March 20, 2019, Wednesday
I spent about ten minutes in the church, no mass, no priest, no other person except me and the chirping birds, before I proceeded to Ayala Avenue, for the 12-noon meeting of Team Philippines aka Philippines, Inc. in Discovery Primea.
I arrived at the hotel/condo at 11:30 am. I can’t help but compare, in Japan, I noticed the hotels don’t have security guards. No one comes to stop your vehicle, inspect, or stop you and surf thru your belongings when you enter the hotel. The only time we were asked to go thru security check was when we were entering the hotel ballroom where then Philippine President and the Japanese Prime Minister were going to speak before more than a hundred audience, all businessmen and top government officials.
In a perfect world, we don’t need security guards. Kasi all of us would be trustworthy and peace-loving individuals who do no harm.
Our meeting would be held at the Flame Restaurant on the 16th floor.
There were two women who were talking about diet, DIETTTT and yet, they, me included were walking towards a restaurant, to eat and eat and eat, then complain and complain about fatness.
Their dress code could be directed to those living in the condo section of this building. Siguro merong hindi pa naliligo pupunta dito naka tsinelas at saka daster.
It was my second time in this building and first time to dine at this restaurant. I expected it to be fancy however for some reason, it did not elicit a WOW reaction from me the minute I entered the restaurant’s lobby.
I was thinking there was a big chance that I would be the very first one to arrive from among our members except for RP Manhit and his assistant. I was surprised to find Tonyboy Cojuangco already seated. Eto napa wow ako. “Wow, nauna ka pa sa akin?” He came early daw to prepare kasi he thought it would be a general membership meeting. No, this would be a short political and economic briefing, over some good food (I hope).
Menu was chosen by RP. Pag si RP ang pumili, sigurado masarap.
I chose the farthest seat, away from the board kasi maduduling ako later when Prof. Dindo Manhit started his presentation.
View of BGC Skyline from where I was seated.
As usual, our colleagues were late. It was 12 noon, ‘la pa sila.
In my 25 years of attending business organization meetings, only two people were super on time all the time: Pocholo Jacinto (+), and Cito Lorenzo.
Pareho pa yang guwapo, napaka gentleman, unassuming, at napaka smart and articulate, and very good golfers.
