Muddled class

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO - Middle class folk in this capital city of about 300,000 population has increased from a mere 19.1 percent to 59.2 percent, a study from the University of the Assumption (UA) here has revealed.
This, even as business tax collection here was reported to be 100 percent efficient while in the education sector, enrollment rate among local youths was also noted to have jacked up significantly from 57.91 percent to 92.67 percent.
These were among the data revealed by Mayor Oscar Rodriguez in his recent state-of-the-city address here amid statistics revealing that the increase in the local middle class started during his successive terms as mayor starting 2004…
So reads our banner story of August 10-11 written by the erudite Ding Cervantes.
The 100 percent efficiency in business tax collection maybe arguable; the jack up in enrolment, debatable. But nonetheless, both believable.
As to the swell in the middle class, that is simply incredible.
That 40.1 percent increase in the ranks of the middle class within a period of seven years veritably merits Rodriguez the Magsaysay Award, the feat achieved despite the city government’s virtual bankruptcy when he assumed the mayorship, the devastating typhoons and floods that regularly scourge the city, and the deterioration of peace and order starting with last year’s carjackings and killings still recurring to this day.
That 40.1 percent increase in the ranks of the middle class in the city assumes not merely great but most excellent proportions making Rodriguez truly deserving of the Nobel Prize, having been accomplished despite the global economic meltdown that brought even so-called developed nations down on all fours.
Most significant of all, the start of the rise in the city’s middle class – pegged in 2004 – marked the watershed of, nay, sparked the national economic turnaround.
Consider the study of the National Statistical Coordination Board entitled “Trends and Characteristics of the Middle Class in the Philippines: Is it Expanding or Shrinking?”
Using data from the 1997, 2000 and 2003 Family Income and Expenditure Surveys conducted by the National Statistics Office, the study showed that “as of 2003, less than 1 in 100 families belong to the high income class; about 20 are middle income and 80 are low income. And in a span of 6 years from 1997 to
2003, close to 4 families for every 100 middle income families have been lost to the low income category.”
In 1997 the share of middle class families was 23.0 percent, shrinking “only a bit” to 22.7 in 2000, but further decreasing to 19.9 percent in 2003. The study added.
Came Rodriguez to the mayorship in 2004, the city’s middle class at 19.1 percent – nearly at par with the national level – breaking all barriers, the sound one included, to soar to 59.2 percent within seven years.
Nothing short of a grand miracle there. Maybe, nearing the scale of Moses himself parting the Red Sea. While the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints at the Vatican may not be apropos this time, Rodriguez though somewhat sainted but still very much kicking, so why haven’t we made a beeline to the nearest Magsaysay Award or Nobel Prize nominating center? Indeed, why haven’t we even joined Rodriguez’s hallelujah chorus?
Like some wag says: Something that is too good to be true, is ever patently untrue.
No, we are not taking Rodriguez to task for his revelations of the state of the middle class in the City of San Fernando.
We are not even questioning the findings, but rather how they were arrived at, and so spectacularly at that.
Assuming that some survey served as the basis of the study of the University of the Assumption, we would very much like to know the survey universe or the number of respondents, demographics, the methodology used, the interview schedule, the survey period, the survey area, other instrumentalities not the least of which is the profile of the researchers. Not to mention some benchmarks from previous studies on the subject or related readings, as well as validation instruments.
No simple process is undertaking a study of such kind. Just how complex is revealed in that done by the NSCB to find if the country’s middle class is expanding or shrinking, to wit:
One approach in identifying the middle class is through income, as done by the study. The authors conducted cluster analysis on data from the 1997 FIES to create an a priori grouping of families based on income. This grouping was then used to classify families into the low, middle or high income clusters. The lower and upper income limits of the middle class were then determined based on resulting clusters.
The proposed middle class’ minimum and maximum income were extrapolated to 2000 and 2003 using two series of the Consumer Price Index – one with base year 1994 and another 2000.
Using income limits for the three years, the middle income class is identified.
