SO WHAT’S good with cappuccino and espresso at Starbucks SM Clark while the heavens were being ripped by Typhoon Juaning?
Why, talking about coffee – that of the P1-billion variety, but of course. That which the President elevated to urban lore in his SONA last Monday, to wit:
“Ang totoo nga po, marami pang kalokohan ang nahalungkat natin sa Pagcor…Isang bilyong piso po ang ginastos ng dating pamunuan ng ahensya para sa kape. Sa isang daang piso na lang po kada tasa, lalabas na nakakonsumo sila ng 10 milyong tasa.
Baka po kahit ngayong iba na ang pamunuan ng Pagcor ay dilat na dilat pa rin ang mga mata ng mga umiinom ng kapeng ito. Hanapin nga po natin sila at itatanong ko: ‘Nakakatulog pa po ba kayo?’”
Second voiced new PAGCOR Chair Cristino Naguiat, Jr,: “This is scandalous, outrageous and offensively excessive.”
So aghast were we too: Spending P1 billion for coffee alone ranks way above Imelda Marcos’ collection of shoes in infamy. So if the Imeldific – for her penchant for shoes – was a centipede in a previous incarnation, what were PAGCOR’s Efraim Genuino and his cohorts – for their obsession of coffee? Civet cats?
Harsh pre-judgment really there. Some sudden bolt of inspiration, and keener reflection then…We look at the forest – awed by its immensity. We miss the trees totally.
Ashley Manabat, no casino goer but heavy coffee drinker, sees no big deal: P1 billion for coffee in 10 years may yet be making a mountain out of a molehill.
Citing himself as an example, Ashley drinks an average of three cups of Starbucks coffee daily at a minimum of P100 per cup. The consumption costs him P300 a day. That amounts to P109,500 a year, accruing to P1,095,000 in ten years.
All it takes is to get only 1,000 Ashleys, and there’s nothing scandalous, outrageous, much less incredulous in that P1 billion expose of the President. It’s practically peanuts, or, in keeping with the issue, beans.
Ashley’s reasoning got real affirmation the following day with the Philippine Daily Inquirer bannering Genuino’s take on the issues leveled against him as “good coffee, bad math.”
Genuino’s proffered statistics of 25,000 people frequenting PAGCOR’s 13 casinos daily hews closely to Ashley’s exampling, if not to solid reasoning. Indeed, one million cups of coffee a year can be consumable, especially with more clients, er, players hitting the casinos from dusk till dawn.
“The P1-billion figure could be an incredible amount at first. But when you look at the expenses closely, you will find that there was nothing mathematically anomalous there.”
We tend to agree with Genuino there.
“There was an obvious intent by Naguiat to hide the true facts and figures about this issue. He was resorting to trial by publicity.”
We still tend to agree with Genuino there.
If so, then how and why a small company of one Carlota Cristi Manalo-Tan, wife of known Genuino ally Johnny Tan, was able to “corner contracts to put up coffee shops at the casinos,” reportedly raking in P700 million out of the P1 billion expenditure for coffee?
“Players usually play in different casinos. Apparently, they thought the coffee that (Promolabels) offered was good that’s why they asked our managers to have Figaro branches in other casinos.”
We’d so much prefer drinking coffee with the Marines in Basilan there.
