More than a directory

The Yellow Pages is more than just a commercial directory service. It has become a part of our lives. In fact, before the advent of the Internet, it was a must have.

Unfortunately, technological breakthroughs have made the people behind the Yellow Pages think really hard how the business can continue to be relevant.

Almost everything can be found on the Internet. Or so we thought.

There remains a huge gap that needed to be filled. Even the most popular and powerful global search engines could not effectively serve local searches.

Directories Philippines Corp. (DPC) vice president for new media Doji Lopez explained that both Google and Yahoo have realized that not all the information being searched is online, especially if a particular business, product, or service being searched does not have its own website.

With DPC’s massive data base, it has gone beyond printed directories and tapped the new media, particular the electronic and mobile platforms, to fill this particular gap. But in addition, DPC has introduced a whole slew of value-added services to make the commercial search experience more convenient and fulfilling, says DPC president Ricardo Bautista.

At the cutting edge of this massive brand re-orientation is the Electronic Yellow Pages (EYP), the premiere local online search authority in the Philippines.

Company officials explained that EYP focuses on local search because it is the niche that powerful global search engines cannot serve effectively. In fact, Google has forged a partnership (through Google Maps) with EYP precisely to fill this gap in the Internet giant’s massive reach. Yahoo is likewise exploring a deal with EYP.

It has been noted that global search engines tend to yield very broad results on the basis of key words. They do not determine if users are looking for a business, a person or an article.

Also, the big search engines may not be the best tools from the perspective of someone who is looking to buy something.

Over the years, EYP has raised the granularity of search results to the most specific business, product, and location possible. And because EYP provides ready buyers with highly relevant and specific search results, local enterprises can reach exactly the customers who are looking for their kind of products or services, and where their stores are particularly located.

EYP goes a step further in enabling these local enterprises to be found with its precise vicinity maps, which can be accessed with just a mouse click.

DPC believes that since this service brings ready buyers virtually to the doorstep of the local seller he is looking for, the country’s small and medium enterprises, especially those with tight to nil marketing budgets, can take advantage of EYP’s expertise in local search to help them reach prime customers.

EYP, which lists more than 200,000 local enterprises from all over the country, also offers SMEs multiple avenues to be found through its extensive linkages with other websites and even mobile services providers.

Lay leaders defend the Church

Catholic lay leaders in Davao have cried foul over reported statements by Interface Development Interventions (IDIS) branding all Davao bishops as anti-people and anti-Christ for their stand supporting aerial spraying of pesticides as an agricultural practice in the region.

IDIS executive director Lia Jasmin Esquillo Villarin was quoted as saying that the pastoral letter of the local Catholic Church is inconsistent with being pro-life.

Arlene Aquino of the Basic Christian Community of San Isidro Labrador in Bangkas Heights in Davao City lashed out at IDIS saying that calling their bishops names just because they did not agree with her position on aerial spraying is foul.

Villarin claimed that the local Catholic Church does not see the condition of the community near banana plantation but according to Aquino, this is the reverse since the Church has more access to the communities through the Basic Christian Communities (or GKK) and therefore knows the real story – that there is no suffering among the people due to aerial spraying.

Benigno Layona, a farmhand in a Daliaon plantation and a prayer leader of the Sto. Nino Chapel in the village, for his part wondered how an advocacy that seeks to destroy people’s livelihood be pro-life.

Villagers in Sitio Camocaan in Hagonoy municipality have  also questioned Villarin’s statement as it allegedly glosses over the injustice done to them by the anti-spray movement.

They said that it is now exactly three years, 11 months and 12 days since they took blood and tissue samples from them and until now they have not been informed of the results while announcing to the world that they are sick and dying due to aerial spraying.

They are referring to a study conducted by a team led by a certain Dr. Alan Dionisio which served as the basis of the call from some sectors for a total ban on aerial spraying. This study has been debunked by the World Health Organization as inconclusive, full of loopholes and does not support the recommendation to ban aerial spraying.

A peer review conducted by the University of the Philippines, portions of which have reportedly leaked, also found the study to be weak, having too small a sample size and for using a flawed methodology, which is not a good basis for a policy to ban the agricultural practice.

Several technical groups like the cabinet-level Inter-Agency Committee on Environmental Health, the regional Inter-Agency Committee on Environmental Health, the Regional Development Council and the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry have supported regultion rather than a total ban on aerial spraying of pesticides.

The same position was recently made by Dr. Andrew Hewitt, regulatory consultant to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

We can understand the sentiments aired by residents of Sitio Camocaan. According to the Dionisio study, they have suffered a number of diseases due to aerial spraying, although such conclusion has been attacked even by experts in the scientific and academic fields for being without basis.

Banning aerial spraying outright, especially in the banana fields of Davao, will ruin the livelihood of thousands of people and their dependents. It should not be mandated unless it can be clearly and conclusively shown that the practice is harmful. Unfortunately, Dionisio’s study failed to do that.

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