To identify the total income determinants of the middle income class, the researchers conducted multiple regression analysis on the families classified as middle class. The dependent variable was the log of total household income with a pre-identified list of independent variables, which include educational attainment of household head, occupation, and materials of the housing unit,
among others.
They likewise considered the indicators from the 5-point system of the Market and Opinion Research Society of the Philippines where households are classified into five groups based on income using a set of indicators.
Studies done by other researchers on the income classes were likewise used.
The authors also identified the middle class based on socioeconomic characteristics.
The result: “The middle-income class comprises of families who, in 2007, have a total annual income ranging from P251,283 to P2,045,280. Middle-income families also have houses built of strong materials, own a house and lot, a refrigerator and a radio.”
In yet another study, the middle class is marked by indicators as: a) three square meals a day with morning or afternoon snacks; b) dining out once a month or on special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries; c) going to a movie once a month; d) shopping for groceries fortnightly and for clothes/shoes once every two months; e) sending children to schools that are “affordable” but not necessarily public schools; f) owning one motor vehicle, not necessarily brand new but not battered; g) owning a television set, dvd player, component, personal computer, refrigerator, washing machine, microwave, sometimes an air-conditioner; h) having one househelp; and i) own a house and lot in a middle-class area or in a low-cost housing development.
Extrapolating the summary results of the University of the Assumption study on these parameters, we shall find a total of 177,600 Fernandinos (59.2 percent of the population of 300,000) in the relative ease and contentment of day-to-day living.
Do we?
Or, as one wag says: Assumption is the mother of all failures. No pun intended on the source of Rodriguez’s revelations there. No disrespect to Our Lady whose feast we celebrated only last Monday, August 15.
Yeah, in the absence of any cold, hard statistics to support Rodriguez’s claim, we can just take the word of a political pollster friend. That the 59.2 percent was mistakenly appended to the increase in the rank of the middle class in the City of San Fernando.
That 59.2 percent could very well be, he said, the survey’s margin of error.

Oca's options

VERY MUCH undead.
Your report on Mayor Oca Rodriguez being politically dead in an encounter with either Congressman Dong Gonzales or Governor Nanay Baby Pineda was much too exaggerated.
Doing a Mark Twain on behalf of his beloved mayor was Bentong, a long time Rodriguez associate, who also takes his caffeine fix at SM City Pampanga.
Not me. It was Andal Ampatuan’s clone that pronounced our dear friend “dead on arrival” against Cong Dong and “dead on the spot” against Nanay Baby. So I wrote about it, did that make me the purveyor of that opinion?
But you so believed it that you even titled your column Poll dead.
Believer as I am in politics as the art of the possible, I cannot as yet consign our friend to a still-too-early political grave.
So you believe Mayor Oca can beat both Dong and Nanay Baby?
I believe Mayor Oca can win either as congressman or governor.
Now you’re talking. Quantify. Qualify. As you wrote in your column.
The easiest way for Mayor Oca to reclaim his third district congressional seat is to take Cong Dong out of the way.
Madre mia! You’re talking murder in broad daylight here.
You’re either stuck in The Godfather warp or haven’t gotten out of your The Sopranos mindset. No need to go to extreme prejudice here. The power of persuasion may well do the trick.
How?
Take Mayor Oca and Cong Dong to SM.
Isinasakay mo ako sa tsubibo, ah. (You’re taking me for a ride).
Why should I? By SM I mean Swap Meet. The two can work out the possibility of trading positions in 2013: Oca running for Congress, Dong for city mayor. Tapos na ang eleksyon. All other comers dead on the spot in such a situation. With both Cong Oca and Mayor Dong saving much in time, efforts and resources.
You’re talking sense now. That indeed makes the ideal scenario.
There’s only one problem here.
What?
Mrs. Elizabeth Panlilio-Gonzales is bent on running for city mayor, reportedly present in just about every wake and fiesta in the barangayas, distributing pairs of slippers to school kids, among other activities. And Cong Dong from all indications will not make his already-secured seat a quid pro quo if only to assure his wife’s victory.
