THE COSTS ARE STILL HIGH.
Saturday, September 9, 2023
Wednesday, September 6, 2023
SITUATIONER LAS PINAS 7:45 AM: MONSTROUS TRAFFIC, BOTTLE NECK IN MAIN ROAD
JUST A DAY AFTER THE CONTINUAL RAINS IN THE METRO, AS SPOTTED IN LAS PINAS CITY, TRAFFIC HAS BEGUN BY THE WAYFARE.
The buildup was seen this morning around 7:45- 8:00 am, with cars on a bumper-to-bumper stall, while motorcycle riders occupy half, of the main drive space along CAA road in Las Pinas City.
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
CONSUMER RIGHTS REGARDING RETURNS MUST BE SIMPLIFIED
When
buyers don’t get what they want, what is the best recourse of action?
EVER SINCE THE THRIVE OF E-COMMERCE, a good number of consumers probably would have
thought that shopping is made easy, since now, one does not have to go outside, take a chance on the weather, make it through the snail traffic just to buy an item or load up on a grocery haul.
Admittingly, the goals of door-to-door delivery for e-commerce platforms are actually a sweet concoction of idealism and best-effort help on the economy-- to treat customers like royalty while earning profits on the side. At least these are what can be assumed via the positioning of most e-commerce sites around the time of the pandemic.
But it is never
without falter, remiss, or misgivings. And the fault sometimes is not in the app
but in the very sellers or merchants of prestigious local shopping sites, which
this writer actually has come to learn about.
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM
The faults
in the falter, just to clarify, and be concrete about local shopping
experiences, are in seizing up on the actual items received by a customer, and the way
returns are handled by a merchant.
Below are the
weaknesses of e-commerce shopping sites that can be attributed to their massive
contact points to reach the customer and the bias of sellers in ensuring
customer satisfaction when it comes to product returns and quality.
THE PRODUCT POSTS DO NOT MATCH CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS.
Product
posts from the point of view of a shopper must not only be picture-perfect but
detail-oriented as possible. But while shopping is supposed to be for the
need or enjoyment of customers, some sellers, unfortunately, post products that
they cannot deliver.
Hence sharing an example, of online shopping circumstances:
>>>> A shaded, tent tarpaulin order, which did not arrive, and what came instead was a t-shirt.
>>>> In another instance, a shirt also
came that did not fall within my order-scope, but was delivered nevertheless.
>>>> In another example, was an order of a mini-rice cooker but what came actually was a vague plastic part that looked like a a gadget stand.
>>>> Also to share another online retail experience, is when a table has been
ordered from a local shopping site, supposedly a second-hand unused item that instantly
crumbled once assembled, hence the need for further repair to make the ordered item functional.
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
This Is Not a Simple Flowchart for Writers
Soon in an article, the unglamorous life of writers. Beyond the gaze of the readers' swoon. Below is a flowchart teaser on the relevant article forthcoming here on News Review Philippines.
The photo above shows an insider example of how writers are exploited locally, in one or two situations, that have become commonplace whether amateur or professional, and also experienced by communication practitioners.
Chart created with Canva.
Authored by the writer, Anna Liza VB. August 29, 2023.
Thank you.
YOU MIGHT WANT TO READ THE LATEST POST, IN RELATION TO THIS CONTENT: "The Unglamorous Life of Writers", published yesterday September 9, 2023.
To comment or send a rejoinder: newsreviewph@gmail.com.
THE PITFALLS OF SOCIAL MEDIA YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN MISSING ON
It is totally
overrated.
By this time about 70 to 90 million
Filipinos is the number range for the actual social media users here in the
Philippines alone, and the numbers can still vary and improve depending on the
timeline.
With the way things have been, social
media seems to have become the “be all and end all of media”, since the onslaught
of the many challenges that taunted the industry, when media
stations have closed down, while some are still struggling to survive.
These recent
developments that have affected the media landscape, such as the shutting down
of networks and companies, whether permanently or simply posturing for further ambiguity-- as modern entities of news and communication; and purveyors of entertainment, seem to have underlined its lack of boundaries or finiteness in establishing its stakes in the industry.
Moreso, it appears to have been forced to
do a "transformation", without enough breathing space to study the normalcy of how ordinary
netizens consume information on mass media.
Like a funnel and into a pitfall of
further depthtitude, local media have become icebergs while many are blind-sighted in their solutions to survive while morphing and rebranding; testing further the possibilities of venture into other forms beyond print
and broadcast. Such is their aggressiveness to encompass other multimedia formats, shattering rattle media
formalities, and making way for supreme interconnectivity.
