communicating the Faith Down Under
Is it hard promoting the Catholic faith to the youth?
I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a constant challenge. In a first-world country where Catholicism currently has a following of less than 20% of the total population, it’s easy to become disheartened. But if the half a million young people at WYD has shown us anything, it’s that young people are eager to learn more and experience the Catholic faith. It takes a lot of faith on my part too.
Have you ever had a challenging work experience?
In the lead up to WYD, I remember feeling really frustrated when we’d try to promote the event to potential sponsors but get shut down once they found out it was a Catholic event. In a highly secular country where Catholicism isn’t even the main religion, it’s hard to promote
Part of the problem of trying to get the youth... more involved with the Church is that many only see rules, unbreakable traditions, and the scandalous deeds of a few. But beneath all that is a simple message: God loves each of us and wants us to be happy.
////////////////// any kind of religious event. But what frustrated me was that, in hopes of attracting more interest, some people on the team tried to “water down” the Catholic element by not stating the word Catholic at all! I’m all for “generating interest” but to leave the “Catholic element” out is ridiculous. I had to speak up and tell them that honest marketing is good marketing. Young people respond to honesty. I’d rather have the youth come to an event where they will be challenged... than to have them come under false pretenses and watch them leave disappointed once they learned the truth.
SCM alumna Ms. Tiffany Orbien (foreground) joins friends in welcoming the Pope during the World Youth Day in Sydney last year. P H OTO C O U R T E SY O F M S . T I F FA N Y O R B I E N
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Alumni AUDREY CODERA
A Heart for the Young Jessica Orleans CAS 2nd year
“I always knew I wanted to help people. I just didn’t know how,” answered Audrey Cordero, a 2004 graduate of the Institute of Political Economy, when asked why she chose her current profession. She has been volunteering in school outreach projects as far as she can remember. “But what made me finally decide on how to help people was
my class on Development Economics with Dr. Cid Terosa. That class gave me an overview of possible sustainable ways to help people become self-sustaining. In that way, they can make an informed decision.” Audrey is currently the administrative director for the Kent County Teen Court Pilot Program in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “In the Teen Court Program, participating first-time offenders (youth who commit misdemeanors) are handed down judgment by their peers,” explains Audrey. To prevent these young law offenders from committing further unlawful acts, instead of punishing them, a quasi-judicial proceeding takes place in which the offender’s peers would act as judges who may “sentence” them to attending workshops about various topics, or to rendering community service. Although Audrey is away from her home country, she still oversees a non-government organization in the Philippines, Youth Works
Inc. “It’s the premier microfinance institution supporting underprivileged young entrepreneurs through credit allocation and through the ySHOP, a free online marketplace where young entrepreneurs can freely advertise their products and services.” Audrey established Youth Works in 2006 after five years of working in another NGO she established along with others— the Philippine Youth Employment Network (PYEN). She says “PYEN greatly influenced the youth employment and entrepreneurship policies in the Philippines today. The change in management in 2007 also resulted in the change of PYEN’s name into Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship Philippine (SAGE-Philippines).” In 2005, Audrey was one of eight young social entrepreneurs (chosen from among 135 young people around the world) recognized by the Global Knowledge Partnership for transforming social development opportunities into sustainable social enterprises through the innovative use of information communication technologies. Being a UA&P student, she learned how to juggle a lot of things at once. “I also learned how to deal with and become friends with people from all walks of life. More important, UA&P provided me with a strong foundation of my faith and of what I value in life,” Audrey adds. She also admits that she never really
“I just hope I can continue doing the work that I do and love—helping young people in any way I can.”
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had the best grades, nor was she a part of any varsity team. However, she remembers enjoying working in the Commission of Elections during school elections. Although it seems she is pretty much set for the future, Audrey is taking things one step at a time. She is pursuing her Juris Doctor degree at Thomas M. Cooley Law School-Grand Rapids Campus in Michigan (she is now on her second year). As for work, she says, “I just hope I can continue doing the work that I do and love—helping young people in any way I can. I would like Youth Works to be sustainable, and help as many young entrepreneurs with limited means as it can. I hope that the Kent County Teen Court Program will keep going and continue to help young people into becoming good citizens of their communities.” She also hopes to find time for her other interests such as diving (she got a certificate for it last April) and outdoor activities such as camping, swimming, hiking, biking, kayaking, and canoeing. When asked about her philosophy in life, Audrey answers, “My faith—my relationship with God—is very important to me. My family, loved ones, and friends come after that. But I believe that everything I do and everything that happens to me are all because of my relationship with God. I try to do what I can and leave everything else up to him.”
