A perfect golfing day for the auto industry

It showered a little bit just as the 68 players coming from 14 teams fielded by local automobile manufacturers, importers and distributors and 3 guest teams composed of sponsors and the media were teeing off last Thursday, April 7 at the splendid Fontana & Apollon Korea Country Club, which made it appear that the heavens wanted to have a cool, comfortable and yet a highly competitive golfing day for the 2011 SPMJ Invitational Golf Tournament.

All the golfers looked fresh and well rested, what with some of them opting to stay the night before in the Fontana Hot Springs Leisure Parks villas provided for all the teams while others didn’t have to wake up early and just leisurely drive to Clark for a past 11 o’clock in the morning tee off schedule.

Even those who stayed up until about two o’clock in the morning for some drinks, lively and sometimes riotous banter and a marathon “all in” session at the designated Sunshine TV villa had all the time to recharge their energies in their comfortable beds at the villas and partake of a hearty brunch, which started conveniently at 8 o’clock at the Fontana’s very impressive clubhouse.

During the sumptuous brunch and while waiting for the tee off, the tournament organizers, SPMJ or the Society of Philippine Motoring Journalists, took the opportunity to apprise the movers and shakers of the local auto industry and all those present including the media about what has been done to promote the organization’s advocacy for road safety education. After all, a large part of the funding that supported the advocacy of SPMJ came from the previous fund-raising golf tournaments. And the holding of this year’s tournament, similar to the previous “all free” one in 2009, which was held at the Intramuros Golf Club, is a way of saying “thank you” to those who have joined the “golf for a cause” tournaments in the past (2004 and 2005 at the Riviera Golf and Country Club and 2007 at Santa Elena Golf Club).

By way of an audio-visual presentation, SPMJ detailed how road safety teaching modules for elementary and high school teachers were conceptualized and designed by the National Center for Transportation Studies (NCTS) of the University of the Philippines and how teachers of some 25 schools in Metro Manila and adjoining provinces were taught how to use these teaching modules to their students through free seminars and workshops conducted by SPMJ. It was like saying, “This is where your donations, by way of joining the past ‘golf for a cause’ tournaments have been going.”

The SPMJ members who were with me and specifically tasked to get this event together included Pinky Colmenares, editor of the motoring section and Cruising Magazine of the Manila Bulletin, Dong Magsajo, motoring editor of The Philippine STAR, Brian Afuang, motoring editor of the Manila Times, Ron delos Reyes, producer/host of the TV show Auto Review and Jenny Bleza, vice president and production manager of Sunshine Television and also chairperson of the golf tournament committee, who did a lot of the hard work to make this mega industry event a successful one.

And based on the reaction of all those who joined, everybody – and I mean everybody – went home happy that day, some even opted to go home the day after as we provided villas before and after the tournament.

Of course in every tournament or competition, there are winners and those that are not. But as established in the past SPMJ tournaments, everybody goes home a winner by way of our “everybody goes home with a prize” raffle. All the participating teams donated raffle prizes, which we raffled off to everyone. And everyone gets a gift item except the one donated by his team.

This meant that Toyota Motor Philippines president, Michinobu Sugata can get a raffle prize donated by Isuzu Philippines Corporation president Ryozi Yamazaki but not from his own company, Toyota. In the event that he does, he would have to put it back and draw another one. Imagine Danny “Sir John” Isla, president of Lexus-Manila going home with an Audi jacket donated by PGA Cars top honcho Benedicto Coyiuto – that’s friendly competition.

SPMJ actually made sure that during the tournament, the keen competition in the auto industry gets into a very friendly golf competition in the fairways by ensuring that all flight members come from different auto companies but with almost similar handicaps – that’s bonding, isn’t it?

Oh yes, everybody went home with a prize but not everybody lugged home a trophy. 

