Foreign Investors to PEZA and the Filipino Workers

"At Times when bureaucracy and municipal delays could have been critically damaging to our investment, PEZA has been a helpful hand in providing direction and assistance toward quick resolutions."

- Craig Reines, VP and General Manager for TeleTech Customer Care Management Phils, Inc.

"People are our most important asset, T.I. believes the Philippines has an edge because of its pool of skilled workers, especially in semiconductors. PEZA is the best agency of government because of its investor friendly policies and vision."

- Norberto Viera, President, Texas Instruments (Phils.), Inc.

"The work force is very good. They provide a lot of value-added to our customers."

-Mike Petrucci, President, Amkor Technology Phils.

"The Filipino worker is absolutely superb. The Filipino worker is very well educated, very eager to learn more and extremely fluent in English, and has a marvelous work ethics."

-Steven Leece, Managing Director, Moog Controls Corp.

"PEZA is the cleanest, most efficient and most supportive organization to foreign investors compared to all the other government investments organizations in Asia. PEZa never disappoints any investor. It is great advantage even to small business."

-Norihiko Maeno, President and CEO, Maeno Giken Inc

.

"PEZA is the real business partner. Their professionalism assures investors of steadfast support more than we expected."

-Yoshio Nagamine, President, Terumo (Philippines) Corporation

"The quality of workers in the Philippines is far better than that of Thailand and approximates that of Japanese workers at a fifth of the cost. About 80% of our workforce are women because they are better than men. I am happy that local schools produce very good engineers."

-Masaaki Nagamine, President, Fujitsu Computer Products Corporation of the Philippines

"Everybody can speak English which is very good for us. There is also a culture of quality workers. THe biggest factor is logistics. The Philippines is the hub of Asia. We have direct shipping to America and Europe. PEZA has been very supportive!"

-Masaaki Mukushi, Former President, Toshiba Information Equipment Phils., Inc.

What is PEZA?

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA)is a government corporation established through legislative enactment known as “The Special Economic Zone Act of 1995.”

PEZA is an investment promotion agency and a government owned corporation, attached to the Department of Trade & Industry.

PEZA grants fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to developers of economic zones, export producers, and I.T. service exporters.

PEZA offers ready-to-occupy locations to foreign investors who are export producers or IT service exporters in world class and environment friendly Economic Zones and I.T. Parks / Buildings.

George W. Bush on Filipinos and Philippine-Americans

"I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House.

And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President."

- George W. Bush in a meeting with Pres. Gloria Arroyo
at the White House on June 24, 2008

-Of all the possible "small talk" comments a United States President could utter to another person similar to his stature- a Philippine President, George W. Bush came up with the stupidest blabber ever! While the statement sounded 'harmless' reading from the entire transcript of what transpired from that meeting, I feel a little bit slighted and offended by this comment bordering on racism, and belittling.

Don't your minions of staff brief you about who you're meeting and tell you about the country he/she represents prior to the meet? You are reminded of our great talent every time you eat dinner at the White House? How patronizing! Please. Sorry soon to-be- former Mr. President Bush, I did not get the joke!

George Bush made the comment in reference to Cristeta "Cris" Comerford who was named White House chef in August of 2005 and who still serves as the White House chef to this day! (We will find out if the Obama's will keep Miss Comerford in the White house. We certainly hope so!)

As for this thoughtless comment, George W. Bush will truly leave a mark on this blog. Talk about leaving a lasting impression!

Welcome 2009!

May this year be better than the last...
May this year give us a little peace of mind...
a little bit of hope,
a little bit of optimism,
a little bit of faith- more than last year...

Happy peaceful new year to us all!

Manny Pacquiao on his Fight with Oscar De La Hoya

"Ang bawat suntok na aking bibitawan ay may bigat ng 90 milyong Pilipino sa buong mundo, kasama na rin ang ilan pang milyong katao na sumusuporta sa akin bilang isang kampeon sa ibabaw ng ring.

Excited na ako na maipakita ko ang tapang, lakas at bilis ng isang mandirigmang Pilipino gaya ng ipinakita ng aking mga ninuno simula pa kay Lapu-Lapu ng Mactan. Maganda ang aking pakiramdam, maayos at malinaw ang aking pag-iisip at higit sa lahat, naniniwala ako na ang mahal na Panginoong Diyos ay nasa aking tabi palagi kaya Siya na ang magbibigay sa akin ng tagumpay sa araw na ito. Kasama ko sa araw na ito ang lahat ng mga magigiting na Pilipino na nagtanggol at lumaban upang lahat tayo ay lumaya at mamuhay ng tahimik. Kasabay ko ang lahat ng mga kababayan kong nagmamahal sa bayan."

