Shut up, Get up and Do Something!

This journal is for my course in Corporate Social Responsiveness (COSORES). I'll be writing about my learnings in the classroom together with my experience in the Service Learning Project.

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Going Green!

           Businesses owners argue about how going green can affect their competitiveness.  hey think that going green will hinder them from being competitive and from earning profits 

Contrary to conventional thinking, going green and being environmentally cautious is actually better for the business because it generates cost savings, promotes innovation, command premium pricing, enhances brand image and it differentiates you from your competitors. Now, let me go through these advantages one by one. :)

generates cost savings - going green can mean that the company will conserve more energy by using less electricity or by using products that will generate energy conservation.  Using such products may cost more than the ordinary ones (e.g. normal light bulbs vs led light) but in the long run it would benefit the company more.

promotes innovation - going green promotes innovation in such a way that managers or employees would be challenged to think of new ideas and ways that could mitigate and solve issues concerning the environment.  An example mentioned in class was the invention of the Toyota Prius, which is currently the most environment friendly car because it does not emit CO2.

command premium pricing - companies who are environmentally friendly can actually command premium pricing because they can easily say that their products did not go through the usual mass production using harmful chemicals and the like.  They can say that the process by which they manufacture their products has higher costs since they used non-toxic methods and chemicals.  An example of this would be The Body Shop and the organic food stores.  

enhances brand image and differentiates from competitors - consumers can easily remember and identify your brand since being green means being different from the other brands.  Being green advocates that the company cares for nature and the environment hence consumers would be more enticed to patronize your product. 

I personally think that going green is not easy, it would require a huge amount of investment, time and effort for the company to achieve the state of being "green" or environmentally friendly.  The company should consider a lot of factors, costs, benefits, advantages and disadvantages, furthermore they should also consider the time that they would spend changing their ways.  

I believe that in the long run, going green would really be beneficial to the company as it would allow to be sustainable and it would also save on their costs.  

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Service Learning - 2nd Visit

November 16, 2012 -- We visited Kaunlaran Community Support Group (KCGS) Daycare once again to start implementing our SL Proposal.  However, the group was once again incomplete since Gaston was not able to come with us. 

We left Binondo around 9 in the morning to go to Caloocan, it approximately took us an hour and a half to get there. Basically, what we did for our second visit was to paint the daycare center to add more life and light to it.  We painted the gate with red (the paint turned out to be in a lighter shade, so it turned almost pink) the color of the daycare, the back of the room was painted with the shade of Aquamarine to brighten it up and we repainted the tables and chairs with ivory.  Painting the daycare center was not in the initial proposal but after our first visit we have assessed that it woud be better if we paint the daycare center first before setting up the corner.  Therefore, we did paint the daycare center and we will set up the corner in our 3rd and last visit on November 30, 2012.

The experience was really fun and fulfilling.  There was five of us (since Gaston was not able to go), so we divided the work into two, some of us will paint the wall and the others would paint the gate.  So, Jeff, Mirze and I started painting the wall, while KimWong and KimTiu paint the gate and Kuya Bong (KimWong's driver) started painting the chairs.  It was my first time to paint a wall so at first I though that it was going to be hard, but it turned out the it's just easy, we used rollers so it was really easy we just have to make sure that the paint is even.  After painting the wall, we started helping Kuya Bong in painting the tables and chairs.  

We finished at around 3 in the afternoon, by then all of us were already tired but nonetheless all of us felt happy about what we have accomplished.  So for our next visit we would just put in the corner for the kids :D

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Inconvenient Truth

I have watched this documentary for countless of times now and its effect towards me is still the same.  I feel the importance, urgency, and warning in the delivery of the message.  I feel Al Gore's concerns about the environment, growing effects of global warming to our lives, ecosystem and the overall environment.  What really strikes me most about global warming is how fast is happened and how its effects are very visible in our society right now. 

Global Warming and the Philippines

Global warming is a worldwide problem; all of us have contributed to this phenomenon, hence all of us are affected by it.  In the Philippines, in particular, we can all feel the climate change, hotter summers, stronger typhoons, more frequent flash floods and other natural disasters, together with the more polluted environment.  These consequences are a direct effect of the damages we have done to the environment.  

I think that that greatest damage we’ve done in the Philippines is the deforestation due to illegal logging, the lack of waste management and the different pollutions in the environment.  All of these causes the flash floods, the erosion and these heightens the effects of the natural disasters.  For instance, we’ve never experienced super storms prior to this year, storms that had nearly flooded the whole Metro Manila.  Also, in line with the effects of global warming, we are now experiencing hotter summers as compared before, I have also noticed that our rainy season has moved from June – July to later parts of the year

Photos from Typhoon Ondoy

*All images are take from google

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Unethical Advertising

As discussed in class, there are many forms of unethical advertisements. Aside from the examples shown in class, I also did my own research in the internet and found these unethical advertisements. 

