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Tumultuous
Times
By Michael Alan Hamlin
September 30, 2003
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's ratings took a
steep dive last week, which surprised no one. According to survey
results announced by Pulse Asia, the president's approval rating
dropped 10 precipitous points to 41, apparently as a result of accusations
of money laundering made against presidential spouse Mike Arroyo
by presidential aspirant and senator Panfilo Lacson. The news was
greeted with a big yawn by just about everyone except front-page
headline writers.
And unfortunately, that was only the latest in a week
of not just negative reporting, but untiring efforts to transform
terminally valueless stories into headlines. For instance, one paper
"revealed" on its front page that businessmen were divided
over whether Ms. Arroyo should run again (No, your kidding!) just
a day after Pulse Asia announced that 55 percent of respondents
in a recent poll said the reasons for the July luxury mutiny were
valid (Gee, what a shock.). And so as a result of having nothing
really to report, because nothing is really happening, the papers
literally leapt on the Kris Aquino-Joey Marquez scandal, reaching
a new all-time journalistic low in the process.
Indeed, it wasn't hard to visualize editors weeping
with joy as a bruised and visibly angry Kris Aquino announced that
her most recent married live-in partner is a cad (Who, tell me,
would have guessed?), while Marquez in turn was making some pretty
hardcore revelations himself (She grabbed my b….). And readers,
relieved for at least a day of sensationalized survey results, meaningless
babble by business luminaries waiting around for the 2004 elections
to be over, and endless administration navel gazing, were undoubtedly
weeping for joy as well.
The big news for me, however, was much more mundane.
It was that our firm is having a considerable degree of difficulty
booking venues for our clients' events. The going rate for five-star
hotel ballrooms ranges from around $3,000 to twice that much and
much, much more if guests are actually fed. And there are a number
of ballrooms around town to book, at least five in the central business
district of Makati. Those five ballrooms are likely collectively
generating at least $500,000 a month in revenues for their respective
hotels, and probably closer to around $1.5 million.
That's just the major ballrooms, though. What's genuinely
curious is that a lot of the second- and third-level venues are
booked up, too. So in this time of dire political and economic uncertainty,
who's tying up all the major venues? Traditionally, multinational
technology companies were big event producers. They'd typically
bring in as many as 1,500 techies and end users for product launches
and technical conferences. But while there are a few of those still
going on, they have dwindled dramatically first as a result of the
economic downturn, but more recently concurrent to rising political
uncertainty. You don't see much in the way of big consumer product
or car launches either these days.
Well, they're not being missed. The most frequent big
ballroom users are medical conferences. This might come as a surprise
because in the Philippines it's very difficult to make a decent
middleclass living as a doctor. That unhappy fact is why so many
medical professionals - doctors, dentists and med techs - are going
to nursing school. If they become nurses, they can fairly easily
immigrate to the United States. In fact, demand for a nursing degree
has become so great that one well-known school has introduced a
minimum height requirement in a not-so-enlightened effort to cull
applicants.
So it's not the doctors who are spending the money
on the conferences. Instead, it's the conference sponsors, which
are pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment suppliers. This
is somewhat irritating because pharmaceuticals in the Philippines
are among the highest priced anywhere in the world. Prescription
drugs are more expensive here than in India, Thailand, and Indonesia.
But they're also more expensive than in many developed economies.
Pharmaceutical companies spend money to send doctors
to conferences and other junkets - Hong Kong and exclusive beach
resorts are favorites - to get them to prescribe their pricey products
to the doctors' patients. And when they do so, they might not get
to become nurses and go to the U.S., but they do get to go off to
sumptuous conference banquets and regular leisure trips. Meanwhile,
the poor sick try to scrape together enough money to buy their medications
a capsule at a time.
While I enjoy dumping on the pharmaceutical companies,
which richly deserve the negative attention, other senseless money
is being thrown at hotel ballrooms as well. The throwers include
government and the rich and famous footing the bill for their daughters'
debuts and weddings, as well as their own birthdays and anniversary
parties. "So what?" you ask. Well, here's what. None of
these events result in anything but spending money in an entirely
irresponsible, unproductive manner.
The hotel ballroom example isn't very important in
a big-picture economic sense, but it's dead on in terms of explaining
one of our fundamental problems: Our priorities are all screwed
up.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001). Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2003 Michael Alan
Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
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