Photo from Inquirer.net

Junjun Binay is slumped over his desk. Reading article after article that came out once the Inquirer’s explosive headline hit the internet. His aides surround him, encouraging him to fight, throwing him their “support” (whatever that means). Like most Filipino leadership teams, they are Yes-Men all the way.  Loyalty and harmony are valued over candid opinions and intense debates.  

I’ve met Junjun a few times – in our barangay, and in our Rotary meetings, where he would give his annual State of Makati presentation. He never personally struck me as arrogant. Aloof, perhaps. Tentative at times, maybe. But when asked pointed questions about  public policy, he seems familiar with the challenges facing the city.

Assuming I was in city hall and if I were asked to help respond to this quagmire, here’s what I would do.

“Junjun, we gotta get out there. This is gonna be a bloodbath,” I say.

“But I didn’t do anything wrong,” he replies, his faced mixed with fear, confusion and anger.

“Sir, with all due respect, it doesn’t fucking matter now. Malacanang’s political engine is gonna hang you for this. There are talks that they’re gonna send Mar over. They’re gonna use this to deflect attention from Tacloban. The last thing we need is Mar swinging around his cock in city hall. If he does try that, we gotta make sure public opinion is on our side. And that people will see it as Noynoy firing the opening salvo for 2016.”

He looks surprised. “We have the support of Makati residents.”

“This isn’t about Makati. They’ll blow this into a Binay thing. Your dad will be hanged. Your sisters will be hanged,” I reply.

“Ok, what do we do?”

“You say sorry. You put your face out there. Take Joey Salgado off the game. Stop making Nancy issue statements on your behalf. At this point, you should be doing the talking. And we should be doing it fast. We issue as statement in the next hour.”

“WTF? Why would I do that? It’s like I admitted that I was wrong,” he looks pissed now. But inside, he feels the urgency.

“It doesn’t matter. Everyone already wants to chop your balls off. Your back is against the wall, with the knife near your pants. You’re pleading to their sense of decency. You’re pleading for sympathy. Look, if Clinton got away after that intern fling and came out the bigger man – no pun intended, Jun – then you can too. But you gotta man up.”

“Okay, so what do I say?”

“I’ve written the speech. Here’s what it looks like”:

“Thank you for giving me this chance to speak my mind. I can feel the immense anger directed against me. And I know that what I say right now will unlikely change your mind. But I owe it to everyone to respond.

So I’ll make this quick. I’m only going to say three things:  

The first is that I am deeply sorry. I’m first and foremost sorry to Sirs Vergilio, Dionisio, Jofl, and Elpidio for getting them involved in this. You gentlemen were simply doing your jobs, and you don’t deserve to be caught in the middle of city hall and your village association for a personal mistake I made. It shouldn’t be your agency apologizing. It should be me. 

To my constituents, please accept my deepest apologies. It doesn’t matter whether I explain in detail what exactly happened that night. What matters is the way  my behavior will be judged. And upon deeper self-reflection, I could have definitely handled things better. This is what I should have done: I should have just instructed my convoy to turn back. I shouldn’t have alighted the vehicle and made a fuss about it. Perhaps that added to the agitation of my staff, who understandably just wanted to do their jobs. I should’ve just let it go. My time as your servant is worth more than a protracted spat about a random gate. 

The second is that I understand. I understand how this looks like from your point of view. I understand that despite whatever I say, this will be seen as an example of me abusing my position and throwing my weight around. I understand that just by watching the video, one may conclude that my party harassed and intimidated the village guards. I understand that by bringing in the Makati police and asking the village guards to go to city hall, one may argue that I’ve curtailed their rights for no apparent reason. 

I understand that in light of the insane politics of this country, the intense scrutiny of public officials, the public disillusionment, and the dying trust in government officials, I should have acted with more prudence, more caution, and more reflection. I should have made a stronger effort to be more self-aware on how my actions as a leader will be perceived. 

The third is that this experience taught me how much more I have to learn. This is my first term as mayor. And I admit, gaining experience is still something I work on everyday. I realize that the root cause of my unwise behavior is my own hubris. 

In my genuine desire to project an image of maturity, strength and experience, I end up being overly-aggressive and wanting to unnecessarily prove myself.

I’ve come to conclude that the best way to fight the hubris is to be constantly in touch with reality – with the people on the ground. When I lost my wife, I lost my moral compass. 

So this is what I’m going to do: I’m going to surround myself more often with people from diverse parts of our city. Life in Makati can be a bubble. Makati isn’t Ayala Avenue. Makati isn’t City Hall. Makati is where almost 1 million people work to build a better life. Makati is the saleslady in SM wondering if her 6-month contract will be extended. Makati is the MAPSA traffic enforcer working under the noontime sun. Makati is the customer service specialist who, at 2am, is making sure her client in New York gets her flight tickets on time. Makati is the entrepreneur working out of an incubator in 55 Paseo de Roxas, quietly building innovative products for the world.  

Makati is the shining example of what the rest of the Philippines can be. And I have an immense responsibility to learn from my mistakes and be the best leader that i can be. This is my promise to you. 

Thank you very much.”

———–

The goal is to ensure that Junjun comes out of this a better man. And be perceived by people as the better man. One should also note what this hypothetical response does NOT communicate:

• It doesn’t disparage the Inquirer report. People are smart enough to know that media distorts as much as politicians do.
• It doesn’t mention the VP. The message has nothing to do with the family. This was a lapse in personal judgement, and that keeping away the family is what’s best for everyone.
• It doesn’t seek to antagonize DVA or its residents.

