All in the same boat

One of the first things President Junior should have done as he assumed office was to call the biggest taipans to a meeting at the Palace. There are not more than a hundred of them that really matter.

Junior should explain to the taipans what he meant when he chose Unity as his campaign theme: he needs everyone to help address the country’s problems.

A Forbes report said that the 50 richest families and individuals in the Philippines saw a “robust recovery” as their collective wealth surged by 30 percent to $79 billion (P3.94 trillion) even as the pandemic continued.

That’s because the economy did rather well, and as usual there was no trickle down. That’s why citing GDP growth rates is a misleading measure of a people’s quality of life.

President Junior should remind the top families that the biggest conglomerates they own must do more or we will all sink together. Rich and poor, we are all in the same boat.

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR as we know it is not enough, it never was. Conglomerates must integrate their social responsibility activities to the business model of their companies. Otherwise, it is tokenism and useless.

There are those who will say that their responsibility is to their shareholders and it is to make as much money as they can. Then they will say that their responsibility is merely to pay taxes and the government must be responsible for everything else.

Probably true. But if we all wait for the government to do even some of the most needed tasks, we will end up losing more. And it will show in the bottomline.

Take the case of Tullahan River that drains through the northern boundaries of Metro Manila. It has been very polluted and it causes the destructive floods that affect businesses in Malabon, Valenzuela, and environs.

The flood has affected the operations of San Miguel’s Polo brewery, even causing shutdowns during the worst floods. The solution is obvious and cannot wait.

So, San Miguel allocated a billion pesos a year to clean up the 27-kilometer Tullahan River system. SMC even acquired additional new equipment to double its solid waste extraction capacity to 5,000 metric tons per day.

The Tullahan river system is ranked no. 4 in the list of the world’s top 10 plastic-emitting rivers responsible for global ocean plastic pollution. Its clean up by San Miguel has reached an important milestone: 414,000 metric tons of solid wastes removed.

“Aside from removing silt and solid wastes that have accumulated at the bottom of the river for years, we also have to increase depth to a maximum of five meters, particularly in areas where heavy flooding still occurs. There are still many areas that have become too shallow because of wastes dumped in the river, with only a meter or two of depth remaining,” SMC’s Ramon S. Ang said.

The government couldn’t have cleaned up the river as efficiently and as quickly as San Miguel did. Most likely, someone in collusion with officials would have made money pretending to clean it up… like all those DPWH flood control projects that have never controlled flooding. In any case, DENR, the agency responsible for river clean ups, was busy creating a dolomite beach.

What’s in it for San Miguel? They no longer have to stop operations in their brewery and it earned them goodwill in their community, which also no longer has to suffer the usual floods.

That’s a billion pesos a year well spent… even as the assurance of continued brewery operations earned them probably more than that.

There are other things that the taipans can do to directly help people improve their quality of life. They have a name for it in business schools: inclusive business.

Romy Neri, a former AIM professor and NEDA Secretary enumerated what could be done:One is to engage the poor by providing affordable goods and services; providing decent income and work opportunities; incorporating the poor into the business value chain as producers, contractors, distributors, retailers or franchisees.

I had written about Jollibee’s engagement of farmers to plant potatoes, helping with the technical side of growing the right quality potatoes and then guarantee market and price.

Nestle has this long running program of helping coffee and cacao growers improve the quality of their produce. Nestle also guarantees they will buy everything that meets standards. Given their international reach, Nestle should expand beyond the requirements of our domestic market.

Micro, small, and medium enterprises constitute 99.5 percent of Philippine business. MSMEs contributed 35.7 percent of the total value-added or gross domestic product in 2018. MSMEs generated 5.7 million jobs or 63.2 percent of the total employment in 2018.

Most MSMEs are struggling mom-and-pop operations. They need help to scale up: to design products, to source raw materials, to achieve quality production and distribution.

All the big retailers have resources that can help. They can also help the small producers by not tying up their meager capital in “consignment” arrangements that take months to collect.

Microfinance is a big need not just in agricultural ventures, but also in cottage industries. With the use of technology, the big banks can create subsidiaries that will focus on microfinance. BPI’s BangKo seems to be on the right track.

Then there is housing. NHA has long been useless. There must be a way the big property companies can help. People need to live near where there is work and they don’t have to own the house. Affordable rentals should be ok.

Construction and manufacturing companies should have vigorous apprenticeship programs in coordination with senior high schools. Labor laws may need tweaking to allow this.

There are so many other things the taipans can do to help make things better. The extremely rich have most of their wealth tied up in businesses here that can be lost in a flash if the people’s patience is exhausted.

We need Unity. The rich must realize that we are all in the same boat. We sink together if things don’t work out.

Boo Chanco’s email address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow me on Twitter @boochanco