BUSINESS ethics call for corporate social responsibility (CSR) where public interest is given top priority. One Filipino company has been showing the business world the way to do it, and it’s not just through talk, but through action.

At Lamoiyan Corporation, maker of Hapee Toothpaste, about 30 percent of the employees are hearing-impaired. Other people with similar handicaps are also accommodated. But realizing that there are still many more people outside the company needing help, Lamoiyan took it upon itself to support three schools and 14 centers that provide basic sign language courses to the hearing-impaired. Upon graduation, some students are sent to college as scholars, while others are hired by the company.

“The hearing-impaired number close to 500,000 in the Philippines. Only 40,000 of them get schooling,” revealed Dr. Cecilio K. Pedro, Lamoiyan Corporation president, in a short speech delivered during the Leadership Conference Series 2 presented recently by De La Salle University, PLDT-Smart Foundation, and Smart Infinity at Sofitel Philippine Plaza. (The main speaker during the said conference was former British prime minister Tony Blair.)
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TONY Blair knows what he is talking about. As prime minister of the United Kingdom for 10 years (assuming the office at the young age of 43), Blair knew what it was to lead a nation. Now envoy of the Quartet (United Nations, European Union, the United States and Russia) to the Middle East, Blair has become an expert in negotiation too, such that president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo wants him to help out in achieving peace in Mindanao.

So everyone at Sofitel Philippine Plaza’s Harbor Garden Tent last Monday afternoon for the Leadership Conference Series 2 presented by De La Salle University, PLDT-Smart Foundation, and Smart Infinity, was all ears as Blair shared the lessons he learned as a leader. Although he learned these while serving in the government, these lessons can also apply to people in the business world.

1. If you want to change the world, you have to understand it. If you want to understand the world, analyze how it is, not how you want it to be. “The world moves and moves fast. We live in an era of low predictability,” says Blair.
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THERE COMES a time in every home-based business’ life when the entrepreneur is faced with a dilemma: To open a store or not? To have a real office outside the home or not? To grow big or stay small?

Such is the dilemma currently faced by partners Analyn Arce and Joan Runes of The Peach Box, a home-based specialty food shop. Since the partners started the business in February 2006, majority of their clients would phone them and order party food trays like baked macaroni, fettucine carbonara, and chicken pastel and kesong puti spread.

Starting with only P60,000 in capital, The Peach Box steadily gained clients, which only started among family and friends and bazaar/tiangge regulars. Now, people they don’t know who have sampled their food at parties or have heard of them through word of mouth call them for orders. To make it easier for people to get the food items, The Peach Box opened take out kiosks in tandem with the family-owned Arce Dairy (which sells ice cream and milk at the same kiosks) at Greenhills Theater Mall in 2006 and at Landmark Trinoma in 2008.
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HURRAY FOR PIGS. Swine wastewater is put to good use in the 1.1-megawatt biogas waste-to-energy project at Robina 12 Farm in San Miguel, Bulacan. A project of Hacienda Bio-Energy Corporation (HBC) and Philippine Bio-Sciences Company, Inc. (PhilBIO), the said project, which uses biogas recovered from advanced anaerobic digestion, is the largest biogas renewable energy project in the country.

In fact, the project is expected to capture gases equivalent to approximately 42,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, which would otherwise be released to the atmosphere, further hastening global warming.

According to PhilBIO, the Robina 12 Farm project uses the next generation Covered In-Ground Anaerobic Reactor (CIGAR) technology. This ensures higher quantity and quality biogas. “The CIGAR is coupled with an on-site electric power generation plant utilizing the captured biogas (tested at 70 percent methane gas by volume) as fuel to generate electricity,” says PhilBIO in a statement.

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FOODIES know that the best cakes can be ordered not from commercial bakeshops, but from little home bakeshops run by young moms, where you need to order a day or two in advance and pick up your order yourself. These are specialty cakes with rich fresh ingredients which can give hotels a run for their money.

One such bakeshop is Taza Platito. Owned by Tina Concepcion-Diaz, Taza Platito (which means cup and saucer in Filipino) has been serving up cake orders since 1991 to individuals and corporate clients—caterers and cafes included.

After graduating from Ateneo with a degree in communication arts, Tina realized she didn’t see herself entering the broadcasting industry. But one thing she knew was that she liked baking and cooking. And so she enrolled in courses taught by gurus Sylvia Reynoso Gala, Dorothy Ferreira and Heny Sison. After learning the basics, she went on to experiment and made her own product line. She borrowed P5,000 from her dad to buy ingredients and equipment like baking pans and a handheld mixer, used their oven at home, and opened for business out of the family home.
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