Neverland at the University of Navarra
Student Life
IMC student Victor Cruz (seated, rightmost) unwinds with his fellow international students high above the beaches of San Sebastian in northern Spain.
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he “why” of it all was simple. I wanted something more, something different, something to break the monotony of daily routine and the confines of a life that at times left me wanting, bored, and unsatisfied. The risk was great; the rewards were better than expected. Because of the differences in the academic calendars, my exchange program with the University of Navarra (UN) in Pamplona (Spain) had me delayed by a year. I missed out on what promised to be a wonderful end to my four years at UA&P: an unforgettable semester with my IMC friends and batchmates; the IMC graduation ball, a first for the school and the pet project of my friends; a memorable graduation; and an early chance to jumpstart my professional career. The great thing about taking an international exchange program is that it allows you to discover many things about yourself and to be creative enough to reinvent yourself to better fit in the new environment. You learn to meet and handle all sorts of people and situations and face challenges without the immediate and proximate support of your friends and family. In Pamplona, I often caught myself thinking, “Back at home I had people doing this for me!” as I slaved over preparing meals, doing the laundry, and ironing my clothes. But in retrospect, I can honestly say that such an experience toughens you up and teaches you to appreciate the simple things we of the “comfortable” class often take for granted. It forces you to grow up and accept things as they are.
La vida española
Life in Pamplona—and in Spain in general—is a stark contrast to the sedentary lifestyle most of us are accustomed to. The
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mall in Pamplona was a bus ride and 20minute walk away from town, as Spaniards prefer small shops and promenades, where they can take leisurely walks as they browse. People go out a lot, preferring to hold football matches or prepare trips to the mountains on weekends rather than to hit a gym or hang out at the mall. And everything generally starts later than the usual, including the parties, which normally start at around 1:00 am and end as late (or early) as 7:00 am. The University of Navarra’s Facultad de Communicación (FCom) or School of Communication is ranked among the best in Spain, garnering well-deserved prestige in both academic and business circles. The academic environment at the University of Navarra makes this hard to believe as it reflects the temperament of the Spanish people, which I have learned to love, look back on fondly, and oftentimes miss. Unlike the students in our over-worked and at times highly stressed-out work culture, my Spanish classmates would often dismiss their worries with a simple tranquila (calm down). To students like me, who are used to a competitive and cut-throat academic environment, the temperament did a lot to help me breeze through the six subjects I chose to take, five of which were taught in Spanish.
¿Habla español, usted?
Classes are the best way for international students to meet people. Currently, however, the University of Navarra offers only one English course per semester, which makes learning Spanish an absolute must. The lectures I attended were all in Spanish, and most of the essay exams I took had to be written in Spanish. I was lucky I already tried to learn the language years before, with the help of a tutor and podcasts in my iPod.
Definitely, speaking and understanding the language opened doors wide for me, allowing me to meet new people and go around town with friends. Even the international students, except for those who were from the US and the UK, talked to me in Spanish. I admit, there were times when we lost ourselves in translation (some tenses in Spanish do not exist in English), but speaking it enriched the experience. More than the place, however, it was ultimately the friends I made who made my five-month stint in Pamplona truly unforgettable. Spanish students are generally warm and accommodating to visiting students. The University, after all, has increasingly been internationalized during the past few years, receiving students from all parts of the globe. This has created a very welcoming environment to foreigners, even those who are obviously not western.
No te dejará igual
And somewhere along the way, the whole foreign exchange experience changes you. “No te dejará igual (It won’t leave you the same),” goes the copy of a memorable Kia Soul advertisement we took up in my Lenguaje Publicitario (Advertising Language) class. Any experience that forces you out of your comfort zone—away from your parents, your household helpers, your friends, and the conveniences and luxuries of a familiar territory—would have some indelible effect on your life. My five-month stint in Spain may be over, but the things I learned, the experiences I had, the memories I forged with the people I met and the friends I made will always be with me.
