One day a week

Did you know 1: Land Bank of the Philippines president Margarito Teves will be holding office one day a week at the mezzanine of the bank’s Ayala branch.

This way, Gary Teves can deal with the bank’s external clients, something that is difficult to do when he was holed up in the Malate-based head office day in and day out for the past three years.

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Did you know 2: The Philippine Stock Exchange, Inc. president Cayetano Paderanga Jr. flew out of the country yesterday and won’t be back until Labor Day.

Dondon Paderanga will first attend a regional conference for stock exchange heads in Singapore and then head for Washington D.C. for a global conference with the same getting-to-know-you agenda.

In his absence, chief operating officer Jurisita Quintos will man the fort.

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Did you know 3: La Farge Cement has an interesting component in its compensation package.

Aside from the generous salary, the French company (which has equity in five local cement companies) has monetized the yearly employee benefits of such clothing allowances which employees can then choose to use for any purpose such as buying a mobile phone or two or paying for the tuition of their child or boyfriend.

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Here is an increasingly common labor problem that confronts telecommunications companies with post-paid services.

In a case filed before the National Labor Relations Commission and dated April 2, 2004, Victor Benjamin Tabisaura questions his dismissal as corporate account manager of Smart Communications, Inc. Basically, Vic Tabisaura claims that:

• His notice of dismissal – which was dated March 4, 2004 but which was handed to him on April Fool’s Day was signed by only two of the three officers who hired him on Jan. 27, 2003. The head of the human resources department didn’t sign the notice of dismissal.

• His job description is "to sell as many cellular phone units to as many prospective buyers, subject to the consent and approval of Smart’s credit and collection department", not to collect from these subscribers.

Based on the March 4 internal memo signed by his immediate supervision, Smart’s sales and distribution group head Debby Liong. Mr. Tabisaura was asked to explain in writing and then in person before an administrative investigation panel why he endorsed "certain post-paid subscribers who failed to pay any of their outstanding bills since activation (after releasing individual Nokia-branded phones to these subscribers)… All attempts to collect proved futile because the subscribers were found to be fictitious and/or cannot be located in their declared billing addresses…This resulted in an actual financing damage to the company in the amount of P685,078.08, representing revenue losses, cost of handset phones, SIM cards, and airtime consumption."