An Oca-Dong confrontation is inevitable then.
Other than luring Cong Dong to the mayorship, there is yet another way to take him out of the congressional contest.
How?
From swapping positions to switching parties. Through some machinations, Cong Dong can be invited to the Liberal Party. In The Godfather parlance, make him an offer which he cannot refuse. And make the President himself make that offer. Once Cong Dong accepts, make him the LP-Pampanga chairman. As chairman, it would behoove him to be party standard bearer in Pampanga…
Dong runs for governor then, opening his third district seat to Oca.
Yes. But that is if Dong will ever turn yellow.
Indeed, too remote a possibility there.
If I were in Mayor Oca’s camp though, I would stop thinking of Cong Dong and would rather focus on the governorship.
Why?
For one, it is public knowledge that the Capitol has long been the object of Oca’s aspirations. And the governorship shall serve as the crowning glory of his political career. Congress? City hall? Been there, done that. Only the governorship is missing in a grand slam of sorts, and Oca will be in the select few of triple-title holders – only the third in Pampanga, if fading memory serves right, after Don Francisco Nepomuceno and Don Rafael Lazatin.
Then, under certain terms, it will be less difficult for Oca to win against Governor Nanay Baby than against Cong Dong.
Teka, teka. What did you say just now? Didn’t you write Oca dead on arrival against Dong but dead on the spot against Nanay?
That was said by Andal Ampatuan’s look-alike.
Okay, my turn to tell you again: Quantify. Qualify.
To repeat, under certain terms, it will be less difficult for Oca to win against Governor Nanay Baby than against Cong Dong.
Yes, by taking Nanay Baby out of the way…
Not necessarily. Oca can fight Nanay Baby on even terms but under certain considerations. And this is what a growing group of so-called concerned citizens are pushing. One, Nanay Baby to have Ang Galing Congressman Mikey Macapagal-Arroyo as running mate. Two, Oca to have the former governor, Among Ed Panlilio as his vice gubernatorial bet.
Oca-Among versus Nanay Baby-Mikey. I see a battle royale in the making.
What I see here is how the 2013 provincial contest can easily be packaged as the continuing crusade for morality and good governance, with Among Ed and Oca as shining images, against the grim backdrop of legal entanglements the Arroyos are caught in, woven around all those charges of corruption and cheating.
An Oca-Among ticket will most assuredly spark a revival of the so-called moral force that served as the suspended priest’s storm troopers in his 2007 campaign. Panlilio’s estranged supporters – except maybe Dona Lolita Hizon – may even return to the fold, given their closeness to Oca. In 2010, it was precisely that disgruntled group that pleaded with Oca to run for governor.
On the practical side, Panlilio in each of his two gubernatorial runs got over 240,000 votes – solid votes that can never be taken away from him. While those were but half of Nanay Baby’s total of 488,521 in 2010, they would not stay static in any way, given Oca’s own support base, not only in the City of San Fernando but in the third district.
And then, there is the President himself to go the full nine yards with the Oca-Among ticket, convinced as he will be that it is one more juggernaut against the Arroyos.
So, you’re saying now Oca would not be dead on the spot against Nanay Baby?
I am saying Oca’s winning the governorship is not impossible. Like the Adidas blurb says: “Impossible is nothing.”
Then, winning is everything?
No. Winning is the only thing.

State of disbelief

"IN SAN FERNANDO, we have committed leadership. There is no question about it. Graft and corruption is not an issue here. It is business friendly and many investors have told (sic) that napakalinis mag-negosyo dito sa San Fernando. That's one side of it. The other side is that Mayor Oca has provided investors and stakeholders as well as the people of San Fernando a continuation of what he has already started and will become part of his legacy like education, flood control, peace and order and even the environment.”
So goes the paean of car-dealing magnate Levy P. Laus in his own paper, Sun-Star Pampanga, to Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez. Maybe some mutuality manifesting there as “Levy” was the most mentioned name, gloriously at that, in Rodriguez’s state of the city address last Monday.