Victor Cruz SCM 5th Year
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STELLAR N I R TO B E R
Say “UA&P scholar” and a slew of images immediately comes to mind: the Hermione Granger-type whose hand is never off the air during Q&A; the province-bred boy with the potential to become president; the loner and his imaginary friend, stuck at the farthest corner of the library… But many times those images are off the mark. There is simply no way of putting scholars in a box— or odd boxes, as you’ve just done. UA&P’s scholars—both merit scholars and financial aid recipients—come from the most diverse backgrounds and have the most varied looks and personalities. And if you think they’re some higher (nerdy) kind of hominids (homo supersapiens?), I’ll tell you what: they’re not. They play, they pray, they’re brilliant, they have down times and up, they are not demigods.
They’re just like everybody else—with weaknesses and strengths—but they have, ehem, star qualities. They’re smart and hardworking. They’re promising. They deserve the affection (stipends, free tuition, enviable privileges!) which the University has for them, depending on their circumstances. We call them “Stellar Scholars”—an allusion to the star on our coat of arms that guides the galleon to its port. They are leaders and luminaries (though apparently ordinary) who give their peers examples on how to strike a balance between fun and study, make them compatible, and excel in both. Starting this issue, UNIVERSITAS will uncover the lives of these extraordinary individuals and find out what rocketed them to UA&P’s stratosphere.
s Family and Friend
Get Me Going
When I was in high school in Miami, Florida, I would never have imagined that I would be studying at a university all the way here in the Philippines. My high school life was great and things were going perfectly for me. I had all my goals set, and I was ready to begin college life in the US, but my plans changed because my parents decided to come back and live in the Philippines. To be honest, I was kind of hesitant at first because I thought about everything that I was leaving behind; after all, I hadn’t been back in the Philippines since I was five years old, and the thought of coming back was kind of scary. It took a while for me to adjust to the Filipino life and culture, but eventually things started to click. UA&P was my first choice for a college, because despite not being too well known, I had heard from relatives that UA&P was a school that was on the rise. I took the entrance exam and was lucky enough to get accepted into the University as a first-year IT student. My first few weeks at school were kind of shaky, because I had one big culture shock. A lot of my classmates were two years younger than me because in the US we graduate when we are 18 or 19 years old. People were speaking Filipino left and right, and at that time, I could understand but couldn’t speak it well. After a while, however, the friends that I made helped me fit into this culture of Filipino life. UA&P is a small school as most people will tell you, but that is one of the best things about it. When you walk into UA&P, you think, “Man, my high school was bigger than this!” but this is one of the best features of our school. Since it is such a small school, we all tend to know each other, and at the same time, everyone tends to be friendlier with one another. The culture of student life at
“It’s the people around me who keep me motivated, because without them I wouldn’t be who I am today.”
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UNIVERSITAS November 2009
UA&P involves a lot of studying, but also a lot of extracurricular activities on the side. I became a UA&P scholar after my freshman year, and people started to ask me questions like: “How do you do it?” or “Do you get any sleep?” I always tell them the same thing every time: it’s all about managing your time and setting your priorities straight. I admit that I do devote my time to studying, but I’m sure everyone would agree with me that all work and no play just isn’t that fun. School, friends, and family are just about enough to keep me busy every day of the week. One person asked me, “What motivates you to keep going even though sometimes you’re so overwhelmed with all the different parts of your life?” It was a question that I had never thought about before, and I told that person that I would get back to him on that. A few weeks later, I approached him and I gave him my answer. I told him that it’s the people around me that keep me motivated, because without them I wouldn’t be who I am today. Whenever I see someone working hard to help me, it makes me want to work twice as hard to help him. One of the main reasons I applied to be a scholar was to help my parents with their financial problems at home due to the depression; now that I’m a scholar, I’m able to help out even if it’s just a little bit. Even though I have to work three times harder than I did before I became a scholar, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Life at UA&P makes all the stress of long exams and surprise quizzes go away. I look forward to showing up at school every day, and trust me, it’s not because of all the studying that I have ahead of me, but rather it’s the people, the atmosphere, and just about everything else you can do at our school that makes each new day exciting. I mean, what school has a red dragon mascot whose name is Uappy or elevator music always playing in their restrooms! UA&P is definitely the place to be for everybody and anybody.
