By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
Offhand, I am not a big fan of big buildings. If I have my way on the matter, the best actual development for the city market would be how Ayala Alabang was when it was started. A small number of cottages clustered in a wholesome way. Now it has become a metropolis of towering buildings.
Then there is Carmel-by-the-Sea in California where Clint Eastwood was once mayor. It is a small tourist coastal town where no one is allowed to build more than two stories. It must be a quaint place, huh?
So how about SM’s supposed redevelopment of the city market of Baguio?
Since most employees of this country are under the care of MSMEs then they should be number one priority as to that question for a number of reasons. Number one, they have the numbers when it comes to employees. It follows they shoulder the most of the financial burden in keeping the city economically alive. And that is not an easy thing to do. Most of their businesses were not handed to them on a silver platter. They worked hard to bring these to life and to nurture them. Risks were taken, sleepless nights were suffered and sweat continuously flowed from their faces and eyebrows.
In short, MSMEs have the most at stake, if not everything. They know how things are on the ground. What works or are effective. Not just the theoretical mumbo jumbo that are just good on paper.
Being in business themselves, they know what kind of a business entity SM is. Is it a good corporate citizen? Or is it a bully who abuses its business muscle?
Considering the length and breadth of its operations, and the kind of corporate citizen its business affiliates are or the members of the conglomerates it belongs, everyone must have had a taste on how it conducts its affairs or how it deals with people from whom its making its big money.
In a way, the question boils down to, does SM deal with people fairly? Or is it always flexing its economic muscles taking advantage of the weaknesses of others? If it is the latter, then why go with it? There should be other alternatives.
With all the bigabuck SM have, sometimes smaller alternatives can be better. They can have unique advantages. Yes, small can be more beautiful, or big can be ugly. Such can come in the form of social costs if not erosion of human values as in the form of corruption or degradation of ethics. That is, if there is such a thing in today’s business realities.
Yet we often come to realizing the bad effects of these only when we are already face to face with the negative comeuppance. In individual spheres, these happen when we are already in the hospital. Or when the filthy rich realize that big money cannot buy everything. That there are such things as untreatable diseases.
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