There are many consequences that surround
these developments.
Media companies also have easy prey to the influence and clamor for further social media brazenness and
ineptitude that could cloud their mission/vision and also hyper-fluctuate their
unique identity in the middle of change.
ABS-CBN, from a distant view, had to let go of its known formula for news
transmission; and has appeared helpless, which pushed it to wallow and waddle through
the murky online news streaming; shutted to compete with countless minor players, like a sub-channel of another media company.
THIS CHANGE ALONE, ALONG WITH THE
LOSS OF LOCAL TALENTS, IS NOT JUST AN ARROW SHOT TO LIMP THE SOLID IDENTITY AND UNPARALLELED BRANDING OF THE
NETWORK AS A SUPER TELEVISION NETWORK.
IT ALSO LENT CHANNEL 2 AN IMPRESSION UNEXPECTED, THAT IT CAN BE SUBSERVIENT TO OTHER MEDIA COMPANIES, a downgrade of sorts, AND RELEGATE ITS TOP SPOT
TO CO-TEAM WITH OTHER COMPANIES.
With ABS-CBN side-swept by political
pressure and trends, its powers were fainted by the dominance of social media. The exiting of companies or tapering down of broadcast; and minimalization of published pages, also signalled the birthing of many brave minor players who are eager to jump into fame or submit to the lure of having
their own media companies.
Here lies complications for further
media industry fragmentation and shift of power from the media owners and visionaries
to the palm of the unskilled, ordinary, and inexperienced information providers
who want influence; or aim to domineer, dominate, or takeover an industry, without enough
altruism to provide fair and balanced news reporting, and tasteful, educated news and entertainment.
TO BE CONTINUED…
revised August 29, 2023, 6:03pm local time Philippines
Thursday, August 17, 2023
MUD ADVERTISING AND ALL ABOUT THE NEGATIVE FAME
Nothing is as compelling in the creative industry as the beauty and discipline of advertising. With it, products and updates on a market, and news about industries that matter, even advocacies and “community announcements” are propagated with words, using any printed, electronic, or digital media, that holds a message to a point of value.
But advertising the way
it’s meant has always been there to “serve”, be it good news, a piece of information, or a well-intended fact from which
the public can benefit from.
In recent years, along
with the rise of online media, there came a slowing down of good news trumpeters.
Instead, advertising became more pronounced and rather exploitative. What came is a return to “boldness” in the
way advertising is packaged.
For example, some online
ads, do not merely promote and sell vantage points for new products. Some ads deviate
from acceptable standards for advertising, previously disallowed by governing
bodies.
A sweep read at the many
frequent ads on display online these days can expose oneself to ads that hound
customers with a charade of bodies and curves, closeups, and “show-all” product
photos that aim to sensationalize and get attention with their own style of
advertising.
The real fault in some
ads? These exploit women and models, in
such uncompromising postures enough for one to mind not the product but the
model in photos. It is not just the
curves and the skin peek that are shown
in some non-mainstream, advertising, with a message loud and bold that it’s
okay to flaunt.
Say in a product that
must be talked about in a hush most cautious tone, the ad is graphically stated without much caution for decency and vulgarity by some advertisers and online
sellers. These are blatantly common in online media and commercial sites.
Another kind of
advertising that this writer would like to posit, is a seemingly innocent streamer
in the community. However, the display
of tarpaulin although fraught with respect for the rights of those who have
fallen from grace in a community, is also well-meant and intended, to let the
public know about an erring individual.
Vagueness is not in the ideals of this kind of advertising which must be
best called- mud advertising, the way it throws mud on the integrity of a person.
It is advertising if it is posted using
a medium that is commonly used for advertising like what a tarpaulin is
commonly used for. And if it is situated
along prominent areas where there is expected foot traffic. Moreso, tarpaulin
advertising goes beyond a personal announcement and falls on the level of
advertising if the message is posted more than once or twice, or with a
schedule definitive of intention to get as much viewership or exposure.
Can
we consider negative news reporting as a form of advertising when it involves
not just a personality but a person with business interests in the community?
This is an ethical question that must be weighed by media providers which deliver
the news, anyhow they can serve it for the public to partake of.
