IT HAPPENED last March 20 yet and its sheer pettiness would have readily consigned it to the deepest recesses of better-forgotten memory. But up to this time, it festers like an unpricked pus-pregnant pigsa. Not only to me but all those witness to it, except maybe the beneficiary.
It was the restaging of the take-it-take-it moment at that Manila Film Festival of long ago and the second-coming of Lolit Solis, this time at a function room of the Hotel Stotsenberg convention center. But before that, the preliminaries:
Local media were invited to the Sun Solutions Distribution Program to Central Luzon’s SMEs. Taking centerstage at the event was one Corrine Funk-Zablan, introduced as “marketing head for Sun Business.” Eclat and elan worthy of her lofty post made the very defi nition of Funk-Zablan as she made her presentation before the SMEs, to wit:
“We believe that by helping SMEs become ICT-ready, we are able to help them become more competitive, more efficient, and more profitable…Pampanga’s unique combination of SMEs in the retail, tourism and services sector makes the province a priority area for us.
There are a lot of SMEs who may benefi t from the wide range of business solutions that Sun Business has to offer…One of the challenges of SMEs is expansion. Sun Business Solutions will enable SMEs to have the competitive advantage and readiness for AEC2015. With the growth of SMEs in Central Luzon, we are hoping that this will further spur growth and economic activity in the region.”
So good was Funk-Zablan that someone in media readily quipped: “Singlehandedly, she out-brains the whole Regional Development Council of Central Luzon.” High on the applause for her act, Funk- Zablan even went higher in fielding questions from the press on the Sun Solutions, notably Sun Message Cast and Sun M2M Data Plans.
And then there was Ashley Manabat getting close and personal with a query of Funk- Zablan’s relationship to an “Atty. Funk” of the Don Teodoro V. Santos High School in his native Mabalacat City. He’s her father, said the Sun Business chief, warming up to a sudden connection with the group.
“He sued me for libel over an article I wrote about alleged corruption in the school,” Manabat said matter-of-factly, instantly unnerving Funk- Zablan who just as instantaneously walked over where Manabat was seated for some peace talks and appeasement selfies.
It was Manabat all the way where Funk- Zablan was concerned from there, onto the raffle for the press with an Alcatel mobile phone as “grand prize.” So thoroughly Manabatized was Funk-Zablan that I suggested that instead of raffling off the mobile, she just could give it to him and it would be no problem with us.
She should have just taken my suggestion. But then she went through the raffle – the minor prizes going to Ding Cervantes and Rey Navales – and lo and behold, for the grand prize – in front of all and to the apparent consternation of Smart PR man Wo Rosete and staff Vicky Sambilay who held the fishbowl from where the non-rolled pieces of paper bearing our names would be drawn – Funk-Zablan, looking into the bowl, sifted through the pieces of paper and picked out the winning name. Manabat, but of course.
“As she is nowhere near in beauty to Viveka Babajee, she could only be Lolit Solis, even without saying ‘take it, take it,’” a disgusted Deng Pangilinan sneered in the direction of Funk-Zablan, referencing the characters in the Manila filmfest scam.
It’s only an Alcatel mobile, so why not just allow it to pass? Why still make a mountain out of a molehill? Let it go. I did try but I could not. More than robbed, I felt our collective intelligence insulted by Funk-Zablan’s cheap trickery.
Cheating is cheating no matter how small the price or the cost involved. Cheating is morally wrong. It dehumanizes the cheated as much as the cheater and therefore needs to be righted. As some Buddhist saying holds: “A man who sees wrong and fails to correct it is only half a man.”
And then, there is the Parable of the Unrighteous Steward in Luke 16:10, to wit: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”
For Christ’s sake, this is just an Alcatel mobile – not even a Samsung or an IPhone, yes – and she already cheated.
And Funk- Zablan is entrusted with the very enterprise unit of Sun Cellular! I see no pettiness there. More than corporate social responsibility, think of corporate conscience.
