Maniolas

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines can learn energy efficiency measures from European countries, which have successfully put in place such practices in their respective territories, the European Union’s Ambassador to the Philippines Guy Ledoux said in an interview with The STAR. He noted for instance that the European Commission supports the refurbishment of energy inefficient buildings as a strategy to improve energy efficiency. The European Commission also supports ways to simplify access to financing to improve efficiency of buildings.  “The Philippines may consider adopting similar key measures as that of the EU,” Ledoux said. In Europe, energy efficiency measures include having energy performance certificates included in all advertisements for the sale or rental of buildings, the implementation of heating and air conditioning systems and that all new buildings must be “nearly zero energy buildings” or those that have very high energy performance and that the low amount of energy required must come from renewable sources. In Europe, energy distributors or retail energy sales companies have to achieve 1.5-percent energy savings per year through the implementation of energy efficience measures, Ledoux said.  “EU countries can opt to achieve the same level of savings through other means such as improving the efficiency of heating systems, installing double glazed windows or insulating roofs.  In the case of the Philippines, installation of efficient air cooling systems,” he said. Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Large companies, meanwhile, will make audits of their energy consumption to help them identify ways to reduce Read More …

Yesterday was the celebration of Easter Sunday. There were many children’s parties, with the Easter bunny there to entertain everyone, as well as lead the Easter Egg hunt. There was also storybook reading for the tots in attendance. This reminded us of the many fairy tales and allegories we have listened to ever since we were children. In fact, we have used allegories to explain our investment strategies, such as the story of the Hare and the Tortoise (see The Hare and the Tortoise, April 5, 2010). This time, we will use Goldilocks and the Three Bears for our investment lesson. Tasting porridge In this tale, Goldilocks was walking in a forest when she chanced upon a house. She knocked on the door but no one answered. However, she went in anyway and saw three bowls of porridge on a table. After walking through the forest, Goldilocks was naturally hungry. Thus, she proceeded to taste the porridge, starting from the first bowl. After tasting it, she exclaimed, “This porridge is too hot!” She then tried the porridge in the second bowl, and said, “This porridge is too cold!” Not satisfied with the first 2 bowls, she took a sip of the porridge in the last bowl. She then happily declared that “This porridge is just right!” Since she was very hungry, she then gobbled it all up. Unbeknownst to her, these 3 bowls of porridge belonged to Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear, respectively. Hot and cold This is Read More …

DIEGO Eduardo Granizo, president and general manager of Coca-Cola Philippines A Kenneth Cobonpue dining table in Chile marked Diego Eduardo Granizo’s first encounter with the Philippines. Granizo, the newly appointed president and general manager of Coca-Cola Philippines, admits that he barely knew anything about the country when his wife chanced upon the table in 2008. “When we were in Chile, my wife fell in love with this one particular dining table, and she said, you know this is by a designer named Kenneth Cobonpue. And little did we know he was a Filipino designer. Actually, she even bought a couple of things that are from a Filipino designer,” Granizo tells the Inquirer. It thus came as no surprise that, when Granizo, his wife and two kids arrived in the country, the first thing they did was to travel to Cebu to visit Cobonpue’s showroom. Granizo, who is turning 46 this month, took over the helm of Coca-Cola Philippines last January, following a stint in Germany, where he served as the commercial strategy and operations director for the beverage company. Prior to that, Granizo was the franchise operation and key account director for Coca-Cola in Chile from 2009 and 2010. He also served as general manager for the Ecuador operations in 2007. Transitions The Ecuadorian in Granizo immediately felt at home in the Philippines, whose culture, language, weather and, to some extent, food, are fairly similar to what he grew up with. Even his family seems to agree. “I usually gauge Read More …

The timing of the DOTC/LTO’s “no plate, no travel policy” couldn’t have been worse – on April 1st in fact – reinforcing perceptions that fools must be running the Transportation department. Only heaven knows why the bright boys at DOTC decided to implement the policy at a time when people need their cars to travel for the Holy Week and go home to their provinces or other destinations outside of the metropolis.  Everyone knows it took the LTO so many years to come up with a new design for license plates and even then, the backlog continues not only in the issuance of new license plates, but even registration stickers. This really “smart move” puts the burden on vehicle owners especially the new ones who now find themselves taking, a “staycation” instead of the five-day vacation that they have been anticipating. Per LTO directive, those who are not able to show registration papers or documents to prove that they are undergoing the seven-day registration process would be fined P10,000. On the other hand, those who drive unregistered vehicles would be made to pay P1,000. Even if owners have registration papers, it’s still a lot of hassle to be pulled over by LTO agents or deputized enforcers, a number of whom are still afflicted with the “kotong” mentality. As usual, we hear a lot of finger pointing and blame shifting, with the LTO claiming that the culprits are Metro Manila car dealers who either allegedly hoard applications before submitting them in Read More …