Random ideas

PILIPINO SEGURADO

Ike Señeres

MAIDEN ISSUE: Hello everyone, this is the maiden issue of my new weekly column “Pilipino Segurado”. This is where I will write my random ideas about how we could secure our country and our people now and for the future. On the practical side, I will also write about projects that are already being implemented, beyond the realm of ideas.

THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS: We celebrated the Centennial of our Republic in 1998, and that was 16 years ago. That means we have 84 years to go before we celebrate our Bicentennial. It is sad to note that after 116 years of political independence, we have not liberated ourselves from the economic bondage of poverty, hunger, disease and homelessness. Not unless we plan ahead, we will still have these problems 84 years from now.

A SECURE COUNTRY: My concept of a secure country goes beyond the existing definition of “national security”. Not unless we are able to control poverty, hunger, disease and homelessness, we will never have a secure country. But that is not all that we have to do. We still have to increase our productivity and create more value added, in order to have a strong economy. If our economy is weak, we could not have a secure country. Take not that of what I said that we should control these four problems, but reduction would be a better goal.

THINKING OUT OF THE BOX: In order to plan ahead for the future, we should not be contented with what we have now, in terms of public infrastructure and public services. We should think out of the box, to be able to depart from the old thinking that has not worked for the past 116 years. We should challenge everything that has not worked, and we should broaden our minds to discover what could possibly work.

CLOUD COMPUTING: The bad news is, many companies invested too much in cloud computing. The good news is--- any company could now have their own virtual data center without spending too much money. What this also means is that workstations or other dedicated machines do not need their own built-in processors because the processing power could be done by the servers at the data centers.

CHEAPER DIALYSIS COSTS: After a long search, I have finally found a “mad scientist” who accepted my challenge to invent a dialysis machine that will be cloud-based. I had many such “mad scientists” who worked for me before, real people who are like the fictional Doc Brown (Back to the Future), Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Bruce Wayne (Batman). In a way, this new invention will be like a “thin client”. Actually, this is not a new idea because that is how the old workstations used to work before, connected to and dependent on the mainframes.

POINT OF SALE HANDHELDS: I am not a mad scientist, but allow me to invent a new name for a not-so-new device. POSH is my invented name for the handheld versions of POST, the better known Point-Of-Sale-Terminals. POSH looks like the ordinary credit card swipe machine. Yes, POSH could also swipe credit cards, but it could do more. Mind you, it could even sell electronic tickets to any activity or event. It rhymes with PUSH, because it is actually a push device.

DIESEL OIL FROM COFFEE CRUMBS: Believe it or not, diesel oil could be crushed out of spent (used) coffee crumbs, the ones that are discarded by the kilos by popular coffee shops. A few weeks back, Dr. Pepz Cunanan asked me to talk to these coffee shops to ask for their discarded (used) paper cups, because he wants to use these to grow seedlings for tree farming. I agreed with him that it was a good idea, but I suggested to him that we should also ask for the coffee crumbs, to use these as planting medium. Then this idea of extracting diesel oil came along.

OUTSOURCING AND PARTNERING: I interviewed Ms. Christine Reyes of the Philippine Disaster Relief Foundation (PDRF), and from her I learned the advantages of good outsourcing and partnering. With a core staff of less than a dozen people, PDRF is able to do the work that would probably require hundreds of employees. The secret according to her is to work with partner organizations. I am looking forward to partner with PDRF with many projects, starting with the replanting of mangroves in areas hit by natural disasters.

FRESH WATER MANGROVES: Does anyone know of any variety of mangroves that grows in fresh water? The common notion is that mangroves could only grow in salty water or brackish water. I read about some successful experiments in Florida where mangroves already grew in fresh water simulations. Mr. Nanding Juan has already agreed to try it in his Lake Island Resort along Laguna Lake.

TREE FARMING: Mr. Joe Reynolds says that we should not stop at “tree planting”, because much more is needed to grow a tree. I fully agree with him, and that is why I suggest that we now call it “tree farming”, to mean the full cycle of planting, growing and nurturing. I also fully agree with him that we should have bio-diverse “tree farms”, instead of single specie “tree plantations”. This is the best approach to replant our forests.

COOPERATIVE INSURANCE: Mr. Ojie Angeles thinks that fraternal organizations are providing a good service to their members by giving them access to affordable insurance with good coverage. He is now studying how this concept could be developed for the benefit of coop members, both for life and non-life coverage. It seems that farmers who are coop members would need additional crop insurance coverage, to supplement what they are getting from the government.

BANTAY GOBYERNO: Join our online group for good governance. Just send an email to the address below. Good governance is just a means to an end, towards a secure country.

Email bantaygobyerno- subscribe@yahoogroups.com or send text +639083159262