|
While growing up, our elders and teachers counsel and
admonish us to become responsible citizens. There are several ways
to manifest responsible citizenship. We can obey the laws of the
land, pay the correct taxes, contribute our efforts to community
building, treat with respect our fellow-men. Corporations are also
considered citizens particularly in the area where they operate. In
doing business, they utilize human resources and for some, natural
resources, that they source from their place of operation. Companies
can either be a source of environmental preservation or degradation.
I have personally known companies
or industrial plants which for a long time have been doing acts of
responsible corporate citizenship. One such plant was Davao Union
Cement Corp. (DUCC), which is now known as Holcim Philippines—Davao
Plant. Long before the Adopt-a-School Program of the Department of
Education was implemented, DUCC was already assisting public schools
within its area of operation. It helped some public schools in the
repair of classrooms and buildings; construction of perimeter fence,
pathways, and additional facilities; supply of potable water system
and sanitary facilities. It also donated equipment and materials to
upgrade a public high school’s chemistry laboratory. Moreover, it
trained about 2,000 out-of-school youths in vocational courses, such
as automotive mechanic and dressmaking.
The company also assisted members
of the community in developing and operating their own livelihood
projects such as rope, paper bag and hollow block-making.
Additionally, with an initial fund of half a million pesos coming
from its mother company’s foundation, it initiated a micro-lending
project to assist the small entrepreneurs in the area in accessing
low-cost capital. This freed them from the hold of the 5-6 loan
sharks, and allowed them to eventually manage their own
micro-lending cooperatives.
The company provided its
employees and families medical and hospitalization benefits that
were considered one of the best in the region. Also, the plant had
one of the lowest accident rates in the cement industry as a result
of the emphasis given to occupational health and safety. From time
to time, the company shared part of its profits with its employees
through the grant of bonuses and incentives. For its exemplary
performance in this area, the company was given recognition as one
of the best employers in the region by the local chapter of the
Personnel Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP).
The company also acted
proactively in lowering its dust emission to a level many times
better than the prevailing government standard and in implementing
an international Environmental Management System known as ISO 14001.
Moreover, it planted more than 630,000 seedlings covering a total of
more than 330 hectares of deforested and barren land. As a result of
all these activities, the company was awarded the Platinum
Achievement Award of the Presidential Mining Industry Environment
Award in 1998, the first cement plant ever to receive such
recognition up to that time.
Corporate citizenship is not an
accident. It is a product of the internalization and actualization
of the philosophy and values of the corporation, particularly the
collective judgment and decision of top management, with the active
support of the rest of the workforce. I know this to be true. I was
part of the management team that made DUCC truly a responsible
corporate citizen.
Evelio G. Echavez, a Doctor of
Business Administration candidate of the De La Salle Professional
Schools Ramon V. del Rosario Sr. Graduate School of Business, was a
former senior vice president of DUCC and is presently the dean of
the College of Business Administration and Accountancy of the
Baliuag University in Baliuag, Bulacan.
He welcomes comments at egechavez@yahoo.com.
|
