Diet and adultery

This is funny. I opened my blogs but I still log on to my email account to write this entry. In some way, it feels like I am sending myself an email or writing a diary like some innocent fifth grader. You see, I am enjoying so much this new neat WordPress feature.

Anyway, I just came from a coffee shop date with a special friend. For several hours, we talked about life in general and reminded ourselves the danger of unchecked diet and adultery.

We shared a common understanding that diet is good when recommended by the doctor. Diet is about control, not hurting one’s self with too much cut in carbohydrates and other minerals. It is about still having the same or even better energy to allow you to get up in the morning and start the day with a positive vibe. Diet is good. One just have to check thoroughly first which one will work for him or her, according to his body structure, hormones, etc.

Under our beliefs as Catholics, on the other hand, adultery is definitely not good. Adulterers are an overwhelming lot; for us, they are home-wreckers. They affect the lives of their partners, their partners’ legal wives or husbands, and their partners’ children. We do not even consider them partners of their partners, in the truest sense of the word. Why and how they engage in such relationships are beyond us, although we also have to consider the types of families and social environments they grew up in. My friend and I will continue to debate on this while keeping open minds and strengthening forgiving hearts.

We also talked about careers and family life. Well, whatever it specifically was will remain special knowledge between the two of us. After all, we are special friends.

P.S. Thanks for your time, dear friend. You know who you are.

Filed under: Personal Thoughts/Experience

Saving RP coco industry

Sun.Star Cebu <> Saturday, April 18, 2009

BY NANCY R. CUDIS, Sun.Star Staff Reporter

AT the rate coconut trees are cut down, the Philippines will soon lose the distinction of being the world’s top coconut producer and supplier.

The situation is made worse by the global financial crisis that has caused demand for coconut exports—the country’s biggest crop industry next to rice and corn—to drop to “alarmingly low levels.”

These concerns prompted more than 85 coconut industry stakeholders nationwide to meet in a three-day consultative conference at Montebello Villa Hotel, Cebu City starting last Wednesday to discuss strategies that will be used to craft a magna carta for the sector.

The event was spearheaded by One Alliance of Coconut Planters and Processors Associations Inc. (1Alliance), in cooperation with the Coconut Farm Development Program.

“If we can’t rely on coconut levy proceeds, alternative sources must be developed,” said lawyer Narciso Nario Jr., president of 1Alliance.

Solutions

Solutions and strategies raised by speakers and participants include: salt fertilization and inter-cropping to increase yields of farms; intensively tapping the domestic market for coconut products; information dissemination of the state of the industry down to the barangay level; strengthening research and development, and; aggressive marketing of coconut products.

Nario pointed out that the coconut industry is “simply too important to be ignored” since it covers 27 percent of agricultural lands in the country, benefiting more than three million coconut farmers.

United Coconut Associations of the Philippines (Ucap) executive director Yvonne Agustin said coconut is the country’s top agriculture export, having earned $1.5 billion last year.

However, the global financial crisis caused coconut exports to plummet by 81 percent from 212,378 metric tons (MT) in January 2008 to 39,714 MT last January, said Nario, citing Ucap statistics.

The volume of coconut oil exports, in particular, plunged by 79 percent from 121,766 MT to 25,020 MT for the same comparative months.

This situation is coupled with local concerns that include the stagnating and declining productivity of coconuts, low domestic consumption, and weak research and development, among others.

Cutting rate

Nario noted that many coconut trees are already senile at about 60 to 90 years old, making them less productive. He added that these old trees, about two million of them every year, are cut down for coco lumber.

However, the number of coconut seedlings planted is way below the rate of cutting.

“For every one new coconut seedling planted, 23 coconut trees are cut down.

Except for a few projects, there has been no massive replanting for about 25 years now,” Nario said.

He said the coconut industry needs “massive investments” for a stimulus in order for the industry to weather the global and national economic turmoil.

Agustin stressed the need to increase production of coconuts from the annual average of 2.5 million MT to 5 million MT to support the requirements of the local processing sector.

She also observed that the coconut industry in the Philippines is highly dependent on the export market, even though there are promising areas in the domestic market that it can tap, such as the promotion of coconut as health food and the implementation of the Philippine Biofuels Act of 2006.

Meanwhile, several countries are fast catching up with the Philippines in coconut production and export.

Coconut Industry Investment Fund Oil Mills Group-Philippines president and chief executive officer Danilo Coronacion cited India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, which are expanding coconut plantation areas and fertilizing farms.

The Philippines, on the other hand, is lagging behind with only at least 250,000 hectares of fertilized coconut farms out of 3.3 million hectares while Indonesia has fertilized more than two million hectares of cocoland, said Nario.

Filed under: Business, Export Sector

Academe needs to talk with industry to improve lessons, grads’ knowledge

Sun.Star Cebu <> Friday, April 17, 2009

BY NANCY R. CUDIS, Sun.Star Staff Reporter

AS a way to address the “raging” issue of job and skills mismatch in the country, educators are urged to regularly interact with various industry players.