Kevin Chan IIT 2nd Year
The Truth
About Scholars
A scholar’s life is highly misunderstood and oftentimes misrepresented. One might think that such a privileged student spends the whole of his or her free time nosing around the shelves of the Don Emilio Ejercito Library (DEEL) trying to find the best sources for the much-stressed about research paper (papers, I mean). There is also the notion that the scholar obsesses about the seven equations and derivations needed for the long quiz by jotting them down repeatedly in the 3 x 5 index cards used for personal review. Yes, extensive searching in the library is part of it, but this is pretty much enjoyed. And yes, multiple index cards of different sizes and colors kept neatly filed in their original wrappers are significant tools for personal study methods. However, my life does not revolve only around books—despite the degree of fascination I have for them and those who wrote them—and index cards, no matter how useful they could get. One challenge we scholars are often faced with is time pressure. With all the things we have to do plus all those we want to do, time management is crucial—an indispensable skill. If one doesn’t have it, no worries; one can acquire it with intensive practice. Given our daily schedules, the balancing act is something we perform regularly. Three. Two. One. Buzz! That countdown in my head. I hear it nearing the end of a test. I hear it while darting to my next subject in the CAS building from the ACB. I hear it before giving the 20-minute UA&P marketing presentation condensed to fit a meagre ten-minute career-talk time limit. I hear it during the last few crucial minutes of a futsal game. Admittedly, I hear the same buzz during my nightly study period or while polishing an article such as this one. Now, a good question to ask is: “Where are all these so-called ‘smart’ people?” Answer: “They are just around.” I’m afraid that, although we strive to achieve his intellectual capabilities, we do not physically resemble the great quantum physicist who proposed E=mc2, if that was what you were expecting. We do not have Einstein’s funky hair nor his moustache. Moreover, we do not wear lab gowns or sport masking-taped eyeglasses around school. In fact, we are everywhere, mingling among the crowd. For sure, you will often see some of us seated among the rows of study desks at DEEL. But, if you open your scholar-tracking senses, you may also spot us in the next big play or game. Enjoying the cool breeze that sweeps the ledge. Relaxing, chilling out, and jamming with our friends in Study Hall A. You can even take part in the next big school event with us as OSA volunteers.
“If you open your scholar-tracking senses, you may also spot us in the next big play or game. Enjoying the cool breeze that sweeps the ledge. Relaxing, chilling out, and jamming with our friends in Study Hall A...”
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Scholars are much more than what the general public equate them with. First, let’s lay down some facts that may or may not surprise you, but are, nevertheless, good to know. Twenty-five percent of the current freshman batch are scholars. A quarter of the school’s newcomers is under some sort of scholarship program, be it merit or financial aid. To put it differently, one out of four new faces you see around this school year is expected to maintain that 1.75 GWA. Despite the need to “make the grade” in the classroom, the UA&P scholar is involved and excels in more than just academics. He has what it takes to excel in his craft or sport. Yes, he can do the extra 20 push-ups even after circuit training. She can surely hit the high notes in those elegant arias, as well as organize fun activities for her schoolmates. They can deliver a 15-minute presentation as well as a one-hour play. On top of that, the UA&P scholar maintains good grades and can help others become stellar scholars as well. Angel Yulo CAS 2nd Year
>> “Tiffany Orbien: Communicating the Faith...” continued from page 47
especially to a youth demographic. Part of the problem of trying to get the youth (or anyone for that matter) more involved with the Church is that many only see rules, unbreakable traditions, and the scandalous deeds of a few. But beneath all that is a simple message: God loves each of us and wants us to be happy. And in a world where hatred and disappointment seem to douse everything, it’s good for an impressionable young person to have something constant to hold on to—and that’s their faith. Any IMC graduate will tell you that one of the keys to keeping your brand afloat is communicating one, clear, constant message to your customers, and that’s what I try to do with the young people. It also helps to have a clear audience in mind. Just like those of any other brand, the “Catholic faith’s audiences” will have varying levels of “engagement” with their faith. Some youth experience their faith through their local parish, whereas others who aren’t affiliated with any parish are still interested in learning more about their faith through their school or university. Then there are young professionals who, although busy with work and other commitments, look for a chance to deepen their faith. Knowing all this helps me map out our communications strategies and the ways our office can best provide services and events that are relevant and accessible.