The thing with
advertising these days, there has been an erasure of lines from advertising to the content, and the substance of news articles that are packaged as branded content. Because
straightforward advertising could turn
off a lot of readers and sway them to stop the ad button once an ad interferes
with their preferences, advertisers have
found it inevitable to repackage their products on media, and make them content-appropriate or “content-embedded”.
What this writer also means
to put forward in the open is that sometimes news and advertising have been
interloped to a point of fault. The disparity
before is very pronounced. In later years, the shift in pleasing the numbers
of followers has become a norm in changing the look of advertising, making these
almost seamless with news and content at the forefront, while advertising seems
to be at the helm of strategy.
We go back to tarpaulin
advertising that carries a controversial announcement, advertisers can take caution
not to overuse their intention to do good for others by using advertising as a
ploy. Or make an outcast out of an individual concern so as to diminish another’s
integrity in the face of the greater community.
Mud advertising be it in
the form of below-the-line advertising must not be a standard to address a
competition, resolve a problem or warn about an issue that needs to be resolved
with compassion and dignity.
Also, negative
advertising must not be a gateway to other kinds of advertising that can
disintegrate regular standards of media normalcy so as to accept substandard advertising.
The helpless must not
count on negative advertising that gives indignity or embolden others to follow suit, even if it is only meant for posterity, to add on new followers, or bring sympathy, and even sides for the unnoticed.
Friday, August 11, 2023
IS GETTING AN EXIT AGENCY ALREADY APPROPRIATE FOR FILIPINO EMPLOYEES?
Apparently, there are already companies in Japan that do the hard work for employees who want to quit their job and make it seem effortless.
The kind of company that offers a resolution to avoid the awkwardness of employees when filing a
resignation and dealing with their boss/es on direct approach terms.
Truth be told, such a company could have more place in the Philippines than anywhere else in the world.
Employment locally has always been intrusive,
starting from the screening stage where every detail is asked including medical and work history. These are necessary in order to give prospective
employers a necessary heads-up on how an applicant is at work, while in the office, or even when handling remote positions.
The process can include a long wait and more pressure is hatched at the back of the applicant to please and make a good impression even before employment begins.
When filing a
resignation, however, the process can vary per employee’s temperament, style of
negotiation, and workplace experience which can eventually dictate how a resignation
is expressed, filed, or announced.
The standard acceptable process is to let an employer aware
of an employee’s intention to resign, at least about a month before the actual
date of effectivity. This is debatable however as some employees would opt for
shorter advice for resignation to proceed and take effect.
But since a resignation involves not only a cessation of responsibilities
for a specific work designation; company to employee relationship; and a halt on the professional ties
with the employer or boss/es, an employee may find himself or herself in a dire
inconvenient position to express such intention to resign, in a very abrupt or direct approach, to avoid the toxic negotiation and discussion process.
The thing
with work culture locally is that bosses have enough clout to
dictate the future work of employees. Not a few employees
would like to tread on a very balancing strategy on filing a resignation so as
not to earn the ire and prolonged disappointment of their employers.
At times, employers particularly those in middle-management positions, are more deaf than responsive to employees’ needs and interests.
Because every employee loss especially
a fast turnover can hint at bad management style or workplace negativity, there
are managers who exert enough pressure to keep their employees on deck. But
when unable to do this, some opt for negative recommendations or feedback to the
detriment of the employee who has expressed intention to leave work.
There are many instances when middle managers and those with the power to wield, go as far as “mud sling" an employee's record when hearing about an employee's resignation via grapevine. They can do so without hilt or fault because the employees left behind are usually part of their own certain clique of loyalists.
Some managers also spill juicy irrelevant facts about an employee that can compromise a person's integrity in the face of other employers, in order to save face and get a decibel of approval from their colleagues when accepting a resignation.
These are not
unusual attitudes of managers locally, thus the complications of a work exit can be as tricky as getting a job
from the start. Office politics allows these to permeate the work ethics of personnel thus leaving employees with a hesitancy to discuss resignation plans way before an official letter is filed.
To avoid pressure on employees, an “exit agency” can be more useful to have because it frees an employee from all the stresses and negativities of having to deal with bosses when quitting work.
However, there are also companies locally with well-meaning Human Resources personnel who help the employees express their resignation thus aiding the smooth
negotiations for the job turnover.
Since this
is a generation that has always looked out for solutions to pain points of ordinary
people, human resource and manpower agencies should also best an
effort to make resignation easier for employees, and make the process more like an ordinary "quit call", just like the companies that are in our neighboring country that go the extra mile to make sure employees' interests are always upheld to the very last.