This way, said Professor Mario Antonio Lopez of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), they will be able to keep track of what the industry needs and integrate these to improve class discussions.

“By (knowing) what the industry would be like in five years or so, schools would be able to know where they should place themselves and what needs to (be done to) improve their curriculum,” said Lopez in a press conference last Wednesday.

He said schools should know what the private sector needs so that the amount of investment needed by companies for re-tooling or re-training graduates will not be so high.

He noticed that businessmen now demand a certain level of creativity and knowledge from graduates who are expected to know the latest trends related to their disciplines, as well as understand the importance of value chain and human resource management.

To provide a venue for interaction between educators and industry players, the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) and AIM are holding the Management Educators Workshop (MEW) on May 28 to 30.

The three-day activity, which will be held at the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF), will be held in cooperation with the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) and USPF.

Various stakeholders and institutions in Cebu and other provinces have been invited to participate, including Southwestern University, University of San Jose Recoletos, USPF, University of San Carlos, Cebu Institute of Technology and University of Cebu.

MEW will showcase MAP members who will present critical success factors and human resource demands in Internet marketing, information and communication technology, creative industries, entrepreneurship and professional services, among others. It will focus on how school administrators should design and manage the new value chain so that both faculty and administration will see themselves as part of a team in delivering quality education.

Francis Monera of CCCI described the activity as “timely” with the “pressing issue” of job and skill mismatch.

USJR College of Commerce dean Dr. Edgardo Detoya said the output from the MEW can be forwarded to the Commission on Higher Education (Ched), which can devise ways to close the gap between what the industry needs and what the academe provides.

“We could revisit (together) the model curriculum that Ched designed two to three years ago for business and management education, and guided by the inputs in MEW, we would be (able) to see if there are points that need to be refined there,” he said.

MAP is comprised of about 900 top executives from local and multinational companies, government and academe.

Filed under: Business, Education

Search for ‘talented’ bizmen on

Sun.Star Cebu <> Thursday, April 16, 2009

BY NANCY R. CUDIS, Sun.Star Staff Reporter

A GROUP of young citizens is searching for talented entrepreneurs who have found creative means to cope with the global financial crisis.

JCI Philippines is now accepting entries and nominations for its 2009 Creative Young Entrepreneurs Award (CYEA). It is open to young entrepreneurs ages 18 to 40.

These nominees could either be owners or managers of a business but a Philippine resident with “the skills, talents and commitment to forge ahead through tough times.”

“This year’s theme focuses on how creative an entrepreneur is in order to thrive and survive this time of (economic) crisis,” said JCI Cebu 2009 president Christopher Camba.

Criteria

JCI Cebu is the leading chapter of the CYEA program for the Visayas area.

Awardees will be chosen according to the use of creativity and imagination in production, process, and marketing; impact on the market; leadership; and degree of innovation within business and marketing processes. Other points for judging include imaginative changes and problem-solving strategies, among others.

Nominations must be submitted using the online form available in the JCI CYEA website www.jci.cc/cyea or www.cyeaph.org. Deadline for submission of nominations is on May 31.

Filed under: Business, Entrepreneurship

Skin center opens

Sun.Star Cebu <> Thursday, April 16, 2009

BY NANCY R. CUDIS, Sun.Star Staff Reporter

THE demand for skin treatment and beauty-related services in the country has encouraged two doctors to put up an aesthetic surgery and dermatology center that caters to people of all ages, including babies.

Called Skin Science, the 73-square-meter clinic formally opened last Monday at Ayala Center Cebu.

“The demand is really there. People are now saving or budgeting for cosmetic products and services that would make them feel and look good. It is only a matter of the right (doctor) to approach,” said Dr. Alain Senerpida, who specializes in plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery.

His partner, dermatologist Genivieve Seachon, said that they are honest with their patients, giving them their money’s worth by offering them what they really need.

She added that while they work as a team of accredited practitioners, they ensure that they have no “overlapping” of specialties.

As a dermatologist, she handles cases that involve skin, hair and nail diseases.

Senerpida is in charge of the clinic’s services related to plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery, such as noselift, breast augmentation, botox and surgery on cleft lip and scars caused by accidents, among others.

“We want to be known as a clinic that offers not only beauty enhancement services but also treatment for diseases,” said Seachon.

Pediatric

Skin Science is also eyeing to fill in the lack of practitioners of pediatric dermatology in Cebu.

“We are confident that we can (deliver) with our affordable prices and quality care,” said Senerpida.

He also disclosed that they already have customers coming from neighboring provinces and from Mindanao since they soft-opened last April 1.

Skin Science plans to continually upgrade its equipment and targets to expand into a bigger center after five years.

Filed under: Business, Export Sector, Health and Wellness, Small and Medium Enterprises

Group urges SMEs to use Internet to reach out to new, bigger markets

Sun.Star Cebu <> Wednesday, April 15, 2009

BY NANCY R. CUDIS, Sun.Star Staff Reporter

SMALL and medium enterprises (SMEs) are urged to tap the Internet and engage in e-commerce to increase their exposure in the global market.