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A (semi-imaginary)
day in the
Nicole B. Looks to be a terrific day here at LSGH. Career fair booth is set up, and seniors are going out in a bit. Wait, we’re being swarmed by...4th graders! Cute! 7:00 am from La Salle Green Hills
Dae Jet lag is really getting to me. Imagine, we had to take a 5:00 am flight! But hey, this is what we do. Got at the hotel about 6:30 am, changed into corporate, and we have a talk right away! 7:30 am from Corpus Christi High, Cagayan De Oro
Jade Oh my, it’s so awesome going back to my high school! Just two years ago I was one of these girls...Now it’s me giving the talk! And they still remember me! 8:00 am from School of the Holy Spirit Q.C.
Sam Training is going to start in a bit. These sessions are intense. We always have to be on top of our game because our boss is quite blunt. We have an honest appraisal of our performance…which I appreciate. There’s no sugar coating here. 8:45 am from ACB 204 B, UA&P Campus
Isha I have a confession. I used to hate talking in front of crowds. I freeze, it gets me antsy. But whew, never knew I could pull off a talk in front of 400 people. I actually pulled it off! 9:30 am from Marist High School
Jake Just finished a quick campus tour. The seniors were very happy with how
it turned out. So many questions, and I only had 20 minutes to bring them around! Looks like they really had fun! 9:45 am from UA&P Campus
Benj I am having so much fun at this conference! As part of the UA&P delegation here, I got to chat with the head organizer, and meet people from other schools as well. And guess what? I won in the raffle! Yeah! 10:30 from Yuchengco Building, DLSU Campus
Kaye Tremendous reception to our talk, lots of questions! Photo-ops! The people here are so friendly, made me feel like a rock star. Even if the trip here seemed to take forever, it’s all worth it! 11:00 am from Don Bosco Academy, Pampanga
Ila Well that was something. Went to a school which I thought was my alma mater, turns out there was a slight mixup with the name. Part of the job I guess. We really need to think on our feet, be adaptable and keep our head on straight when things like these happen. 11:45 from Rizal Science High School
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UNIVERSITAS November 2009
life of a
JMC
Val Lunch time! I love our weekly meetings. Such an eclectic bunch of people from different cliques all coming together to form one close, tightly-knit team. And we get free food! 12:30 from UA&P Campus
Malo Though training is super hard and super competitive, I’m really learning a lot of things. Today, we were taught how to...sell things to people. Hmmmm, better try it out on my friends. 1:30 from ACB 204B, UA&P Campus
Van It’s one thing to just give a short testimonial about the school, it’s another to give the actual presentation. Imagine all that pressure, you’re like a virtual ambassador of the UA&P brand. Thank God that last one went relatively well. 2:30 from St. Paul College of Pasig
Jessica The funny thing is with this line of work, you get to meet so many people that you’re exposed to so many diverse networks all at once. Like just now, I may have just possibly met my long lost cousin. Same last name! Wait, my dad just texted...She is! Would you look at that! 3:30 from Angelicum High School, Iloilo City
Miguel People sometimes think JMC work is all fun and games, but after dragging around luggage that weighs probably as much as me up 3 floors, then having to give a talk afterwards, this is also so exhausting! Someone please grab me a soda...
Established in 2008, the UA&P Junior Marketing Communications (JMC) Team is comprised of 1st to 4th year students who do marketing, public relations, and events management work for the University. Current team captain is IMC junior Dae Lee and co-captain is CAS sophomore Angel Yulo.
