Looking at the Ayala Malls Central Bloc
For our special presentation on our talk show “Straight from the Sky” we bring you an old friend, Mr. Philip Tan of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board in Region 7, to discuss the latest wages that their board has decided. To be honest, I haven’t interviewed him for some time now, so call it the right moment for me to have him back on the show.
Also since he has become the governor of Rotary Club District 3860, he also talks about what the Rotary Clubs are doing to eliminate polio. Incidentally, Philip is the CEO of his Wellmade Motors Corp. and we also discussed about succession in family companies. So watch this very interesting show on SkyCable’s channel 53 at 8 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9 p.m. Monday and at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.
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If you didn’t know, by virtue of Republic Act No. 10966, yesterday was a special non-working holiday in commemoration of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. The "no work-no pay" principle shall apply, unless there is a favorable company policy. For work done, the employee shall be paid an additional 30% of his/her basic wage on the first eight hours of work. This shows the world that the Philippine government has very high regard for the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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Last Friday afternoon was a red letter day for the Ayala Corporation, Inc. for it was the formal opening of the Ayala Malls Central Bloc at the IT Park. This was the second shopping mall that Ayala built since they built the Ayala mall in the former Club Filipino, Inc. Golf Course which is now called the Cebu Business Park. I’m glad that Ayala Land, Inc. President Bernard Vincent Dy mentioned that the Ayala Malls Central Bloc was once the old Lahug Airport when Cebu City was still a sleepy place. I was also able to talk to Tony Aquino, former president of Ayala Land, Inc.
One thing of great importance to us living in Cebu City was the fact that the new mall has a huge chapel named after St. Pope John Paul II who celebrated Mass just a few meters away from the mall when the area used to be the old Lahug Airport. Thanks to Ayala because they were able to preserve the memory of one of the greatest saints of this century.
Finally, the Ayala Malls Central Bloc has solved a huge problem prevailing in IT Park, parking, because most of the buildings do not really have a parking space for customers. However, last Friday during the opening of the Central Bloc, it was smooth going in by noon, but as I left B-2 at around 3:30 p.m., there were around 20 cars ahead of me and it took quite some time for the parking attendant to process each car. When it came to me, I presented my senior citizen ID, but she charged me P24. I told her that seniors had three hours of free parking, she later admitted that she was new to the job and didn’t know this.
The next day Saturday, I and my son JV, a PAL pilot, had lunch in Food Choices in the Ayala Malls Central Bloc. We walked around looking at the new stores like the DJI Drone store and the Delos Reyes Optical which was an optical store styled differently to make it comfortable for customers. It looked more like a coffee shop.
However on our way home, we left by 1:30 p.m. and lo and behold, the traffic was standstill for 30 minutes in the lower parking bay or B-2. I suspect it is due to the same people manning the parking ticket booth who take their time. I should ask the Ayala management to change these people or give free parking until their staff are better trained so as not to sacrifice the time of car drivers who have to inhale exhaust fumes.
I also suspect that whoever is the architect who designed that building only drives a small car, the corners on their ramps aren’t wide enough. If you have an SUV you might have scraping problems! Ayala management must look into this problem and fix this right away!
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