Readers raise concerns

We give way to several readers of this column who voiced out their concerns on various topics we wrote about in previous weeks. The first comes from Benjamin Cardenas of Danggayan in the Cagayan Valley. He says:

“We would like to clarify that since 2012, as stipulated in RA 10351, billions of pesos from the tobacco excise tax from Virginia, burley and native tobacco was appropriated for universal health care, representing 85 percent of the whole annually collected tax from FY2013.

“The painstaking efforts of tobacco farmers have contributed P84.3 billion from FY 2016 collections, P91 billion from FY 2017, and P84.37 billion from FY 2018 excise tax collections, even if only a few tobacco farmers benefit from PhilHealth.

“Not only PAGCOR contributes to our countrymen’s universal health care costs. Now, we are very worried because P15 billion of PhilHealth funds are reportedly missing.”

IT-BPM’s agility

Our next letter sender is Genny Inocencio-Marcial, an IT-BPM employee. He says: “Aside from the 1.3 million direct workers that the industry currently employs, there are millions more employees from sectors that provide goods and services to our IT-BPM companies who continue to enjoy a livelihood because our industry remains operational.

“These are the security guards, the housekeeping/janitorial staff, food concessionaires (we now serve packed food - for free), sanitation/disinfection service providers, etc. We even had to include the staff from our service providers to those being ferried by our company shuttles to and from our sites just so they can continue working since public transport is still limited.

“When government announced the lockdown and decreed that companies should implement flexible work arrangements (e.g., work from home), IT-BPM companies spent millions to transport our desktops/laptops with various peripherals to our employees’ homes.

“Finance teams had to scramble to implement policies for the provision of internet allowances. Thousands of pocket wi-fi units had to be imported for employees who don’t have internet service at home. These are just some practices that demonstrate how agile the industry is, the level of commitment these companies have for their employees, and how blessed we are to be working in this sector.

“Even as the quarantine continues, many IT-BPM companies continue to recruit employees, helping the government provide work for the newly unemployed – those laid off and even the repatriated OFWs. We are hopeful that, in our own small way, we can contribute to efforts to ease the effects of recession caused by this pandemic.”

‘Poor government handling’

Jacinto Rubiano, another reader, says: “Some countries did not lock down [despite] large infections, but they saved their economies. Some countries did lock down, their economies contracted, but they controlled the virus. In our case, we suffered the worst of both. Yet, the government still puts the blame on the population as pasaway, matitigas ang ulo, etc. As you have said, we are the only people walking under the heat of the sun with facemasks and face shields. What more can they ask for?

“The government downplayed the virus at first. When they realized that mistake, they drastically locked us down without doing anything concrete during the 75-day ECQ. Now that they have a plan, they cannot execute it correctly as shown by OFWs coming out of the quarantine still infected.

“Combine this with poor/erroneous data gathering that keeps on changing rules each time, and the result goes bad. Indeed, we are in this mess because of poor government handling.”

Decongesting urban centers

Our last reader is Raymond G. Tumao. He says: “Our citizens should look at the countryside as an option for a new place of business. What if enterprising businessmen move out of Manila and start building farms and raise animals for food, and till lands to raise vegetables, orchards, organic fertilizers and animal feed propagation outside Metro Manila?

“Likewise, those people who have moved out from Manila could also start a community in a residential area that is most accessible to these farms. The farms should be connected online to the new community and food could be pre-ordered and delivered according to a private agreement between each household member and the farm manager.

“This eliminates middlemen profits and some delivery charges. Food will become cheaper because these existing farmlands do not have to be converted to a commercial or residential classification which makes the land too expensive for this kind of project.

“In a test model I planned, each barangay, new or old, shall be connected to a specific farm that is closest to it. New technologies in farming and animal husbandry shall be introduced to increase productivity, and will settle once and for all the problem of competition from imported farm produce.

“And when the community is fully supplied by its corresponding farm, the excess produce can then be sold to other community farms where there is a lack of irrigation and soil nutrients. The government’s only control is with the meat inspection team assigned to slaughterhouses located within each farm.

“Animal feed suppliers may diversify into other options like soybean, which is best grown in Padada or Hagonoy in Davao, or other vegetable protein that may be introduced by our Bureau of Plant Industry. What is ideal in this project is that … protein should be produced locally at the least possible cost.”

Facebook and Twitter

We are actively using two social networking websites to reach out more often and even interact with and engage our readers, friends and colleagues in the various areas of interest that I tackle in my column. Please like us on www.facebook.com/ReyGamboa and follow us on www.twitter.com/ReyGamboa.

Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.