RP: Now at the helm of ASEAN!

For tonight's special presentation on Straight from the Sky, we bring you a talk about "People who Manage People". We are referring to the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP) who will be holding its 6th Regional Conference on August 3 to 5, 2006 at the Marco Polo Hotel.

Better believe that the success or failure of many businesses often largely depends upon their choice of Personnel Manager or its politically correct definition, a Human Resources or Development Officer (HRD). Business owners or Chief Executive Officers (CEO) need a good HRD to ensure a good management-employee relationship. More so at these times when there are new business practices now available in a globalized environment, which creates new job opportunities and presents rare options for employees to transition from a mere employee to an entrepreneur. These are just a few things that HRD people can learn during the PMAP's 6th Regional Conference.

With us on this show is Ms. Lilibeth "Bing" Portugalisa, program chairperson of the 6th Regional Convention, Mrs. Zamyra "Mia" Baguio, its Marketing Chairperson and Mrs. Marie K. Mandal, immediate past President of PMAP-Cebu. No doubt, this is a very interesting show tonight so please watch them on SkyCable's channel 15 at 8:00 pm.

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We already know that the Philippines will play a key role during the up and coming 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit this December, that is why we are in the thick of preparations for Cebu will be the principal player in this historic event. But before all else, everything has a beginning and last Friday, the Philippines assumed its rotating leadership in the ASEAN in Kuala Lumpur with Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo taking over the chair from current leader, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar at the close of this year's annual ASEAN meetings.

In reality, the leadership of the Philippines in the ASEAN was supposed to come only at the year 2007, but Myanmar, which was supposed to be this year's chair, was bypassed due to pressure from the international community to pursue democratic reforms within its country, something it wasn't prepared or ready to do. Hence, the Philippine leadership was accelerated and the mad rush to get things done for the ASEAN Summit. Let's hope that things would move swiftly now that we have formally accepted our responsibility as ASEAN chair.

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I just came back from a weekend trip to Manila to grace the 20th anniversary of the Philippine Star, which was virtually a Who's Who of Manila's top business, political and government leaders and players. The Rizal Ballroom of the Makati Shangri-La was so packed with people, it felt like the air-conditioning wasn't working at all. We were all sweating in our suits!

I met former Pres. Fidel V. Ramos with his wife Ming and I'm always glad to see old friends like him who always keeps tabs on what we write about, especially about charter changes. Another pro-charter change advocate is Mrs. Carmen "Chit" Pedrosa who commended me for my never-ending pursuit for a Federalized Philippines; that finally, this was mentioned no less by the Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) during her State of the Nation Address (SONA).

Of course, we met all the Philippine Star bigwigs from Ms. Grace Glory Go, Joanne Ramirez, Doreen Yu, Marichu Villanueva, Johnny Litton, Tony Katigbak, Kevin Belmonte, Editor Isaac Belmonte and President Miguel Belmonte. No Sir Max Soliven! But the rest of the gang, Sir Arthur Lopez, Babes Romualdez, Jun Ventura and Cebu radioman Choy Torrabla were all there!

Yes, just about the only two missing VIPs was Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) and our publisher, the man who made the Philippine Star what it is today: Sir Max Soliven. It turned out that he had a relapse of his pneumonia on Friday and coincidentally, the President too was down with the flu and ended in the hospital. It was their second meeting at St. Luke's Hospital just within a month. But this time, the President had the Presidential Suite. Another friend also at St. Luke's Hospital was Cerge M. Remonde who probably had a bad case of something. I hope it was not serious.

To make up for his absence on Friday; Sir Max got a pass from his doctors for a few hours on Saturday to join the old group of Babes Romualdez, Arthur Lopez, Johnny Litton, Choy and his brother Ramon Torralba for lunch at the Manila Golf Club. Call it a debriefing of the Star's 20th anniversary. Well, we all hope that we'd all make it to the 30th anniversary!

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