By Digoy Fernandez

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), as many of its modern adherents agree, is not just about setting aside a certain amount each year to be dispensed with as a gift-giving exercise. The genre has embraced almost all aspects of a corporate entity and its various publics. Today, I will dwell on the tribe many corporations have viewed with a bit of trepidation, the growing ranks of senior citizens. And all because of mandatory discounts or freebies that either national or local regulations allow for this hallowed group that has seen its prime passing by.

My friend and colleague in this paper, Mon Farolan — who is also an alumnus of the Asian Institute of Management, aside from his storied history in both the military and the diplomatic worlds — has long dwelt on one particular aspect of the law: the 20 percent discount given to senior citizens for medicines and for restaurant purchases.
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A while back, we wrote about the air-powered car that has gained some credence because of the much-needed backing of the big group Tata of India, a conglomerate that also recently absorbed the Land Rover and Jaguar operations from a cash-strapped Ford Motor Company.

Now here comes another motive source that has been bruited about for some time: the water-powered car. However, the people behind this project claim that their car runs on more than just clean water. Supposedly, it can also run on salt water, soft drinks, alcohol, etc. Imagine this scene evolving in front of a bar or nightspot: A proud owner of a water-powered car goes in to partake of his favorite libations and then, feeling the call of nature, goes out to his car to empty himself of waste fluids directly into the gas tank. Ugh!

The company that developed the car, Genepax, is now the happy beneficiary of attention from prime car companies Honda and Toyota. If they are interested in this technology, this means that there is something to it after all.

Meanwhile, we recall a Filipino inventor named Daniel Dingel who also touted a water-powered car using roughly the same technical process as proposed for the Genepax car.

Whatever happened to inventor Dingel?

Well, it seems that time and his reticence has passed him by. I actually met the fellow and he made me go over his car, smell the exhaust (no fumes!) coming out of the rear pipe, and so forth. My friend and I, both retired bankers, encouraged Dingel to sign an agreement with one or two big car companies after protecting himself with the appropriate patents. It seems that the paranoid inventor feared having his invention stolen and the technology mined to his detriment. Well, as we said, the train passed by and no one will certainly talk to Dingel now that enough research and development work has gone into non-traditional means of automobile motivation.

Watch the following feed which shows both the Genepax car and an old Youtube video of the Dingel car.