*taken from http://fazirc02.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/examples-of-unethical-advertising/

This billboard advertises the new color of PlayStatiion Portable (PSP) -- white.  They portrayed it in such a way that there is a black individual and there's an albino (caucasian) female who is sort of 'killing' the man.  

This advertisement promotes racism and discrimination.  

It shows that the albino or caucasian has more power over the colored individual, promoting that caucasians are the superior race and that they are better.  It also promotes fighting against other races, it depicts that it is 'OK' to fight with other people who are not of the same race or color.  

This ad is very offensive and it violates the ethics of virtue, deontology and utilitarianism.  Discriminating against other races is clearly not a virtuous act, it goes against the virtue of respecting and treating other people fairly.  For deontology, this ad shows injustice towards the colored race since they are depicted as an inferior race, which can easily be bullied by the other race.  Lastly, in line with utilitarianism, seeing this ad is majorly offensive to a lot of people regardless of race. It might also be the cause of many fights among different races.  Further, if children see this ad, they might think that it is ok to pick fights with other people, especially other races.

*taken from google

This is a Russian version of the advertisement poster of Axe Dark Temptation. The ad, shows us the image of a chocolate man (an ordinary man who used Axe Dark Temptation, hence becoming the chocolate man) with a lot of women surrounding him, further the image also shows that the man is being eaten by the sexy women.  The first thing that I though of when I saw this ad is it depicts sex. It somehow tells the message that "If you use Axe, you will be irresistible, you can attract all the woman you want and you will like to have sex with you." 

This poster is unethical because first, it promotes sex; second, it shows women as a sexual object; third, it demeans the value of women.  This ad wil be offensive to women and the message itself is very discriminatory and demeaning.  Because of these resons, the same violations of the ethical views mentioned above applies for this ad (virtue, deontology and utilitarianism). 

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Poor Working Conditions & Foxconn

It is not the first time that I've heard of this terrible story about the poor working conditions in several factories in China.I am actually not surprised about the working conditions, since China is a known place for cheap labor and reason behind it is that they really treat their workers poorly and most of them engage in child labor. 

The thing that really bothered me about the videos we watched is that:   1.  how come these kind of conditions still exists in our modern times, we see China's big improvements in its economy and infrastructures but the working conditions in the provincial factories are stills so bad?! 

2.  hasn't the government taken any regulations or employee rights protection to assure the employee's safety? 3.  how come big companies such as Apple, Nokia, etc., still partners with these kinds of company? 4.  How can the employers sleep through the night knowing that they are earning billions in the expense of the lives and futures of their employees? I just think that it's really tragic how people can be blinded by greed, by the love for power and money. It's sad how people would think that money is everything and think that it is more important than treating other people well. :( 

I also think that big companies like Apple should stop partnering with companies like Foxconn, since it would be bad publicity for their business and it would seem that they are in favor of how Foxconn is treating their employees. Yes, Apple does benefit from the lower manufacturing costs and cheaper labor costs of Foxconn, hence they should also be liable for the lives of the employees who are terribly damaged by the poor working conditions. 

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Film Showing: The Lorax

The Lorax is actually a really really good film that talks about how businesses affects the environment. In a nutshell, it tells us about being responsible and liable for the actions that we are making. All of us needs to take care of the environment because all of us directly and indirectly benefits from it. Almost all of our raw materials come from these natural resources, hence we cannot just simply abuse these because they will eventually ran out and that will pose as a bigger problem. In addition to this, we should always respect mother nature and all other living things, we should not be greedy and think of our own success alone, we must remember that our actions does not affect us alone, it creates a ripple effect to those around us. 

This quote means that unless one person has the courage to do something, to take action about something that he believes in and is fighting for, then nothing will change. Ted’s actions and efforts made it possible to change everyone’s concept of trees, thus making a big difference in the community.

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Assessment for the First Visit

Kaunlaran Community Support group is located in Bagong Silang, Caloocan. For our first visit we were accompanied by Kuya Darren from COSCA, and we went there via KimWong's car and it took us about an hour and a half to get there. 

The daycare center is located just outside a residential house, the size is around 3/4 of a normal room in Yuch. The outside wall has faded paintings and moss and the some parts of the inner wall has faded paint and the others has no paint at all. There's also a wooden wall (looks new and no paint) where the learning materials are posted. I think the chairs are ok, but the paint is already faded. There are 2 shelves that are very old and the contents are not organized. The teacher's desk is already old as well.  