"This is the fight of my life, this is the biggest challenge in my boxing career, and I know that if I emerge victorious in this battle, all of us will reap the blessings and we will share all the glory."

-Manny Pacquiao, December 6, 2008 on the day
of his big fight with Oscar De La Hoya

"From Now on, Call Them Expats, Not OFWs"

“One very, very well-known and well-paid Filipino working overseas says that we should begin to call our overseas Filipinos expatriates, because the nature of their job is increasingly more on skilled professions. And they should be called expatriates because expatriates usually get higher pay than if you just call them workers,”…

“The government and the people honor our overseas Filipinos, whether you call them OFWs, OCWs, or as Dante Ang likes to call them, Overseas Filipino Investors. And I agree that we should begin to call them expatriates rather than OFWs. But in any case, we honor them for their sacrifice and dedication to their work, their family and their nation.” …

“We welcome their contribution. But we are working towards the day when Filipinos no longer need to go abroad for a job. For the day that overseas work is just another career option and not the only choice they have to earn a living...”

- President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Speech, October 7, 2008

What of Filipino Heroes for Filipinos and Fil-Ams in the United States?

Positively No Filipinos Allowed: Building Communities and Discourse (Asian American History & Culture)

"One hundred years later, Filipinos in the United States and Filipino Americans have every reason to ask what Rizal - along with the revolution he inadvertently inspired some seven thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean- has to do with student and academic communities in the United States today. They certainly won't appear in most classes on U.S. history, or Asian American OR U.S. ethnic studies for that matter. Why should Americans (even US minorities) concern themselves with FIlipino- or for that matter any extra- or anti- United States- nationalism? If anything, Filipino immigrants taking the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) exam might find more compelling reasons to know the importance of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. than the likes of Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, or Graciano Lopez Jaena- three Filipino intellectuals and publicists who wrote mostly in Spanish, had conflicting loyalties between mother Spain and their native Filipinas, and didn't have much of an opinion on the United States by the time they died in 1896.

Even if thousands of US-based Filipinos and Filipino Americans continue to commemorate Rizal's execution on Rizal Day (December 30), celebrated with food and formal dress everywhere from Alexandria to Detroit, how many of us know or care that del Pilar and Lopez Jaena died of poverty and tuberculosis (the same year Rizal died), neglected and forgotten by everyone, as a new generation of Filipino thinkers and revolutionaries braced itself for a war against the past and future empires of the Western world? And if we did know the history of those who inspired an entire generation to go to war against the superior arms and resources of that vast and powerful North American country, would we care?"

Positively No Filipinos Allowed: Building Communities and Discourse (Asian American History & Culture) (Paperback) by Antonio Tiongson (Editor), Ricardo Gutierrez (Editor), Edgardo Gutierrez (Editor), January 2006

Trill and Mordent by Luisa Igloria

Trill & Mordent

Accidentals are symbols that change the pitch
with just the slightest touch of dissonance

in music— the flats, the sharps, the double
sharps’ spiked banners that appear sometimes once

on a page, sometimes in a series. Ascending or descending
they become appoggiatura— trills or mordents. The trills

are as random birdsong strewn over a field. The mordents
slip down, enough to remind me of their root in morbid

things, in falling, in death. The French, too, remind us
how even in pleasure the body dies a little: la petite mort.

The furtive kiss on the earlobe, the flick of a tongue
at the base of the throat— thin blade of a shudder that rises

to the heart and nicks it like a wound, that attaches
like a shadow. It takes so little to upset the mechanism

of everyday life, the rapid adjustment and tumbling of gears
from one set of teeth to another. As though the hand could choose

without error, the composer made these precise marks on sheets
of music. They bristle like little reports, like explosions

from the snout of a rifle angled through the window of a van,
aimed at any head smooth as the next one that steps

out on a veranda, out of a building; that stoops
momentarily to tie a shoelace, to fumble for car keys.

Now the news every day is filled with how little
it takes to ignite the blunt wick of fear.

Late in the year, the body’s fat thickens like tallow.
Ungathered fruit redden and fall in the yard,

and the afternoons descend a little faster toward night.
Who can blame the one who becomes tired of the brooding

darkness, who wants to open the window and move
toward the leaves’ quick gesturings, to see what voice

repeats her name in a way she has not heard
since childhood, to discover which room in her body

houses the accidental sound of a tuning fork
struck and echoing in the middle of her life.

- Trill and Mordent by Luisa Igloria, September 2005