Congratulations, President Obama

This blog takes a few moments to congratulate former Senator and now President-elect Barack Obama on his historic victory. After a campaign that was remarkable for its discipline and consistency of message, his victory was indeed sweet and definitely one for the ages.

African-Americans have gone through a lot of pain, suffering and injustice since they were imported from Africa as slaves in 1619. It's been close to 400 years since they first set foot on American soil and yet, millions of them remain impoverished, unemployed, trapped in broken homes and live in tough, crime-ridden neighborhoods. The income of the average African-American family lags that of the average white American family. A disproportionately large number of inmates in American prisons are African-Americans.

I just hope that all African-Americans, especially the kids, will find inner strength and inspiration from Mr. Obama's achievement. I hope that a lot more African-American kids stay in school and do good for themselves so that someday, more of them will get to achieve what Mr. Obama did last Tuesday night.

Discovering Me

I want to live, I want to give;
I've been a miner for a heart of gold.
It's these expressions I never give
That keep me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old.

I guess everyone goes through a phase where a person starts to depart a bit from the person his parents want him to become to that of the type of individual he thinks he ultimately wants to be.

I wasn't introspective at all during my childhood and early teen years. My needs were simple and shallow: I wanted to have fun but at the same time, I wanted to stay out of trouble, especially with my parents. Having fun was easy because I was an easy-going and gregarious kid. I stayed out of trouble with my folks by observing the appropriate conduct when in the presence of other people (except in the classroom), by doing my fair share of the housework (we stopped having maids when I was eight), and by trying my best to earn good grades at school.

Although I passed all my subjects in school, I must admit I passed a few of them without really internalizing or understanding them. I thoroughly studied the subjects I loved but for those that I didn't, I used fear of my father's wrath to motivate myself to study and pass them.

I made a lot of "friends" in school without really giving much thought as to why I even considered many of them as such. I ended friendships either through heated arguments or through fights and didn't think much afterwards as to why those friendships ended. I disliked and viewed some of my teachers with utmost contempt and yet at the same time, I wasn't certain as to why. At home, I did and accepted as truth a lot of things my folks told me.

But my education and all the experiences I had up to that point were all catching up to me. After all the studying and living, I was starting to learn. I started to develop my own views and I started to question long-held beliefs especially in matters of faith, culture and tradition. I started to develop my own interests and views but yet lacked the confidence to voice them to my parents out of fear. In countless talks over the dinner table, I realized that although my parents worked hard to send their children to schools they believed would provide quality education, they were not exactly prepared to hear statements or assertions that went against their own beliefs and biases. Thus, ever the diplomat, I largely kept my views to myself. For the sake of maintaining harmony at home, I felt I had to maintain a semblance of conformity.

But outside the home, things were different. I became a lot more selective with my friendships. Although I continued to outwardly maintain a friendly demeanor, I became more guarded within. I distanced myself from people I deemed were mere users. I shunned people who felt the world revolved around them. Whereas before, I used to hang out with almost anyone in my class, I now started limiting myself to just four or five really close friends. Whereas before, I had accepted the majority's view as truth, I now started thinking on my own. I became more vocal with my friends about the hypocrisy I saw around me.

The process of self-discovery undeniably brought with it a fair amount of loneliness. Everything comes at a price I learned. My struggle and effort to become my own person brought with it a lot of arguments and misunderstanding both within the home and outside of it. I love my parents a lot but there are things in this world where they and I will never agree on. With other people, the process was a bit easier in a way because all it took was to cut off all contact with people I no longer trust or agree with. With the friends I have left at this point, they will probably remain my friends to my dying day. The relationship I have with them is such that they're never afraid to tell me things I may not want to hear and vice versa.

But outside of books and friends, music became a refuge for me. It was through music where I found strength and validation. One of the songs I listened to a lot during this time was Heart of Gold, a 1972 hit by Neil Young. This song had been around for many years when I first heard it as a sophomore in high school. The opening guitar and harmonica riffs conveyed the sense of loneliness one felt while in search of a true friend or a true love. I listened to this song a lot during those days when I needed gentle, caring souls to understand me. This song remains one of my favorites to this day.

Heart of Gold was a single cut from Mr. Young's 1972 album, Harvest. Let me just share with you below Mr. Young's beautiful live performance of this song from the early 1970s. Enjoy.

McCain and "Palin" on SNL

In what could be their last joint appearance on Saturday Night Live, Senator McCain and Governor "Palin" were on the show last night to "raise" additional campaign funds to help counter the Obama campaign's tremendous advantage in campaign finances.

Earlier in the week, the Obama Campaign purchased a half hour of air time on three major networks. Presented as "infomercials" on Senator Obama, these were supposed to package the Senator's "closing statements" in the dying days of this historic campaign. It is known that the state of the McCain campaign's finances compare poorly to Senator Obama's. Thus, the following comedy skit from SNL shows Senator McCain's two-fold "response" by not only getting some air time but also raising some much-needed campaign cash:

I must say that Mrs. McCain did some pretty good acting in that cameo appearance, didn't she? :-)

One very positive thing about these American politicians is that, unlike their counterparts in many Third World countries, most of them don't take themselves too seriously. A lot of screaming, debating, arguing, and insulting may occur between them during the heat of the campaign. But once the campaign is over and the election results are out, the will of the voters is respected and the losing candidate promptly concedes and congratulates the victor.