3:45 pm from Pasig Catholic College
Nicole M. Perks of the job—several different cake places, the most awe-
some coffee shop I have ever been to, gelato galore, authentic Inasal chicken! Hey, with all this running about, we need to fill up in between! 4:30 pm from Caleya Bakeshop, Bacolod City
Mr. Luis Arcangel Corporate Communications Office
Kelly One of the biggest rewards in doing this is when you see a relatively
disinterested crowd at first, give them a super talk, and see a lot of them super interested in the University right after, with a ton of questions. It’s like...You’re making an impact in this big life decision of theirs, even in your own little way. 4:45 pm from Cebu National Science High, Cebu City
Angel Okay get this. Stuck in heavy, heavy traffic right now. We left from the San Pablo talk at 4 pm, and it ain’t moving! I’m completely exhausted! What a crazy life we lead. But hey, if I was able to convince even one of those seniors to go to UA&P, at the end of the day, it’s all really worth it. 8:00 pm from somewhere in the middle of SLEX
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Arts
TALES FROM MINDANAO:
Building monuments through the performing arts
F
rom the northern city of Iligan, to the different nooks of the world, and then to our very own Dizon Auditorium last August 28, the Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG) brought—in breathtaking splendor—their “Tales from Mindanao.” This masterpiece is a rich collection of vignettes that narrate the ways of living of the people in Southern Philippines. IPAG, the resident internationally acclaimed theater company of the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology, brought it to life through heartfelt drama, well-expressed poetry, and exquisite dances, accompanied by a live kulintang ensemble. In keeping with the Office of Student Affairs–Kultura’s theme—love for country—“Tales from Mindanao” served as a window for the UA&P community to be more aware of its heritage. After all, how can Filipinos ap-
52
preciate their country without the proper knowledge and exposure to the vast culture that they share with their Asian neighbors. “Tales from Mindanao” brilliantly and masterfully depicted Mindanao’s rich culture on stage. The segments on nature— “Lupa, Hangin, Apoy, at Tubig,” a beautiful and colorful representation of nature, and “the Legend of Maria Cristina Falls,” portrayed through a graceful dance and a water-inspired spectacle— showed how much the people from Southern Philippines value Mother Nature. “Pangalay” wowed the audience with a well-executed number that featured a woman performing the dance while standing on two bamboo poles carried by two men. “Ungguy-Ungguyan” is a trickster tale that dealt a huge dose of political satire behind all the bananas and the monkey’s tails (no pun intended). Amid the various contexts evident in all these tales, both ambiguous and clear, what could be focal? In an interview with Palanca Awardee and Artistic
UNIVERSITAS November 2009
Director and Playwright Steven P. C. Fernandez, DFA (who also played a musical instrument in the show), he said: “We all have the same universal concerns as [the rest of] humanity….There may be differences in costumes and dances, but the bottom line is that we appreciate the same things. We appreciate courtship, we appreciate compassion, we appreciate family, we appreciate harmony – these are features that we all share as human beings.”
“We appreciate courtship, we appreciate compassion, we appreciate family, we appreciate harmony—these are features that we all share as human beings.”
/////////////// When asked about the beginnings of IPAG, Mr. Fernandez, one of its founders, said that it was established in 1978 when he first started teaching, “simply because we wanted things to hap-
pen to our small city of Iligan.” Prior to the 1997 peso crash, the city was extremely industrialized; however, the economic downturn affected the financial standing of the city, which led them to want to “develop it and bring it out; to have a regular fair in the community, and to showcase its fair outside, to the world.” Their vision is to put up a theater company that artists can use as a source of livelihood. “In other words,” he said, “an artist can feed his family by performing.” IPAG has indeed been successful in fulfilling these goals and vision. Their official website states that they have “a repertoire of over 40 full-length productions performed in extensive tours here and abroad.” Their worldwide acclaim is a testimony to the exceptional talents of IPAG members. At the end of the interview, Mr. Fernandez shared the following message addressed to the Filipino people: “I’d like the Filipinos to support [our art. The support should
Nation in
Focus
come] not only from the government, since there is, I should say, a failure of the government in this. I think the people should go back to patronizing the things that we do. We only have intangible things because we don’t have monuments; when we talk about Borobudur, the Angkor Wat, the pyramids, they have that, and we do not. But we have a lot of monuments that are intangible, [such as the performing arts]. If we support this, then we will go places.” Unlike the ancient Egyptians and their great pyramids, we do not have to gather blocks of stones to build an edifice; nor do we have to make intricate temples that resemble the Angkor Wat – we simply have to embrace our culture as one nation, and to bask under the Philippine’s eight-rayed golden sun in pride as we build our own intangible monuments: the priceless entities that not even time and nature’s wrath can ever take away from us.
