New postal service: Parcels, remittances

The intramurals between the National Printing Office and the Apo Production Unit is subsiding. The two printing agencies only needed to specialize instead of overstepping each other’s turf. Apo, with more than a dozen presses, can take on the endless requirements for ordinary accountable forms, like official receipts. NPO, with a roster of accredited private printers, can oversee the more sophisticated jobs. Together they must show national and local government offices that they can print better, faster, cheaper. They need to cooperate too to be able to collect from welching offices. The accredited printers would not have to pay kickbacks to get prime contracts.

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Among the toughest jobs in the government today are probably those of Cesar Sarino and Josie dela Cruz. Sarino is chairman of the Philippine Postal Corp. (Philpost) and concurrent CEO of its financial arm Postal Bank; dela Cruz is Postmaster General. Together they must make the remnant mail courier service work. That is, keep it relevant and profitable for the state.

The mission looks impossible. Almost nobody uses snail mail anymore. Technology has overtaken Philpost. Compounding its woes were bad management decisions, and mail pilferage for which the state firm became notorious. And there’s the long list of employee gripes, including allegedly unpaid salaries and benefits, and missing provident funds running to the millions of pesos. All these took their effect on service quality and public trust.

The only route for Sarino and dela Cruz, it would seem, is in the parcel mail market. Easier said than done, given that the business teems with adept private competitors that, unlike Philpost, are in need of no rehabilitation. Still, Sarino targets P100 million in Philpost revenues by this time next year. For, Philpost has a built-in advantage: parcel firms actually hand over to post offices the last five kilometers of their delivery services. Instead of being a minor market player, Philpost might as well take on the big job itself.

As for the Postal Bank, Sarino aims to make it one of the top five savings banks. This he intends to achieve by cutting big into the overseas remittance business. That too abounds with well-placed competitors in America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He will have to wield the same skill and contacts he did to salvage the sinking Government Service Insurance System in the 1990s. Partnering parcel with remittance services now translate into big bucks, but only with sharp information systems to track deliveries real time.

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Roberto Ongpin fired off a rejoinder to an item in Gotcha last Monday:

“I never bought anything from GSIS, not Philex shares, not Meralco shares. Nothing. Regarding PNOC, the Ashmore Group, which I represent, purchased the 40 percent in Petron from Aramco. Having done so, they were required to do a general offer, which they did. A little over 10 percent was tendered to Ashmore. Under the terms of the shareholders’ agreement between Aramco and PNOC, Aramco (now replaced by Ashmore), had a right of first refusal on the 40-percent PNOC stake in Petron. Thus, when the government decided to sell PNOC’s stake, Ashmore simply exercised its right of first refusal.

“Like what I told Senator (Serge) Osmeña, I have done huge deals during almost three decades of my investment banking career. These deals were done during the time of Presidents Cory, FVR, Erap, and of course GMA. I do not need a ‘big man’ in order to do my deals.”

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Things are coming to a head at the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry. And its three-day Philippine Business Conference that starts today could see the start of a bitter leadership fight. That is, if the so-called aggrieved parties do not back down.

For months now trade association heads of small- and medium-scale business have been grumbling. Allegedly a cabal of PCCI officers has been controlling the organization for years. And it is this control that affords the closed circle of officers to wangle juicy positions allotted for private sector reps in state firms.

Small and medium enterprises comprise 90 percent of the PCCI’s membership — and the bulk of the Philippine economy. Naturally they want proportionate board representation, particularly through the chamber of commerce in their locales. But the controlling group supposedly is preventing this.

At least 60 such local chamber heads have been nominated for election to the board in December. The list of candidates should have been given out by early this month, per PCCI election rules. But it has been withheld from the members. In full swing instead is the gathering of proxy votes by the old leaders.

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An international umbrella of anti-tobacco advocates has lauded the three branches of the Philippine government for protecting citizens against the tobacco epidemic. Particularly praised by the Framework Convention Alliance was the Metro Manila Development Authority. The FCA consists of more than 350 NGOs in over a hundred countries. It monitors compliance by various signatories to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

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