Sometimes Work Does Get In The Way...

..... of blogging and bloghopping. :D

My apologies dear online buddies because save for a few, I really haven't had the chance to stop by your blogs lately. I've been swamped with quite a bit of work these past few weeks that except for the occasional blog entry, I haven't really been able to visit your respective sites.

I had tight deadlines to meet that in fact, my recent blog entries were drafted and developed while I was on train rides home. Thus, an entry that would normally take a few hours to develop and complete took quite a number of days to conclude. In addition, a case of writer's block didn't make writing any easier.

Since my mind was tied up with work-related stuff, I decided to skip on the bloghopping for some time just to get a number of things off my desk. In addition, I didn't want to post half-ass comments (please pardon the expression) on your blogs knowing that I simply breezed through something that you took the time and effort to write and post.

Take care of yourselves, dear folks. My load at work is starting to lighten at this point. Thus, I should be able to visit your sites soon. I look forward to again reading the stories you wish to tell. I wish everyone well.

Playing Things Safe at San Miguel

I was reading the Business Section of yesterday's issue (October 29) of the Inquirer when I was struck by an event that was reported in this article. The article reported on the UK-based investment firm Ashmore Group's move to increase its control over Petron. I have no problem with foreigners increasing their level of investment in Filipino companies as long as the investment would lead to the creation of more jobs and better incomes for our countrymen.

However, I was not too happy to find in the same article that San Miguel Corporation, that long-time food and beverage conglomerate, has plans to buy into Petron too. In fact, reading further, I found that San Miguel was seeking more than 50% control of Petron, this planned move was announced right after acquiring a 27% stake in Meralco last Monday.

I am no strategic genius or business whiz but San Miguel's foray into power distribution and its planned entry into the oil refining business should not impress any serious student of Philippine business. This company has been able to lord it over the Philippines for many decades due to its sheer size and lack of true competition. Given its reputation and the resources at its disposal, I expect a lot more from a multi-billion dollar corporation who has been around since 1890. But aside from the Philippines, its premier product, San Miguel Beer, still does not have a significant presence in any foreign market save for Hongkong.

I love San Miguel's beer and I strongly believe that the product has the potential to compete with the world's best. But San Miguel's management hasn't done a very good job of introducing and marketing its premier product into different foreign markets. It seems content playing a conservative game of marketing San Miguel Beer only in places marked by a large Filipino presence. Instead of trying to compete in the global market against foreign brands, San Miguel's management seems content to just play it safe within its home grounds.

In my humble opinion, this is the problem when a company the size of San Miguel has never operated in an environment where it had to seriously compete to either maintain or expand its share of the market. Although the security afforded by a protected business environment may seem reassuring to a company's investors, the lack or absence of challenges or fights from a serious competitor never truly forced San Miguel to seek greater efficiency in resource allocation to lower its costs and boost its market share. It never had to mount a serious counterthrust to any competitor's moves. In short, it has a management that by international standards has never been truly battle-tested.

Instead of growing the company's revenues organically by expanding the market share of its products locally or by expanding into foreign markets either through strategic acquisitions or strategic alliances, San Miguel's management decided to pursue the path of least resistance by growing the company through investments into other industries WITHIN the Philippines even if these companies are in businesses outside of San Miguel's core competency. Even its selection of industries to invest in (power distribution and oil refining) are "safe" industries in the Philippine context. Both are practically cash cows and both are environments with limited or no competition.

In a previous job many years ago, I had the chance to be part of teams that analyzed parts of San Miguel's operations in a couple of its divisions. Typical of problems in a virtual monopoly, we found bloated bureaucracies, operational inefficiencies, waste, and even corruption. Due to the absence of competitive market pressures, we sensed no urgency on the part of both management and employees to fix their problems. I don't mean to paint a broad brush but a culture of complacency certainly prevailed. The place ran like a government office. I have no reason to believe that such mediocrities and problems have gone away because the environment San Miguel operates in remains virtually unchanged.

San Miguel is a company that can do more and achieve more. A lot of foreigners I know who have tasted its beer love it. Aside from beer, it has a wide array of products that are of high quality that competing in foreign markets and gaining the acceptance of foreign customers should not be deemed an insurmountable challenge. Instead of pouring its resources into businesses it knows next to nothing about, the company ought to focus its energies on its core competency. Instead of focusing on protecting its local market share and stifling local competition, San Miguel's management owes it to the country, the Filipino people, and themselves to prove that the people behind San Miguel are made of sterner stuff. The only way to do so is to unleash the competitive spirit within them and do competitive battles on foreign shores.