Stephanie Flores CAS 2nd Year
To instill in UA&P students love for country through the arts, OSA-Kultura organized last September a photo exhibit/ competition entitled “Nation in Focus.” The activity was aimed at effectively integrating the Fine Arts and History classes on nationalism and Philippine culture with photographs depicting these. The week-long exhibit featured 29 photos that best represented “Filipino pride,” the guiding theme of the exhibit. Four judges rated the works on the basis of relevance to theme, composition, creativity, focus, and subject. Third-year management student Kathleen Ong garnered first place with her photograph “Bravery.” Kathleen, when asked about the inspiration behind her winning photo, said: “This picture signifies the light that came after Rizal’s death—a light that shone out of dignity, pride, and his love or our country.” Institute of Information Technology Studies sophomore Aris Acoba’s “Asenso Manileño” won second place, and the third spot was shared by School of Economics faculty member Ronilo Balbieran’s “Marginal Productivity of Labor” and Kathleen’s “Golden Steps.” The exhibit visitors were also given a chance to vote for their favorite photo. The People’s Choice Award, the photo that received the most votes, was given to senior management student Thomas Huang’s “It’s in our Hands.” Each vote had a one-peso tag, and the proceeds went to San Joaquin Elementary School. The exhibit showed that, in the midst of the hardships, frailties, and frictions that come our way, we can still truly be proud of being Filipino. It’s up to us to make good use of that pride in building a better nation. Nannie Flores CAS 2nd Year
“Bravery” by Kathleen Ong
“Marginal Productivity of Labor” by Ronilo Balbieran
“Golden Steps” by Kathleen Ong
“Asenso Manileño” by Aris Acoba
PHOTOS: AJ LUIS
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Sports
Crowns For the UA&P Dragons, this year’s Women’s National Collegiate Athletics Association (WNCAA) season is studded with historic firsts: the first time for any UA&P team to sweep the elimination round, the first time for the women’s basketball team to enter the semi-final and final rounds, and the first time in UA&P history to win championships in two separate WNCAA sports in the same season. The Dragons took the crowns of WNCAA’s basketball and volleyball tournaments.
Dragons reign in WNCAA basketball The UA&P Dragons made history as the women’s basketball team defeated the La Consolacion College Manila (LCCM) Blue Royals, 5653, in the final game of the best-of-three championship series of the WNCAA Seniors B division. The clash took place at the St. Scholastica’s College Gym in Manila October 18. It was a classic come-from-behind victory, as the Dragons trailed by as much as 12 points in the first quarter. The Dragons struggled due to the early foul trouble of star center and Mythical Five member Ma. Roscelle Teotico and the Blue Royal’s pesky box-and-one defense on tournament MVP Ma. Aurora Biolena. The Dragons fought back, however, with Madelaine Gapit and star rookie Claire Capisonda leading the charge. Gapit hit back-to-back threes in the second quarter to ignite the Dragon’s scoring outburst that allowed them to take over the lead, 28-27, by half time. The game underwent several lead changes, and it all boiled down to the final seconds of the ball game. UA&P held the lead with roughly 23 seconds left in the game. However, the Dragons gave up a costly turnover that re-
Basketball Team: Ms. Julie Amos (Head Coach) Ms. Ellie Chua (Assistant Coach) Syl Kristine Alcantara (SED 3rd Year) Ma. Celine Anolin (SMN 1st Year) Ma. Aurora Biolena (SMN 3rd Year) Jonah Borcelis (SMN 4th Year) Ma. Isabella Canlas (SCM 3rd Year) Claire Capisonda (CAS 1st Year) Madelaine Gapit (SMN 2nd Year) Gio Anne Guevarra (CAS 2nd Year) Victoria Quitiquit (IPE 3rd Year) Krizia San Blas (SCM 4th Year) Mariel Sison (SED 3rd Year) Christine So (SMN 5th Year) Richela Solatorio (CAS 1st Year) Ma. Roscelle Teotico (SCM 4th Year) Daniella Villafuerte (SED 3rd Year)