It’s Christmas. People just want to forget about politics and enjoy the break. People are more open to forgive. If Junjun’s communications team were smart, they’d do this. At this point, a disarming, unexpectedly sincere apology – a rarity in this government – may just stem the tide.

I’ve been a jerk to guards before. Sometimes we just get trapped by our own egos. But I’m lucky to have honest friends who cared about me and spoke up about my condescension. Junjun needs honest friends too.

Billionaire, Rebel, Philanthropist. Also very Lucky. Image via CrunchBase

Technology’s been sold as the great equalizer. Investing in the innovation economy, it’s been argued, helps emerging markets leapfrog the rest, increase GDP and per capita income, and make everyone better off. With technology, we can go from rags to riches.

Certainly, there’s been tons of great news about the Philippine startup scene – a leading seed fund, new cohorts in an incubator, digital media innovation, and bigger funding rounds. More people are interested to become founders. More schools are supporting startups. The future looks bright.

But after reading, Nick Bilton’s Hatching Twitter and Ben Mezrich’s Accidental Billionaires, one starts to make these observations:

Mark Zuckerberg came from a well-off family, went to Exeter, had access to computers at a young age, and even had a software developer as a private tutor  at home. He built a private network between their house and his dad’s dental office. In high school, he built a machine learning music player that Microsoft wanted to buy, which Mark turned down to go to Harvard.

Ev Williams started Twitter when he was already rich. Flushed with cash from Google’s acquisition of his previous startup, Blogger, Ev had the resources to co-found Odea with Noah Glass. Odeo was mostly funded by Ev, and the financial resources along with Ev’s reputation, allowed it to hire talented engineers, which eventually included Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder. Everyone knows that Twitter was originally a side project, when Odeo’s original product – a podcasting platform – faced competitive pressure from Apple when it placed podcasts in iTunes.

Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel grew up wealthy and privileged. His father is a partner at a prestigious law firm. His mother is the youngest woman to graduate from Harvard Law. They live in a $4.6 million home in LA’s Pacific Palisades. At 17, he pleaded his father to give him a BMW535i.

Instagram’s Kevin Systrom went to a private boarding school before attending Stanford.

Even Bill Gates famously honed his programming skills for years at his private high school and eventually at Harvard, both of which had mainframe computers that most schools in America didn’t have at the time.

By now, you can probably see where I’m going. The founders of global technology companies had built-in, unfair advantages.  They had privileged access. Of course, one cannot discount innate talent, and a bit of rebelliousness. But to deny the role of the genetic lottery, social class, the environment, and a privileged access to financial and technological resources is not a tenable argument. Perhaps up to 80% of success are driven by things we can’t control.

And that’s the most terrifying thing about Philippine startups: no matter how bright the future seems, we will likely remain a laggard as the West continues to build on existing technological advantages. And that’s a tragedy, because I believe the innovation economy – beyond sloganeering on tourism, BPOs, and remittances and along with its prerequisite institutional reform –  is perhaps the single most important driver in improving Filipino lives.

Democratizing access to the ingredients of a scalable tech business – devices, software, cheap internet, computer literacy, coding education – will be biggest driver of this innovation economy. They are the ingredients people need to stir the pot.

There’s evidence to suggest that the access gap is widening. Consider this: America continues to invest in computer education. Harvard’s CS50 is now free for all to take. And so are tons of software development courses on CodeAcademy, Udemy and Coursera. Innovation programs such as General Assembly, Startup Intistutue and Launch have expanded rapidly. Wealthy American entrepreneurs are cycling money back at an unprecedented scale to fund education, internet access, and startups (how about the local tycoons?).

But we can do something. If a homeless man can learn to code and build app, our possibilities are not limited by our existing environmental constraints. What can we do?

First, DepEd can massively require not just computer literacy but basic coding across public schools, starting perhaps at Grade 3. Create a PPP to significantly subsidize the cost of devices, funded perhaps by an ad-driven revenue model. In the collegiate level, it’s time to make technology related courses as popular as business, nursing or HRM.

Second, we can drive knowledge transfer by making it easier for expat founders to establish startups here. Sheila Marcelo is the Filipino founder of Boston-based Care.com, and she had an excellent idea: make foreign entrepreneurs and investors fall in love with the Philippines on a personal level. Start with those with a Philippine connection – someone who has a spouse or relative, a Filipina nanny, or spent time here volunteering. Establish a regular, APEC-like forum that not only invites them to pursue business opportunities here, but also carves significant to allow them to experience the beauty of the Philippines outside the capital.  Let our hospitality take over. We can’t compete with Indonesia with huge macro numbers (population, internet users, etc), but we can compete for hearts and minds.

Third, we can build on existing efforts. The good news is that some people are getting stuff done. La Salle has Animo Labs, and Xavier has XS Next Lab. At our company, we try to close the gap in small ways – with education and continuous learning in mind. For example, one merchandiser attended an introductory class on cloud computing. Kickstart Ventures, meanwhile, regularly hosts workshops on lean startups and innovation. The Amazon Web Services team in Singapore has been very generous in sharing their stuff locally too.

It’s rightly justified to focus on education – create the infrastructure and get out of the way. The rebels will naturally emerge and build amazing products. We’ll have our own local version of  The Hacker Way. Maybe #StartupPH can call it… the PHacker Way. Whoaaaaah. Wait! That sounded really really bad when you say it out loud. But hey, it might just get people excited enough.