TEAM AWARDS

CHAMPION: KIA TEAM

1^ST RUNNER-UP: VOLVO TEAM

2^ND RUNNER-UP: BMW TEAM

CLASS A

CHAMPION: DEREK RAMSAY, JR. VOLVO

1^ST RUNNER-UP: CHITO DAVILA KIA

2^ND RUNNER-UP: OSCAR GALLO NISSAN

CLASS B

CHAMPION: YUJI GOTO TOYOTA

1^ST RUNNER-UP: DANNY ISLA LEXUS

2^ND RUNNER-UP: TOSHIYUKI WATANABE ISUZU

CLASS C

CHAMPION: FELIX ESPINA MITSUBISHI

1^ST RUNNER-UP: RENE SO LEXUS

2^ND RUNNER-UP: RYOZI YAMAZAKI ISUZU

GUEST CATEGORY

CHAMPION: GERRY AQUINO MEDIA

1^ST RUNNER-UP: QUITO DA ROZA MEDIA

2^ND RUNNER-UP: CAESAR AZUELO AGC/Asahi Glass

SPECIAL AWARDS

LONGEST DRIVE: ERE FREGIL HYUNDAI

NEAREST TO THE PIN: RAYMOND RODRIGUEZ TOYOTA

LOWEST GROSS: OSCAR GALLO NISSAN

I’d like to make mention of the professionalism that our Presenting Sponsor, Fontana Hot Springs Leisure Parks, has shown before, during and after the tournament. The same goes to the Fontana & Apollo Korea Country Club, which has gained praises from the participating golfers themselves who found the course so challenging that they vow to come back to play there over and over again.

Special mention goes to the following; Jessie Chua, Jackie Mande, Sheryl Gatus, Philip and Patrick who all went out of their way to make sure that all the participants had what they wanted and the tournament went smoothly and glitch-less. Thank you very much and perhaps next year again.

But of course, we wouldn’t have a tournament at the Fontana without a sponsoring member who also worked so hard to make sure the 2011 SPMJ Invitational Golf Cup Tournament happened – Eric De Leon, thanks dude. 

Lexus-Manila stands up to the occasion

Mr. Daniel “Sir John” Isla, president of Lexus-Manila, may your tribe increase. The same goes for Mr. Vince Socco, who used to be Toyota Motor Philippines Corporation’s whiz kid and top honcho for marketing and now senior vice president of Toyota Asia Pacific currently based in Singapore. Scores of future drivers would owe their lives to these caring gentlemen for not driving while under the influence of alcohol.

Flashback – as a broadcast journalist and columnist I have made numerous trips to Japan to attend the internationally-acclaimed Tokyo Motor Show while being hosted by various local automobile manufacturers, namely Toyota Motor Philippines, Mitsubishi Motors Philippines and Honda Cars Philippines. In one of the many that was courtesy of Toyota, while visiting one of their plants the journalists were invited to try on a set of 3 or 4 “special” goggles that would simulate the different levels of drunkenness – starting with the effect of a few bottles to quite a lot – from being “tipsy” to being utterly drunk. It was really and truly the best way to experience the different levels of intoxication without even having a drop of alcohol.

Back to the present – we are currently conducting seminars/workshops on road safety. The Young Street Smarts (YSS) Road Safety School Tour is a series of free seminar/workshops that are held with the purpose of teaching young people how to become present and future safe and responsible road users. They are being conducted among secondary school students for free to a limited number of willing schools that can squeeze in the 2-3 hour session into their busy yearly schedules.

Initiated by the Social Communications Foundation for Asia (Socio Com) and Sunshine Television (STV), this road safety education for the youth advocacy project complements that of the Society of Philippine Motoring Journalists (SPMJ). SPMJ promotes road safety by holding seminars for teachers in order for them to effectively teach this to their students with the use of the provided professionally prepared teaching modules, while that of Socio Com conducts seminars/workshops that are based on the same teaching modules directly to the students to immediately create awareness to the importance of road safety and to warm them up for the their teachers’ longtime educational programs that were taught by SPMJ.

One of the major topics that form part of the YSS Road Safety School Tour, together with the meaning of traffic signs and road markings, right of way, road courtesy, pedestrian and commuter safety, etc., is drunk driving – one of the major causes of road accidents, many of them horrific and mostly fatal.

Now, wouldn’t it be great to make these young people experience how it is to be drunk without really being drunk before most of them eventually learn the experience and decide to drive while under the influence, clueless as to what alcohol can do to their judgment, vision, and other faculties all needed to function properly while driving? And we can do this during the road safety workshops. Except that the foundation, which is in the red for an entire year of operating the “road safety school tour” with negative funding would further set its funds back by a little more than 300K pesos, the cost of the special goggles.

It did not take a lot of words to send the message across to Danny “Sir John” Isla when I asked for his help and it only took a short e-mail to Vince Socco and “Kuya” Vince (my endearing way of making him forget that I’m older than he is) immediately worked on it and viola – the goggles are here for the use of the YSS Road Safety School Tour.

On behalf of the hundreds of high school students that we shall have the chance to hold these seminars/workshops to and the thousands more as we do these year after year until the Lord allows us – thank you Danny, Vince for your concern and support and Lexus-Manila for keeping up with your corporate social responsibility.  

Happy Motoring!!!

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