Monday, August 7, 2023
There Cannot Be More Fines, We Are Not A Country of Fines
Count them if you can pay them.
There is a better alternative to getting the products and services these days that makes everything equal and goes above the reality of being "consumer-deprived" or devoid of essentials for household and life-survival.
In all the things we spend for, we have always had a leeway to choose whether we pay via cash, credit card, or installment basis.
The old way of purchasing things which is slowly becoming outdated is to pay for items and services in cash. Because not many can afford to retain credit cards, cash reigns supreme in the great economy where every consumer must be favored and taken care of.
But in a dismal
economy fraught with new hopeful developments, one showing a bearish attitude towards the simplest of buyers, the best deal option is to use e-wallets, hence the popularity of
digital money.
E-wallets are convenient when the pandemic waved its feel on
the populace wanting to veer away from face-to-face contact either in small stores
or in commercial establishments. Another wise option for the regular shopper is
to rely on digital wallets that offer installments, making purchases affordable that have been toned down in mini-proportions.
This mode of paying in "pea-sized amounts" offers a problem solved on the pain point of a regular consumer.
However, even as modes of payments now are more
technology-driven and trend-inspired, what service and product providers fail to take note
of, is to remove another pain in the throat of ordinary consumers—that of
paying penalties, fines, or hidden charges to ensure continuity of services and assure of continued supply of consumer products.
Let us not deviate from the usual spends of the ordinary Filipino.
Utilities that require
its subscribers to settle fines or penalties in varied amounts. Reconnection fees can fetch
as high as low as Php 600.00, to Php 1,500 depending on a company's requisites.
Meanwhile, as for the micro-loan consumers, the fees and
penalties are not as definite and can be as flexible depending on which one has
offered a micro-loan product. This can be as low as Php 50.00, for ordinary micro-loan amounts, depending on the delay or schedule in settling the payments and the interest/s dictated by the principal amount.
In tax settlements, the penalties can be even more astounding and might range from Php 300 to less than Php 2,000 per month. In vehicle registration, penalties can also be charged against the owner of a vehicle.
In the timeline of the pandemic, everyone is expected to make ends meet and keep the odds at bay when it comes to paying obligations. By consumers' standards, the current cost of living "is already high" in the country, at a time when jobs are scarce offline and online, and product availability can also prove to be scarce or limited.
An example analogy of how penalties could be used for another purpose by the consumers, instead of having the penalties paid, and thus make way for more items on an ordinary mom's grocery bag is below:
Example:
- A PHP 50.00 penalty charged by a microloan can suffice to cover the allowance of a grade-schooler or pay for a cup of munggo beans, or a kilo of rice, enough to cover a day’s meal for a family.
- The PHP 300 penalty can afford a consumer 6 kilos of rice enough to augment a week's sustenance for an ordinary household.
- The Php 600 penalties slapped by another utility company can be enough to pay for the water service consumption of a city-dweller subscriber, for about a month.
- A Php 1,200 penalty charged by another lifestyle-essential utility company can be enough to pay for the transportation of a schooler for two weeks or more, should an ordinary consumer/s be freed from paying it.
These simple comparisons of how consumers can make better use of the penalties they pay, in order to procure products and services, must be understood in clear and simple terms by the company or business that charges these penalties.
If a subscriber/consumer moves heaven
and earth to be able to pay or afford local products and services that are requisites for their own standards of living, why deny the consumer the opportunity to be free from paying such fines when these would mean a heartbeat
of a meal; an extra mile of reach to a destination; or an extra day of
guaranteed meal for a schooler?
Fines are as debilitating as the obligations of debt that
ordinary consumers shoulder in their own blindsighted ways to follow a structure
of fines dictated by the businesses they rely and trust on.
Thursday, July 27, 2023
We Must Patronize Only Ethical Jewelry Locally
Admittingly, as soon as I have read pronounced comments about an excavated (was it?) ancestral metal found (I can just imagine how it looks), that was previously displayed, at a museum, that recently made its way into the hands of an artisan, to make such jewelry reworked and molded from its original old trove haunt, I felt moved, to incredulity.
How on earth, an unearth
belonging previously deep a find, can make its way to the neckline of a beautiful
celebrity?
What are the resonating ideals of such an effort to make jewelry from a "gold find" from a past forgotten even if it has the best of intentions?
Truly, it is hard to imagine exploitative fashion out of old belongings.
Whose item will be
next for the sake of fashion? I say fashion must NOW thinktank about its
boundaries.