sulted in LCCM getting a 53-52 lead off free throws with just eight seconds remaining. This set the stage for Biolena to make one last attempt to gain the victory. Finally eluding the Blue Royal defense, the Dragons’ best player slashed to the basket and banked in a running jumper with three seconds left on the clock as the dominantly red-clad Dragons fans went wild in anticipation of grabbing the University’s second championship in this year’s WNCAA tournament. (the Dragons captured the WNCAA crown in volleyball a week ago). The Blue Royals, with no more timeouts left, hurried the inbound pass and turned the ball over. Gapit then sealed the win and the championship for the Dragons with two free throws, sending the fans of the Ortigas-based team on a frenzy. Earlier in the season, the Dragons swept the elimination round, automatically earning themselves a slot in the final round. Two of UA&P’s cagers were ranked among the tournament’s Mythical Five: Biolena (power forward) and Teotico (center). Jolo Valdez CAS 2nd Year
for Dragons Volleyball team earns first WNCAA title The Dragons’ volleyball team snagged its first WNCAA title October 11 as they outplayed the Centro Escolar University Scorpions, 2125, 25-19, 25-20, 21-25, 15-10, at the St. Scholastica’s College Gym. Victory came after the clashing camps each had its share of leading the game in its first four sets. The Dragons had a nearly lousy start, 21-25, which they traced to the cooling of their warmed-up spirit when the game was delayed for two hours. Then they caught fire in the second and third sets, ending each tussle with at least five points more than their foes had. According to team co-captain Angela Yu, the team really had no game strategy—except that each player strove to do her role well. This season’s Most Valuable Player Selina Artadi said that the team was rather more occupied managing its defense tactics. “A good defense wins the game,” she said. Though the absence of team captain and power-spiker Ma. Ro-
cio Nicole Abanes was a felt loss for the team, the Dragons apparently drew strength and a sense of unity in that fact. Abanes accidentally injured her leg during training just before the championship round. But she was there throughout the championship series, boosting her team’s morale. Commenting on their preparations for the games, varsity veteran Yu said that this year’s training had been the most strenuous. It was designed for champions. She recalled what Coach Oliver Almadro kept reminding them: “Discipline and determination equal reward and recognition.” To a great extent, that was their formula for success. Four of UA&P’s spikers also received individual awards, ranking them among the tournament’s Mythical Six: Artadi as the MVP; Yu, Best Receiver; Catherine Ariela Roxas, Best Setter; and Celine Angelia Gonzales, Best Blocker. Mr. Daryl Zamora Corporate Communications Office
PHOTOS: MR. BENJAMIN SIPIN III
Volleyball Team: Mr. Oliver Almadro (Head Coach) Mr. Daniel Jimenez Cuasay (Assistant Coach) Ma. Rocio Nicole Abanes (SCM 3rd Year) Isabel Agoncillo (CAS 1st Year) Rowela Aguillon (CAS 1st Year) Ma. Corine Antonio (SCM 3rd Year) Selina Artadi (CAS 1st Year) Celeona Borromeo (IPE 3rd Year) Michelle Bueno (CAS 1st Year) Celine Angelia Gonzales (SMN 5th Year) Janine Gonzales (CAS 1st Year) Ma. Giliza Gonzales (CAS 2nd Year) Samantha Pangalangan (CAS 3rd Year) Catherine Ariela Roxas (SMN 3rd Year) Sabrina Tan (SMN 3rd Year) Angela Yu (SCM 4th Year)
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UA&P. BlazeaTrail.
Our name comes from the region that forged new civilizations and changed mankind forever. We’re passing that legacy to you. Just like you, we’re young and passionate about our dreams. We have a burning desire for excellence. To set aflame the paths that others may follow. Our academic programs push forward and break boundaries while carrying on the tradition and arts of learning. Now, you can build your own tradition. Now, you can blaze that trail with us.