The F-shelter

Tourism Secretary Joseph Durano has an endearing story on how he got his nickname, Ace.

It turns out his father wanted three-letter nicknames for his children whose first letters would spell out his name, Ramoncito. Being the second child, the younger Mr. Durano was assigned the letter "A".

The joke in this Cebu-based family is that since the older Mr. Durano only has seven children, his real name is Ramoncit rather than Ramoncito.

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Laguna-based Forest Products Research and Development Institute head Florence Soriano is often teased that the F-shelter - a foldaway 21-square-meter home developed as emergency shelter or field office – either was named after her and was just being, uhm, descriptive.

You see, Ms. Soriano was part of the team that developed the product in 2000 before she was promoted.

A two-bedroom (with kitchen and bathroom) home that can be put up by four men in the span of an hour, the F-shelter currently has four prototypes – one is being tested by the Australian government, two have been donated to local government units, and one is in College, Laguna.

FPRDI is currently looking for a private sector partner willing to mass produce the F-shelter. Right now, the cost of production is placed at about P170,000.

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Intellectual Property Office director-general Adrian Cristobal Jr. is currently hiring people, basically technical people like engineers and lawyers.

Aside from patents, trademarks, and copyrights, IPO’s coverage has expanded to include biodiversity or protecting the use of indigenous plants in the pharmaceutical industry. It is also studying geographic indications, which limits the use of a place, say, Guimaras to Philippine mangoes grown only in the Visayan island.

Hopefully, Che Cristobal will be able to pay these guys market rates once IPO generates enough funds from such revenue earners as charging fees from inventors who want to register their patents and entrepreneurs who want to protect their trademarks.

You see, IPO is one of the few government agencies which gets to keep whatever it earns. Everybody else, including the Bureau of Internal Revenue turns over everything to National Treasurer Omar Cruz.

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Nothing comes close to the ongoing "Unbelievable Gold promo" within HSBC’s regional network for sheer "WOW" or shock-and-awe.

Well, there is that MP3 promo in Malaysia but they’re not giving the stuff away, not the way the Philippine office is giving away a 17-inch Samsung TV to each new card member.

The TV retails for close to P8,000 but the team of HSBC’s new marketing head Suresh Nadoo has worked it out so that the bank isn’t on the losing end.

The deal calls for a two-year lock-in period involving the payment of an annual fee worth P2,400. That’s P4,800 for two years. Once the card is activated, the cardholder must charge at least P3,000 (from any establishment that accepts the card – and that’s practically everywhere) before the 17-inch TV is delivered to the cardholder’s home.

Here’s a word of caution for cardholders who intend to keep the TV but not pay the second-year annual fee: Read very carefully the small print in the application form that you have signed.