Airport congestion getting worse

The horrible congestion at the airport is not only making life inconvenient for passengers, it could also prove fatal like what almost happened to Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez whose plane was made to hover for an hour over the Sierra Madre mountains – while battling inclement weather conditions due to Typhoon Lando – before his aircraft was given clearance to land. The untenable situation at the airports has caused a deluge of complaints from other passengers who disclosed that many feared for their lives as their planes were literally in limbo for two hours, causing many to panic at the thought their aircraft might run out of aviation fuel.

The other day, hundreds of domestic passengers were also stranded as flight after flight was delayed due to air traffic congestion – with the situation causing many to comment the situation could cause the US FAA to slap us with a Category 2 rating once again.

With the worsening traffic condition not only on land, but also on air and sea travel, perhaps the next administration should already consider dividing the responsibilities of the Department of Transportation and Communications to ensure all these problems faced by the agency are attended to.

One of the interesting personalities I met during the recent 15th Forbes Media Global CEO Conference at the Solaire is Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Known for being a bit media reticent, this Brazil-born young man generated a lot of interest following the leak of an email from Mark Zuckerberg discussing to another Facebook co-founder how the stake of Saverin could be diluted. This was followed by lawsuits filed by Facebook and Saverin against each other, which have since been settled out of court.

Saverin has an economics degree from Harvard and graduated magna cum laude. At 33, he is listed as one of the Top 10 youngest (under 35) billionaires in the world according to Wealth-X, placing him at No. 4 with a net worth estimated at $5.3 billion. (According to Wealth-X, there are 1,826 billionaires around the world and many of them were at the Forbes Media event in Solaire).

In 2011, Saverin renounced his US citizenship – for which he received a lot of negative feedback on social media. (Saverin though is not alone in this since many others have since renounced their US citizenship due to the high taxes imposed by the US Internal Revenue Service through FATCA – or the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act that targets those with foreign accounts and offshore assets).

Saverin, who is now based in Singapore with his Chinese-Indonesian wife Elaine, reportedly saved hundreds of millions of dollars when he renounced his US citizenship. Singapore is known as a tax haven (although the Singaporean Economic Development Board prefers to describe it as a “value adding hub”), with low personal and company taxes plus a host of other incentives makes it very attractive to investors. 

The young billionaire is also known as an “angel investor” – someone who provides financial capital to small startup businesses either by providing a one-time injection of money or continuing support to help the company navigate through difficult waters. Most of his investments are on Internet start-ups and it’s no wonder why considering the source of his wealth. Eduardo Saverin believes that “there is a new Facebook out there” and that most likely it will be in the area of healthcare. 

Also at the Forbes CEO was Fritz and Macziol Asia president and managing director Lutz Kunack (as seen in photo) who seems to have hit it off quite well with Saverin – which should come as no surprise since F&M Asia is an IT systems integrator based in Manila, but has a satellite office in Singapore. Fritz and Macziol has actually been pushing and supporting a proposed national policy for the IT sector here in the Philippines.

Recognized for delivering cutting-edge, customized IT solutions to clients, F&M believes the IT sector is crucial in enhancing the country’s potential for growth, saying the IT market could reach about to $7 billion, with a lot of it coming from hardware purchases, followed by services. Lutz believes government regulators should seriously look into crafting long-ranging policy initiatives for the IT sector in the country – and the creation of an IT department would be crucial.

Having an IT department that could spearhead the formulation of a comprehensive and integrated long-term program of information and communications technology in the Philippines, not to mention that the interests of all stakeholders would be protected, Lutz remarked. He also  observed the Philippines has such a wealth of young people who show a lot of promise in the IT sector. The Philippines is already recognized all over the world as far as it’s IT talent is concerned, and with the right support and proper guidance and direction, IT can emerge as a dominant engine for economic growth, he added.

A lot of business groups are actually supportive of the proposal to have an ICT department – and have written to Senate president Frank Drilon and Senator Ralph Recto who chairs the Senate Committee on Science and Technology, stressing the creation of an ICT department would make the Philippines at par with the rest of the world where 80 percent of all countries have separate departments, ministries or agencies for ICT. The proposal for the creation of an ICT department has been a long time coming, but unfortunately, this was rejected in the last three Congresses, IT insiders disclosed. 

In any case, I’m told Lutz Kunack will fly to Singapore to discuss how they can work together.  It would be interesting to see what kind of ideas these two IT-savvy young businessmen can come up with, if they put their ideas together.

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