We all know that fashion is as imaginative as it can get.
It knows no age and it explores anything that can be made into a beautiful thing.
But
our need for fashion let’s say even for the sake of being ecologically minded,
must not be thrust into the unknown, enough to dissonate disrespect for the values of history, culture; and respect for the un-living.
It was like a hatchet depth to be unraveled that stylish jewelry fashion can come from those which can't defend itself, making it unthinkable to own and flaunt.
Fashion has always been liberating from the point of view of a wearer. But its purpose must not be to commercialize a past that makes up a culture or a society belonging to the rested.
Monday, July 24, 2023
THIS DICTATES YOUR FUTURE. ANSWER THIS WELL BEFORE ACCEPTING A PROSPECTIVE JOB
THIS DICTATES YOUR FUTURE. ANSWER THIS WELL BEFORE ACCEPTING A PROSPECTIVE JOB
Don’t rush to accept a job offer for the sake of being hired.
[CAREER TIPS}
So, you think
you landed the job of your dreams, as a first-timer or a returner employee.
Hurry not, eager
employee. In times of pandemic when jobs
are scarce, and work-from-home jobs are not really happening for most
applicants, there is one thing that one must be careful in “settling” for,
before signing for a job.
Forget about that
excitement in trying an industry that is
aligned to your education.
As one chooses work,
so is he or she building a future one day at a time.
The secret to
being wise as a newcomer or same-old worker relies only on one thing-- when
one is afront with an interview personnel, at a time when an individual has a
pretty good chance already of being hired.
Know that this secret to having a
better, brighter future can start with writing the answer to one important question
given by screening personnel, even way before the interview, from the time you
score an application form.
THIS IMPORTANT
FUTURE SETTING for a worker requires answering a blank line that is repeated
over by hiring personnel, no matter what company or industry one aims to enter.
The heavy
impact answer that could impact an individual career, when asked by human
resource personnel, requires honesty to the question:
What is Your
Expected Salary? How Much Was Your Previous Salary?
These two
questions tell and foretell how an applicant and would-be-employee would be
treated by a company or employer.
Writing down
one’s expected salary requires honesty and consistency of expectations, and not
just hopeful statements on the part of an applicant.
It used to be
that hard-knock industries attract a lot of bemedaled applicants for many
reasons other than salary. The reasons include opportunity for fame, clout, or even
an aspirational one. But signing up for a job that does not consider one’s
financial requirements and needs; agreeing to a salary that would NOT satisfy
standards of living decently in today’s
times could be tantamount to walking a lane of hopeless pursuit for a future
that is not there.
Workers must
be firm and blunt in putting forward their ideal salary expected. And
must not get a kind of work that does not even consider good salary placements
for employees.
Many companies
consider hierarchy and plantilla in filling out work positions and
offering figures for the salary. But
often, applicants are shortchanged of what they deserve or what is commensurate
to the time one has to exert in order to get work done.
Thus, it would
help that workers from the very start must write the fine line of their salary
needs because if the preferred salary is not given, in one’s target position or
work, a worker may soon regret having spent a great deal of time and effort being
part of a company. Regrets in employment
must not be a standard for workers who value their talents and dedication to a
company.
It is a tricky
question that is always given with the intent to measure sometimes, with a bias to undermine and not to patronize a
person’s capacity to work, no matter what qualifications one has.
WHAT’S YOUR PREVIOUS SALARY IS A QUESTION HIRING PERSONNEL OFTEN ASK TO MEASURE
THE IMPORTANCE, VALUE, AND INDISPENSABILITY OF AN APPLICANT.
How and why? The tendency of hiring personnel is to simply retain the old salary or match it with a similar offer to the applicant. That is often the easy and best route taken by HR, to offer a "realistic" same salary and play on that card of “times are hard” statement WHEN FINALIZING A SALARY OFFER.
The fact is, getting the right salary
can be as elusive as getting the right job to match one’s qualifications.
Hence, an
applicant no matter what background one comes from, must not settle for a
losing end of the bargaining rod.
What Utility Service Providers Can Do to Better Their Service
Two companies posture a "no-care" attitude for consumers. Of late, stalwart companies that provide crucial basic services even dur...
-
While scientists from all over have sounded the alarm button, the country is STILL, hand tied to age-old issues of territorial integrity,...
-
It will just be from a distant past that parking spaces at a local mall in Las Pinas, used to be free. Parking spaces at a local mall are fu...