The F Magazine June issue is now available with Jose Isidro N. (Lito) Camacho on the cover.
Jose Isidro N. "Lito" Camacho is the current Managing Director and Vice Chairman of Credit Suisse Asia Pacific and Chairman of the Board of Sun Life of Canada (Philippines), Inc.
Camacho also served in the Cabinet of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo briefly as Energy Secretary, before becoming the Secretary of Finance in 2001 until he resigned from government service in 2003.
The Labor Day and Mother's Day Issue (MAY 2011) of Bagong Bayani Magazine with RAMON PADIERNOS, Philippines' Pride in the High Octane World of Digital Technology on the cover, is now out and available for FREE, as usual!
BAGONG BAYANI (MODERN-DAY HERO) MAGAZINE is published monthly in English and Filipino by Salomon Publishing Singapore Pte. Ltd., this glossy, laminated and perfect bound magazine is distributed for FREE, at the Philippine Embassy, Filipino Stores and Restaurants, Remittance Centres, Churches, MRT stations amongst its distribution points.
Salomon publishing is encouraging everyone to share the magazine to the Filipino community here in Singapore.
HIGHREACH EDUCATIONAL/TRAINING CENTRE is happy to announce this special privilege for members of Filipino Organizations or employees of Filipino-owned companies.
A 30% discount will be given to your organization/company for your group of 6 participants in any of the following training programs:
Two-day Programs
Public Speaking
Business Writing
Whole-day Programs
Grammar Review
English Conversation Fluency
Customer Service Workshop
Values Formation3-4 Hour Lectures
Telephone Courtesy
Image Enhancement
Frontliners' Workshop
A 10% discount will be given to you upon enrolling your children in any of the following programs:
June Holiday Programs which will run from 30 May - 18 June:
TERM 1 30 May - 10 June ( TWO WEEKS DAILY )
8:30 am - 10:00 am Speech Improvement & Confidence Building 1 (Ages 7 - 9 years old)
My Art! Class ( Pre-schollers)
10:30 am - 12nn Speech Improvement & Confidence Building 2 (Ages 10-12 years old)
My Art! Class ( Ages 7 - 12 years )
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm Public Speaking & Leadership Training (High School & College)
TERM 2 13 - 18 June ( ONE WEEK DAILY )
9:30 am - 12nn Public Speaking & Leadership Training (High School & College)
HIGHREACH EDUCATIONAL/TRAINING CENTRE is located at 21 Tan Quee Lan St # 02-06 Heritage Place Singapore 188108.
You can call or sms them at 9436 8341 or
Signup to Esprit's styling workshop and receive fashion tips from celebrity stylist Keing Png.
Date: Saturday, 14 May 2011
Time: 2-3PM or 4-5PM
Location: Esprit Liat Towers
To Register attendance, visit the following Esprit stores by 13 ay 2011.
Registration fee of $20 per person, fully redeemable for a $20 Esprit voucher $ receive an attractive door gift.
Special for workshop attendees!
Enjoy 15% off 2 or more regular-priced items at Esprit Liat Towers on 14 May 2011.
Here’s an interesting insight from Thomas Friedman, an internationally renowned author, reporter, and columnist—the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes and the author of five bestselling books, among them From Beirut to Jerusalem
I am in the Gan Eng Seng Primary School in a middle-class neighborhood of Singapore, and the principal, A. W. Ai Ling, has me visiting a fifth-grade science class. All the 11-year-old boys and girls are wearing junior white lab coats with their names on them. Outside in the hall, yellow police tape has blocked off a “crime scene” and lying on a floor, bloodied, is a fake body that has been murdered. The class is learning about DNA through the use of fingerprints, and their science teacher has turned the students into little C.S.I. detectives. They have to collect fingerprints from the scene and then break them down.
I missed that DNA lesson when I was in fifth grade. When I asked the principal whether this was part of the national curriculum, she said no. She just had a great science teacher, she said, and was aware that Singapore was making a big push to expand its biotech industries and thought it would be good to push her students in the same direction early. A couple of them checked my fingerprints. I was innocent — but impressed.
This was just an average public school, but the principal had made her own connections between “what world am I living in,” “where is my country trying to go in that world” and, therefore, “what should I teach in fifth-grade science.”
I was struck because that kind of linkage is so often missing in U.S. politics today. Republicans favor deep cuts in government spending, while so far exempting Medicare, Social Security and the defense budget. Not only is that not realistic, but it basically says that our nation’s priorities should be to fund retirement homes for older people rather than better schools for younger people and that we should build new schools in Afghanistan before Alabama.
President Obama just laid out a smart and compelling vision of where our priorities should be. But he did not spell out how and where we will have to both cut and invest — really intelligently and at a large scale — to deliver on his vision.
Singapore is tiny and by no means a U.S.-style democracy. Yet, like America, it has a multiethnic population — Chinese, Indian and Malay — with a big working class. It has no natural resources and even has to import sand for building. But today its per capita income is just below U.S. levels, built with high-end manufacturing, services and exports. The country’s economy grew last year at 14.7 percent, led by biomedical exports. How?
If Singapore has one thing to teach America, it is about taking governing seriously, relentlessly asking: What world are we living in and how do we adapt to thrive. “We’re like someone living in a hut without any insulation,” explained Tan Kong Yam, an economist. “We feel every change in the wind or the temperature and have to adapt. You Americans are still living in a brick house with central heating and don’t have to be so responsive.” And we have not been.
Singapore probably has the freest market in the world; it doesn’t believe in import tariffs, minimum wages or unemployment insurance. But it believes regulators need to make sure markets work properly — because they can’t on their own — and it subsidizes homeownership and education to give everyone a foundation to become self-reliant. Singapore copied the German model that strives to put everyone who graduates from high school on a track for higher education, but only about 40 percent go to universities. Others are tracked to polytechnics or vocational institutes, so the vast majority graduate with the skills to get a job, whether it be as a plumber or a scientist.
Explained Ravi Menon, the Permanent Secretary of Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry: “The two ‘isms’ that perhaps best describe Singapore’s approach are: pragmatism — an emphasis on what works in practice rather than abstract theory; and eclecticism — a willingness to adapt to the local context best practices from around the world.”
It is a sophisticated mix of radical free-market and nanny state that requires sophisticated policy makers to implement, which is why politics here is not treated as sports or entertainment. Top bureaucrats and cabinet ministers have their pay linked to top private sector wages, so most make well over $1 million a year, and their bonuses are tied to the country’s annual G.D.P. growth rate. It means the government can attract high-quality professionals and corruption is low.
America never would or should copy Singapore’s less-than-free politics. But Singapore has something to teach us about “attitude” — about taking governing seriously and thinking strategically. We used to do that and must again because our little brick house with central heating is not going to be resistant to the storms much longer.
“There is real puzzlement here about America today,” said Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, “because we learned all about what it takes to build a well-functioning society from you. Many of our top officials are graduates of the Kennedy School at Harvard. They just came back home and applied its lessons vigorously.”
Give your kids and teens a head$tart! Thi$ will be your be$t inve$tment….ever!
Date: November 6, 13, 20 (9:00am-12:30pm) - 1/2 Day Camp for Kid$ (9-12 yrs)
Usual Rate: $119
Special Rate: $69Date: November 20 (9:00am-5:00pm - lunch included ) - 1 Day Camp for Teen$ (14-16 yrs)
Usual Rate: $189
Special Rate: $129
Some of the topics that will be covered over the 1/2 day and 1 day camp includes:
The participants will learn in a highly interactive setting via games,
activities and videos. Sign up here!