Engineer Jose Mari Bigornia of the Confederation of Scientific and Professional Organization (Cospo) noted that the marketing endeavors of many export-oriented companies in Central Visayas are limited to fairs and other traditional forms.

“The potential of e-commerce is huge. It is the new trend now. Companies don’t have to have a regular office; they can work round the clock and touch base with clients from all over the world while buyers can go to their site, review their products, purchase them and pay online. The (challenge) left is distribution,” explained Bigornia, who sits as Cospo chairman.

E-commerce involves the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems like the Internet. It features various innovations, including electronic funds transfer, online transaction processing and Internet marketing.

Web portal

The popularity and strong potential of e-commerce has prompted Cospo to work with the Central Visayas Information Sharing Network (Cvisnet) in developing and updating a commercial Web portal for SMEs called iShare.

Bigornia—who also sits in the Cvisnet board of trustees—said that iShare, an ongoing project of Cvisnet, will feature Cebu-made products and encourages online trading.

Targeted to be completed by the middle of this year, iShare will operate like eBay, an online marketplace that allows business transactions at the local, national, and international level.

Cospo will be tapping the company-beneficiaries that it is helping under the Manufacturing Productivity Extension for Export Promotion (MPEX) program of the Department of Science and Technology.

MPEX aims to identify strategies to improve the productivity of small and medium manufacturing enterprises in the export sector, as well as potential exporters.

Cospo, an alliance of 32 scientific and professional organizations in Central Visayas, has worked as consultant for more than 60 companies under MPEX in the past three years. Cospo is just one of the five teams of consultants hired by the government for MPEX.

Most of the export companies in the MPEX program are in the furniture, fashion accessories, food and gifts, toys and houseware sectors.

Bigornia said the iShare project is meant to serve as another marketing tool for Cebu-based companies and improve their presence in the Web.

He noted that at present, many companies are using the Internet introduce their companies and products but have not yet extended their usage to e-commerce for virtual transactions.

Without stating target figures, Cospo hopes that many businesses will be involved in iShare, which is considered as one of the tangible results of MPEX.

Filed under: Business, Export Sector, Retail, Small and Medium Enterprises

Local official invests in tourism industry

Sun.Star Cebu <> Tuesday, April 14, 2009

BY NANCY R. CUDIS, Sun.Star Staff Reporter

SPOTTING the revenue potential of tourism in the Bicol region, a tourism officer in Donsol, Sorsogon quit his job to become a tour operator.

In the past three years, Eco Donsol Travel and Tours general manager Salvador “Dodong” Adrao Jr. never regretted his decision. He accommodates about 1,000 bookings a month and provides various services, such as resort or hotel reservations, tour and wedding packages, transportation arrangements and international and domestic ticketing.

“There is demand for travel and tour services here. Instead of being just an employee, I took tourism as an opportunity to earn more income,” Adrao told participants of a Department of Tourism (DOT)-sponsored media familiarization tour in Bicol last April 2 to 5.

Currently, there are at least 15 travel agencies in the Bicol region registered with the DOT.

Before Cebu Pacific launched its Cebu-Legaspi flight last month, Adrao noticed that about 75 percent of his clients were foreigners while the rest were locals, mostly from Manila-based companies. Philippine Airlines also serves the Manila-Legaspi route.

Due to lack of flights, only less than 10 percent of his foreign clients were interested in Cebu, Adrao noted. This year, though, he expects an increase in the number of visitors coming from and going to Cebu. He reported a five- to 10-percent increase in the number of tourists from Cebu from February-March compared to the same period last year.

Cebu partners

Still, Adrao continues to look for partner travel agencies in Cebu to get more tourists to visit Bicol. Among his existing partners in Cebu is Cebu Holidays Travel and Tours.

Some of Eco Donsol’s popular travel packages are Camarines Sur Tour (Caramoan Islands and CamSur Watersports Complex), Albay Tour (Mayon Skyline National Park, Cagsawa Ruins and Hoyop-hoypan Cave) and Donsol Tour (Whaleshark interaction tour, river cruise and firefly watching).

Camarines Sur (CamSur), which has the highest number of travelers, drew 721,024 tourists in 2008, largely due to its sports and adventure facilities that attract a lot of Americans and Europeans.

Sorsogon where the butandings or whalesharks are found is also gaining popularity with visitor arrivals increasing 39 percent in 2008 over 2007.

However, with only less than 2,000 hotel rooms and homestays in the whole Bicol region to accommodate an increasing number of tourists annually, there is a room shortage problem, Adrao said.

Bicol tourism director Maria Ravanilla disclosed that the region is expecting at least 500 new rooms this year. CamSur Gov. Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr. said in a separate interview that the private sector in his province is starting to invest in tourism-related business projects.

Apart from planning to be a member of National Association of Independent Travel Agencies to enhance his linkages, Adrao is also planning to invest P1.3 million on a viewdeck and retirement village in Donsol, Sorsogon next year.

Filed under: Business, Tourism