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Cedf-it: Five years of impressive development
Michael Alan Hamlin
That began with a unified, multi-sectoral vision
A little over five years ago my colleagues and I were in Cebu for a special conference entitled, “Cebu is IT.” The conference was special for a number of reasons. First, it was a collaborative undertaking by the government, academe, non-government organizations, and the private sector. Second, it was purposeful, meant to identify do-able strategies for Cebu to leverage the IT and ICT sectors as an engine of sustainable economic development and investment.
Third, the action plan the meeting generated - with the objective of enhancing both the quality and quantity of human resources available to the IT and ICT sectors - found form and substance in the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information Technology, or Cedf-it. Set up shortly after the “Cebu is IT” conference in part with funding provided by the United States Agency for International Development, Cedf-it is one of those rare examples demonstrating that conferences don’t have to be mere gabfests. They can produce real, and really felt, change.
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Posted
11/22/2006 10:33:54 AM |
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Hey APEC Leaders: Don’t wear hats!
Paul Bograd
Well I have been away from AsianPundit for some few weeks now. No excuses, just a backload of professional work (As in work that I get paid for.), some travel, a terrific reunion with my first political client and his wife on a cruise in Vietnam and a slight touch of malaise about the state of public political interaction here in Asia.
But as they say in the movie Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. He’s Back!
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Posted
11/20/2006 9:29:08 PM |
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Lifesaving medicines
Orly Mercado
Something for your blood pressure
Anyone who has high blood pressure knows he has to take his medication daily - for life. And if he lives in a developing country like the Philippines, he knows it can be expensive. So when the government does something to make inexpensive drugs available, and a pharmaceutical giant sues it, it can be stressful enough to give one a stroke.
It’s nothing new. Parallel importation has been done before, albeit on a smaller scale. But now that the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC) plans to buy one billion pesos worth of meds to keep Filipinos from dying from cardio-vascular attacks, it gets hailed to court.
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Posted
11/19/2006 10:36:37 PM |
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What’s going on here?
Michael Alan Hamlin
Police should seek the truth, not prosecute the innocent
Two months ago, I wrote about the tragic passing of Delia Gutierrez, a highly respected publishing executive who at the time of her death was publisher and chairman of MediaG8way. MediaG8way publishes ComputerWorld, PCWorld, and Enterprise magazines in the Philippines. Ms. Gutierrez, the wife of Ibarra Gutierrez who is editor-in-chief of MediaG8way publications, was found bleeding from multiple stab wounds September 6 in the lavatory of her office.
The circumstances of Ms. Gutierrez’s death, I wrote, were unclear. Today, they remain unclear. Media reports have indicated that Ms. Gutierrez died from multiple stab wounds to her upper body and two additional wounds to her neck. On the surface, these wounds seem to suggest that Ms. Gutierrez was violently attacked in her office and left for dead.
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Posted
11/14/2006 10:48:16 PM |
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Being Secretary of Defense
Orly Mercado
Politics and Job Security
The US Secretary of Defense has become the first casualty of the recent shift in the political tectonic plates in Washington DC. Almost everybody is analyzing it. We all have opinions about it. But there is yet another Secretary of Defense who has found his job on the line because of political developments.
The Secretary of National Defense of the Philippines Avelino Cruz has recently resigned. This after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's efforts at amending the Constitution were dealt a serious blow by the Supreme Court. Secretary Cruz reportedly had a hand in the decision. I am not conversant with the facts of this controversy. As a former Defense Secretary myself, I have avoided making any comment on the matter. I have avoided being drawn into partisan political discussions since being stationed abroad. But as sufficient time has passed since I myself resigned from that post in 2001, and quiet work in the academe allows me enough time to ponder things, I decided to share my thoughts on this issue.
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Posted
11/10/2006 11:55:19 AM |
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Insights, indeed
Michael Alan Hamlin
NeoIT report provides little that is new other than flawed analysis
NeoIT, a U.S.-based consulting firm whose expertise lies in assisting firms that wish to outsource business processes, released its latest report on place competitiveness last week. Titled “Global City Competitiveness,” the report concludes that seven Indian cities, led by Delhi NCR, are the most attractive destinations for investors in business process outsourcing (BPO) services. They are followed by Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, and Shanghai, in that order, rounding out the top-ten BPO sites in the world.
A read of the report, which was published in Offshore Insights, a monthly newsletter published by NeoIT, immediately provides two impressions. First, it largely consists of basic conclusions about investment decision-making that have been drawn by others previously, so there is little, if anything, new of substance. Second, the research methodology that drove the research on which the report’s competitive analysis is based is seriously flawed. More to the point, it is surprisingly, and dismayingly, sloppy.
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Posted
11/8/2006 10:22:22 AM |
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