Two types of infrastructure
One of my favorite inspirational book authors, Doris Schwerin, wrote: “Sometimes a life, like a house, needs renovating, the smell of new wood, new rooms in the heart, in the spirit, unimagined until one begins the work. One rebuilds because one hopes, and in doing so, builds one’s Hope Infrastructure.”
The Hope Infrastructure
From childhood through all these years, I have grown up with the belief that the Christmas season is a time for joy and a season of hope. Whatever heartbreaks and disappointments have come my way are somehow set aside to give way to the joy of the holidays based on our faith that this is the season when Our Savior was born.
The darkest days and nights of our political life as a Filipino citizen will pass. And golden rays will usher in the dawn of great hope so that all this ugliness, this moral degradation, the obscenity and filth inflicted on us as a nation will be erased in one fell swoop by the power of the merciful God.
The poverty-stricken state of so many brother Filipinos will be addressed. The agony we feel over an unspeakable massacre shall somehow be lessened through the severest punishment dealt the guilty. The tragic helplessness of the bereaved families of so many victims will somehow be alleviated by the knowledge that the sword of justice has struck down all the guilty. This anguish and pain tormenting the bereaved, we know, however, will never leave them, for not even time can heal one’s wounds of sorrow.
Will they be able to comprehend how a leader’s inordinate desire to cling to power shut her collusive eyes to the tremendous growth of firepower and weaponry collected in scandalously savage amounts through the years these have been in existence? Will the bereaved be able to comprehend how these destructive caches were glorified by an official cachet and sweetened by a sick, girlish cackle? Will all of us, for that matter, be able to understand how this hideous complicity with warlord-ism came to pass?
Have we, as a nation, plunged to the depths of so much evil and filth that rescue is impossible? Have we allowed ourselves to just close our eyes to the successive flagrant displays of extravagance and high living — of high-class gluttony that pierced the bellies of an official retinue of leaders, while their brother Filipinos feasted over waste cans and the spoils of garbage mountains?
Have we become so used to the fiercest criminal commissions and omissions of corruption in high places that we have become paralyzed into inaction, and have we become so used to the savagery of their filthy lucre and everything this can buy that we have decided to just stand by?
Can we, however, as a nation, rescue ourselves from this spiritual devastation and moral degradation plaguing the very soul of our existence? Is rescue from this savagery possible? Is total political cleansing forthcoming?
As I said above, Christmas is a season of hope. If there is anything that we should never allow to be removed from our beings, it is hope. And for those who think they can wrench hope from us, it would be wise for them to remember what one learned thinker, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, said: “To the scoundrels — beware, should you take away hope from any human being.”
It is time for us this Christmas season to build our Hope Infrastructure.
They say that the biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. This coming year, therefore, it is time for all of us to act and participate in the rescue effort to save our beloved country from national ruin.
The Internet Infrastructure
In the spirit of Christmas, and because I have not been able to respond in a timely manner to four valuable inquiries relating to the effectiveness of an Internet infrastructure that allows efficient e-transactions among producers and sellers, let me write about this topic, for it’s already been about five months since I wrote on a related topic, which provoked these queries and comments from Counselor John H. Kingman from South Wales, England; Professor Edgar James Pomeroy from Utah but based in Bangkok, Thailand; and two students: Cecilia T. Osmena from Davao and Umberto de Castro from Brazil. I am grateful for their comments and queries and will endeavor to discuss them.
Internet firms certainly add value by providing a means of communication, known as an Internet Infrastructure, which allows this kind of efficient e-transactions. This service is particularly valuable when the industry’s sellers are fragmented. The framework for providing such an Internet infrastructure is normally set forth, as many know by now, in two contracts: one sets forth the legal relationship between Internet infrastructure (II) provider and the producer; and the other between the II provider and the seller.
To be specific, the II provider attempts four special undertakings: a) to develop and host an Internet website for the retailer, which will be co-branded with the trademarks, service marks, trade names, designs, and/or logos of the II provider; b) to integrate the retailer’s in-store point-of-sale system with the store’s own Internet site; c) to maintain the online catalog of products available for purchase through the retailer’s Internet site; and d) to provide the retailer with all the information necessary to process each order placed through that retailer’s Internet site.
From the retailer’s perspective, the agreement obligates him or her to provide the II provider with content, in a ready-to-use format, and a promise to provide product assistance and sales. To be specific, the e-infrastructure user (retailer) guarantees to use its best efforts to provide five general types of service (there could be others, but as far as my studies go, the following are what I am aware of): a) The e-infrastructure user will provide product advice, recommendations, and other assistance to users (customers) of the e-infrastructure main Internet site; b) the e-infra user (retailer) will try to accurately input into the e-infra user (retailer) and will identify all products in its inventory in accordance with the proprietary product coding system provided by the II provider; c) the e-infra user (retailer) will try to accurately input into the e-infra user’s in-store register the customer identification and product information for each product purchased at the e-infra user’s store; d) the e-infra user will attempt to collect the primary e-mail address of each customer who purchases a product at the e-infra user’s store; e) the e-infra user (retailer) will promptly provide all such addresses to the II provider and deliver each product ordered through the e-infra’s main site directly to the purchaser of such product in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations, and at no cost to the II provider.
Since the II is normally created through the use of software, the II user is granted the right to use the appropriate software. The elements of such a grant are already commonly known.
From all my hopefully not-so-confusing notes above, it is of course an excellent recommendation that all parties to an II agreement insist on being made aware of all related agreements.
This will allow all parties to assess the risks of being involved in an II transaction and to take the appropriate legal and business actions to minimize such risks.
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