Committed leadership. Business-friendly. Graft and corruption as non-issue. Concededly, there is no question about these. Where Rodriguez is concerned. Maybe, even in education as legacy, given the integrated school system the Rodriguez administration instituted and the number of school buildings it constructed.
But flood control, peace and order and the environment?
Reality may have been glossed over there. Some deep rose-colored shades Laus could have worn while lavishing his laudation on Rodriguez. Comes to mind here is Laus’ famous mantra as Clark Freeport top honcho, “The future of Clark is so bright you have to wear sunglasses to see it.” In Rodriguez, updated and paraphrased thus: The performance of Mayor Oca is so bright you have to wear blinders to appreciate it.
Laus himself was witness to the roiling sea that became of the Jose Abad Santos Avenue at the onslaught of Typhoon Falcon last June, his very fiefdom of Car-World, BMW, CLTV-36, dwRW radio, Ford, Chevrolet and Car-Mix reduced to virtual isolated islands. Yes, Car-World even had to improvise a puny wooden bridge to get to it. Uproariously funny, given the bourgeois classiness of everything and anything that has to do with Laus.
To talk of flood control as Rodriguez’s legacy at this point is to find gospel truth in the lie of Sun-Star Pampanga’s banner story two days prior to the deluge: “Oca: No major flooding in city.”
To talk of the environment as Rodriguez’s legacy at this point is: a) to immunize oneself from the stench of the garbage choking the San Fernando River; b) to blind oneself to the mountains of plastic at the sorry dilapidated excuse of a material recovery facility at the Lara dumpsite and the waste-to-energy Biosphere plant lying more in waste than in wait there; and c) to find comfort in the heat of the sun and be refreshed with carbon oxide emissions where verdant, lush trees used to abound along the stretch of MacArthur Highway from Sindalan to Maimpis.
To talk of peace and order as Rodriguez’s legacy at this point is to totally disbelieve, to damn as utter lie the cold statistics of the police files: Of the 132 index crimes reported in the third district of Pampanga from January to April this year, 116 were committed in the City of San Fernando.
Crimes in the city and the district – murder, homicide, rape, carjacking, robbery and theft – occur at a very alarming average rate of one every two hours.
Don’t look now, but from Most Business-Friendly City, San Fernando is fast turning out to be Most Crime-Friendly City. World class. Yeah.
So we wrote in an editorial just this April. So we incurred the ire of Rodriguez then. As surely as we will get more than our fair share of his rotten “kamatis” now. Maybe, Laus’ too.
Still, there is no denying some suspension of belief most manifest in Laus’ take of Rodriguez’s SOCA.
Indeed, how can we even think peace in the city when only last Friday evening, less than three days before Rodriguez delivered his oh-so-glorious SOCA, the son of former Board Member Ferdinand Labung was divested of his Toyota Hi-Lux pick-up truck (ZDA-575) in front of the San Fernandino Hospital along MacArthur Highway in Barangay Dolores.
Lucky Ferdinand Vergara Labung lived up to his name and emerged from the incident unscathed after the carjackers released him at the FVR megadike.
On the very day of Rodriguez’s SOCA, a worker at the Tambunting Pawnshop in the Bulaon Resettlement site reported the busted vault of the firm, the jewellery and other pawned valuables there, amounting to P3,345,560.00. per inventory, missing.
The work of the acetylene gang, police said of the heist.
Thanks to the sleuthing of ace police character, er, reporter Jess Malabanan, we came to know of these crime incidents which any other reporter’s call or visit to the police precinct would not have yielded.
Come to think of it, Malabanan’s crime stories in the Central Luzon Daily are a negation of the gratuitous stories on Rodriguez in Sun-Star Pampanga. This makes a very interesting study on the dynamics of the local dailies. But that is another story.
For now let us wallow in a state of suspended belief over the real state of the capital city as told by the multi-awarded, multi-titled, world-class Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez.
Believe, ye doubting Thomases.

