EEI The Reunion

Ah...holiday season! Red and gold paper buntings, the trees adorned with little Santas and cotton snowflakes on its branches, the voices of Frank Sinatra, Ray Coniff and Barry Manilow blaring in the radio and in the Brea Mall's speaker system as if to remind you, lest you forget, that it is Christmas.

Ah...Christmas! According to Scrooge: "Humbug...a time when you find yourself a year older and not an hour richer." For many of us, this rings so true. We scrape the bottom borrowing here and there, refinancing the already mortgaged-to-the-hilt dwelling just to keep our noses above the ever rising tide of debts. But better be in debt than dead. For if one suddenly dies, all debts are gone! Kaput! Paid! And if payment is still demanded, then get the house, the bank account, who cares? The dead lies buried and it does not really matter anymore.

Ah...Christmas! The time of reminiscing deeds gone awry because of haste or of no prior thinking. The time to regret having spoken spiteful words not really meant, out of anger, hurting the very ones we love so much. The time of reaffirmation love between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, wives and husbands. It can be through a simple gift or even just a kiss on the cheek with a slight squeeze of the hand and a quiet whisper " I love you." A nod, a smile, a look… without ever uttering a word- the reciprocal feeling of undying love is felt and completely understood.

Ah...Christmas! A time to meet relatives and friends after having been physically separated through the years…congregated to reacquaint with each other. Like this time, a meeting of former and retired employees of EEI (Engineering Equipment, Inc.) in a joint grouping in Glendale and West Covina, California. The EEI was intricately woven around a great man in the late Jimmy V. Ongpin (JVO) who made EEI what it was, until now. If only he lived today, he could have been a public servant who possessed the vision of where we were going as a people and as a nation. Not the kind of bankrupt political leadership we are experiencing today.

Ah... Christmas! The meeting of former EEI Group Managers in the likes of Ike Buensuceso and Grip Sosing; Oscar Himala and Cora Sanchez and others who together shared the fond memories of EEI. The poignant reminiscences of management talents and individual idiosyncrasies of executives the likes of whom will never be seen again: Ven O. Ducat (VOD), Tong Payumo (FCP), Frankie Vargas (FMV), Vic R. Prieto (VRP), Roger Murga (RMU), Tanning Caballes (TAC) and Fernando dela Riva (FDR). If only the country were run like how they did it with EEI, this nation would be different today, and the people just may have a "sense of country" that is now found wanting, according to Conrado de Quiros in his column.

Ah... Christmas! The nostalgic recollections of EEI days in Cebu with Douglas Gacasan (DAG) at the helm for VisMin Regional Sales Office, of Alan Bacalso (ASB), Johnny Ong (JAO), Jun Alcantara (GGA), Boy Cang (JTC) Loy Cabatingan (PPC) and Franklin Calo (FGC). The sigh of relief of everyone when Joe Utzurrum (JDU) resigned as Group Manager. The never ending pressure from management of sales, sales and more sales, and the dread of the monthly sales meeting if one's forecast was not met.

Ah... Christmas! If only we have the courage to follow the statement of JVO. He delivered "A Strategy of Survival" paper presented in the General Membership Meeting of the Management Association of the Philippines on Jan 24, 1983, at the Peninsula Hotel: "We could all use a lot more idealism, more altruism, more concern for the next person, ultimately on a planetary basis. But if the individual does not have this idealism, altruism and concern for the next person, then the family won't have it, the society won't have it, the nation won't have it, and finally the planet won't have it. It has to start with the individual, at home, and spread out from there. I do, however, believe that, as a race, we are capable of it." If only we could implement it as a people, a people who could finally say as Tiny Tim said in Charles Dicken's Christmas Carol… "Merry Christmas to all! And God bless us everyone."