According to Kuya Darren, the teacher/admin/owner of the house, the daycare really needs a kiddie learning corner to cater to the 3-4 year olds. So we will go through as planned, we're gonna make the corner but the place really needs modification. "Sayang naman kung gagawin yung kiddie/learning corner if we don't fix the other things, our efforts might just go to wastes."  Kims, Gaston and I think that for the implementation would take us 2 visits. One for the modification of the place and the other one is for the building of the corner.

However, since there was only four of us who made the ocular, we are still going to talk about if we can gather enough resources and funds for the little modification of the place. And we would also have to ask our other group mates if they want to do it or not.  Basically we just want to make the place more children friendly, paint the walls and put a cork boards on the new wooden wall so that they won't have to fill it with tumb tacks when they put up posters.  

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Photos from the Ocular. 

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SL Proposal

There are 6 of us in a group and each of us has our own perspectives and ideas. Our first task is to come to a consensus as to what we want to do and find an organization to partner with. 

Most of us want to partner with EconOrg, since 5 of us are officers of the said organization and there is a socio-civic activity that was planned for the term. However, there are still no concrete plans yet and the SL proposal deadline is already fast approaching so we opted to look for other options. 

A discussion about V-Tech (a mini computer learning toy) was posted in our FB groups and that's where the basis for our SL proposal came from. We ended  up discussing about donating old books, learning materials and toys to a daycare center, and that we would set up a learning corner for the kids. 

From there we formulated our initial SL proposal, which is to tie up with Brightwoods, a school in Pampanga. We partner with them and help them conduct their outreach. However, their implementation of the outreach has no definite time yet and they usually conduct it during December, a time frame that is really not suitable for us. So once again, we have to look for another partner organization.

We were left to partner with COSCA, the good thing is after sending the letter of request, Ms. Marietta Guanzon, the Service Learning Coordinator, agreed to help us and partnered us with Kaunlaran Community Support Group (KCGS), it was very fortunate that the daycare center there is in need of a learning and playing corner, hence it was the perfect partner organization for us. 

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Golden rule pt.2

"DO NO HARM & DO THE MOST GOOD YOU COULD POSSIBLY DO."

This is actually the first time I've heard this as the Golden Rule (refer to my fist post about Golden Rule for the Golden Rule that I actually know and grew up with). And I think that this version of the GR is much more demanding as compared to the more common version. 

Let's take a deeper look at both phrases:

DO NO HARM - this is very understandable and self-explanatory. This phrase is actually in line with the other version, only without the emphasis on having it done to yourself.   

DO THE MOST GOOD YOU COULD POSSIBLY DO - This phrase is very demanding. How do you measure the "MOST GOOD"?? I think that this is indeed very subjective and relative, applying this would definitely be subject to interpretation and it would also depend on the given circumstance and situation. 

Given this, i think that this version of the golden rule is very shady and  it would be interpreted in such a way, "different strokes for different folks"

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We were discussing the basis for ethics in class and I think that the GOLDEN RULE is a good basis for it. The golden rule has been taught by Jesus and I think that Buddha has also taught this to his students, anyway, the origin of the golden rule is not really what I want to talk about here. Instead I would like to focus on why i think that the golden rule is a good basis for ethics and our actions. 

The thing about the Golden Rule (GR) is that we get to put ourselves in other peoples' shoes. If we really apply the GR then every time we do something we would first think it through, think how will it affect other people and if we do the same to ourselves, how would we react, are we going to be happy, sad, furious or what. This is a good way to assess the basis for our decisions, choices and actions.

Another thing about the GR is that it goes by the principle of Karma. Karma as defined by my Oxford American Dictionary is the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences. Many people, regardless of their faith and religion, believe in karma, generally it makes people afraid of doing something bad because bad karma will come upon them and it would make their lives miserable. Therefore, living by the GR would make people do what is right. 

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Course: Corporate Social Responsiveness

COSORES is one of the electives that I have chosen for my degree in ACM. Personally, I think that in doing business, we should always be ethical, go by the rules and never swindle anyone just to achieve success. Therefore, I believe that this course can help me understand the application of ethics in business more. 

Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR has been gaining popularity for quite some time now. Business men are becoming more aware of their participation in the betterment of society, as well as the ethical issues and concerns that they may face in their dealings. 

In line with this course, I hope that I will have a better understanding of what ethics is all about and how it is applied in our daily lives, whether in school, in the work place or in our own businesses. I hope that this course will help me in becoming more socially responsible.