Poll dead

OCA IS running for the House again.
That was Dingdong – neither the writer Cervantes nor the congressman Gonzales – holding Tuesday’s issue of Sun Star Pampanga before our coffee confederacy that found Starbucks SM City Pampanga a consolable replacement to our vanished lair that was La Nilad.
The paper’s bold, bold banner reads: Oca eyes Congress in 2013.
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- Mayor Oscar Rodriguez has finally confirmed reports of his intention to run for Congress in 2013.
"I am eyeing of course for (sic) the position of congressman," Rodriguez said Monday after delivering his State of the City Address.
Rodriguez even kidded over Monday's date August 8, a known lucky number, to the code 8, which is used to identify members of the Congress…
Oh, I thought he had only eyes for his beloved Loleng and would be running in haste to nowhere but home in 2013.
That was Don Luisito, my seminary elder, trying hard not to laugh lest he choked at his own corn overdose.
Dead on arrival.
Politically speaking, that is, is Oca running against incumbent Congressman Dong Gonzales. So prejudged the prolific newsman too-often mistaken for Andal Ampatuan.
Quantify. Qualify.
Chorused the whole caffeinated assembly.
Oca can very well run for Congress. But he just can’t win against Dong.
Factor 1, youth – not to mention good looks – which is a premium in winning elections. Just about the only politico who parlayed his only-his-mother-could-love-mug into an avalanche of votes was Apalit’s Tirso Lacanilao. Truly one-of-a-kind. And that was in Apalit. And Tirso’s dead na.
So you’re saying Oca is too aesthetically challenged, to be politically correct, to fight Dong?
No. It’s just that Dong’s the better-looking one.
Factor 2, popularity and name recall. With all those roads, bridges, barangay halls, school buildings and multi-purpose whatever bearing his name in gigantic fonts, Dong’s a by-word in even the remotest villages.
But Oca was once third district congressman too…
But for you, who still remembers?
And Oca was even impacted into the national consciousness with his cross-examination brilliance as a member of the prosecution team in the impeachment of President Joseph Estrada.
So where’s Erap now? Becoming even more popular after being convicted, imprisoned, er, restricted to his farm, and later pardoned. So popular he managed to land second to the Oca-supported P-Noy in 2010!
Factor 3, war chest. And enough said there. Didn’t the Oca camp itself accused Dong of bankrolling the last phase of the campaign of the sick and unspirited Tiger Lagman that – but for the Iglesia vote – almost thwarted Oca’s final term as mayor?
Factor 4, services. Dong has thousands of scholars translating to tens of thousands of voters – the students, their parents and close relatives, naturally forming not only a support base but active campaigners. There’s Don Honorio Ventura owing its state university status to Dong. There’s the billion-peso Bacolor Rehabilitation Act. Then, there’s Dong’s health programs, not only comprising Philhealth card distributions but in dialysis centers and even cancer care…
So since when did Andal here become Lacierda to Dong Gonzales?
Since I had regular breakfast at his house with the Society of Pampanga Columnists coordinated by Sun Star GM Jun Sula.
Speak for yourself, Andal. I am not talking.
May we be reminded that there’s no finality yet in Oca’s decision to run for Congress. Unlike Yeng Guiao, at this early already determined to go on a rumble in the jungle with Congressman Tarzan Lazatin in the first district.
Oca himself was quoted in the same story as clarifying that the final decision rests on President Aquino and the Liberal Party. And if the President so desires, Oca would make a run for the Pampanga governorship.
Dead on the spot, there.
That would be Oca running against Governor Lilia Pineda. So prejudged the one codenamed J-1 of the now almost-famous J-10 Circle of Pampanga’s beloved Nanay and favorite Baby.
Quantify? Qualify? No need to.

Memories

SAD, SO sad. No more at SM Pampanga is La Nilad.
It tugs at the heartstrings. And Bette Midler’s poignant take on the Beatles’ made all the more heartrending –
“There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments…”
Moments memorialized, enshrined in one’s very core.
Of Old Manila – premium choice pre-Starbucks – where the brew was good, and the café crowd even better.
Where Pidiong Mendoza – political strategist par excellence – extended his stroke-impaired existence some more years, dispensing political wisdom he gained from the gilded age of Philippine politics – the Puyat era, to the Aber Canlas and Midying Bondoc years.
Misty-eyed Pidiong ruing he would not live long enough to see Puyat-Bondoc scion Rimpy realize his father’s Capitol dream. Only to raise his hand against the son, clasping the hand instead of rival gubernatorial bet Rep. Zeny Cruz-Ducut.
Yes, Madame Zeny flanked by Pidiong and newsman Ody Fabian in one flash of glory, arms outstretched in victory. That did not come. Ody and Pidiong now long dead. Zeny lives, and serves, as chair of the Energy Regulatory Commission.
Old Manila did indeed brew politics more than Arabica and robusta beans.
Almost daily habitué – from 2:00 p.m. onwards was Apalit Mayor Tirso G. Lacanilao – the G for guapo spelled g-a-g-o, as he was wont to say – made good copy for mediamen, his smallest anecdotes of little town governance enough to make the pages of the papers, his soundbytes getting substantial airtime, the next day.
Tirso’s soliloquy on his brand of politics perfunctorily cut with text messages on his mobile that signalled the coming of some comely lass, her going only after some wads of cash in her hands and a doble beso on the mayor’s cheeks. Always to the amusement of his audience.
When Tirso was not around, it was the man he dethroned, Oscar Tetangco, Sr. that held court, usually huddled in some serious talk with five friends.
One day in 2004, the coffee crowd got crowded out of Old Manila, human-fenced as it was, two-persons thick, the object of over-protection there was Mexico’s new Mayor Teddy Tumang. A first-and-last appearance there though for the nemesis of Alyas Tigas, as he preferred the blend of UCC coffee.
Two other mayors that took their regular mugs at the Old Manila were Macabebe’s Bobong Flores and San Simon’s Digos Canlas, the latter later finding the way of Tumang at UCC too.
Making good copy and conversationalist too over cup-after-cup of Americano and espresso was Architect Normandy Canlas, best known for being the designer of the yet-to-be-realized Marcos mausoleum. Normandy has made his mark in the changing city landscape.
Then, how could we ever miss the age-defying Lotharios that regularly converged at Old Manila, as much for the sweet, sweet smell of brewed Arabica as for the even sweeter despatsadoras of Folded and Hung, Plains and Prints, Naf-Naf and Giordano. The guy’s runner, Coffeeboy Cris lugging McDo, Jollibee, Wendy’s, KFC and Tokyo! Tokyo! goodies was ever welcome – and regular – sight to the ladies.
Of the lover boys at Old Manila, no one came even close to Daddy-O, fondly called Gokongwei, a US-based octogenarian whose credit card-filled wallet was triple the thickness of the blueberry pie Old Manila served.
Daddy-O, day-after-day, six months a year, motored from Sta. Ana, promptly took his seat at Old Manila at 10:15 a.m. and was fetched as promptly at 8:30 p.m.
In between, two ladies at a time – in varying degrees of pulchritude but fixed age bracket of 19-21 – came a-calling to Daddy-O and then, abresiete at his left and right, made a paseo around the mall, returning in two hours, lugging bags, bags, and more bags, of assorted colors and labels.
Soon as Daddy-O got his seat and ordered another cup of coffee, came the goodbye kisses from the girls. And Daddy-O waited for the next bilmoko set.
With his penchant for charity towards beauties-in-need, it did not take long for Daddy-O to fall victim to the budol-budol uglies. Yes, the crime was perpetrated over coffee.
Old Manila ambience vanished with La Nilad taking in retro-modern setting. Still, the old crowd – minus the assassinated Tirso – religiously trooped in.
Local papers even made an editorial spot out of La Nilad, copyreading, editing and lay-outing right there whenever there was power outage in the city.
How many ground-shaking exposes, hard-hitting commentaries and bitter criticism found conception and expression at Old Manila and La Nilad, no mediaman can accurately count. Not even the precise and concise Macky Pangan, aka Dan U. Pan, aka Dan Monyus, the most regular of all coffee confederates at the place. .
Sad, so sad. Indeed for all of us that La Nilad is no more. Thanks for the wonderful memories anyways.
“Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love…them all.”
Yeah.

Consuelo de bobo

“THE REHABILITATION and improvement of the old public market in this city to make it more competitive in the advent of big malls is on top of the list of the City Government’s 2012 Annual Investment Plan (AIP).
Mayor Oscar Rodriguez said during the three-day AIP deliberations meet in Baguio City last week, said (sic) department and unit heads submitted their respective proposals for 2012.
“The various departments of the city submitted their proposals, including the City Council. This includes budgetary requirements. Many of them have been concretized and we are looking at them kung kaya ng City Government. Isang halimbawa nito ay iyung rehabilitation at improvement ng old public market,” he told Sun.Star Pampanga in an exclusive interview.
"It can be recalled that the mayor has pushed for the renovation of the old public market to give small and medium entrepreneurs the opportunity to boost their businesses amid the opening of malls in the city proper.
"Rodriguez had then broached the idea of coming up with novel marketing strategies for vendors which they can capitalize on, like selling wares not found in malls and enhancing sectors like eateries and restaurants…”
There, clear as day, the proletarian Oca has not uprooted himself from his masa base and sold out to big business. The city has concrete plans to prop up the small traders and make them competitive with the malls.
That was my seminary brother Boiti Portugal reading from the July 14 issue of Sun Star Pampanga over his café Americano at Starbucks SM Clark.
Sounding more like cantankerous fishwives’ tales are those loud whispers from the old public market of millions of reasons and rationalizations for the establishment of yet another SM Mall in the capital city. So Boiti concluded.
Ah, you are so blinded by your admiration for Oca that you failed to see the joke in his press release.
That was the prolific columnist Ashley Manabat riposting after a sip of the coffee concoction named after him.
What joke, for Christ’s sake, Oca is talking serious economics here. So bristled Boiti.
Oca to make the old public market competitive with the SM Mall right in the downtown area. That is the joke. The BIIIIGGG JOKE! So Ashley chuckled.
It’s all about the economics of scale.
That was our seminary elder, green tea-guzzling Don Luisito butting in. Making me frantically google the term in my Sony Vaio notebook.
Yeah, here in Investopedia:
What Does Economies Of Scale Mean?
The increase in efficiency of production as the number of goods being produced increases. Typically, a company that achieves economies of scale lowers the average cost per unit through increased production since fixed costs are shared over an increased number of goods.
There are two types of economies of scale:
-External economies - the cost per unit depends on the size of the industry, not the firm.
-Internal economies - the cost per unit depends on size of the individual firm.
Investopedia explains Economies Of Scale
Economies of scale gives big companies access to a larger market by allowing them to operate with greater geographical reach. For the more traditional (small to medium) companies, however, size does have its limits. After a point, an increase in size (output) actually causes an increase in production costs. This is called "diseconomies of scale".
That’s gobbledygook economics, thank you. The economics of scale I refer to hews closer to Darwin’s law of natural selection, to the “survival of the fittest.” In this wise, the dominance of the big and the mighty over the small, the puny. The rule of the jungle, the kingship of the predator. So dismissed the Don
Yeah, the Brobdingnagian reigning and ruling over the Lilliputian.
That was me, my second cup of café espresso tripping my imagination to Gulliver’s travels.
Spare us of your classical pretentions. So snapped Don Luisito. The simplest analogy here is of the small fingerlings ending up in the belly of the big fish in the small pond. The big feeding on the small. That is the old public market vis-à-vis giant SM in downtown San Fernando.
So what’s all that press release of Oca all about?
Sweet lemoning. Sugar coating. Lip service. Clearly amounting to nothing. In plain terms, consuelo de bobo.
No, that was not me.