| Touche, Tony. Loved the way you drove your point home - just like a stiletto. Cheers. Ben Belen, [email protected] Canada, August 07, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww I find your incisive articles very interesting and thought-provoking. Your perception of Philippine politics and life and the nuances you offer are naturally of interest to those who, by exigency or choice, are now living abroad. The article on PLDT is of particular interest not only because the company continues to frustratingly affect and touch and shape so many lives but that it has remained a dominant service company in the country. It there's anything to be admired about this company, it is its resiliency to survive a deep and ingrained culture of ineptness and incompetence. I do not know of any time that I was happy with PLDT and I have had my quarrels with the company too. But for the mention of broadband, your article could have been written 16 years ago when I left the country. It is as if time stood still for PLDT. I often wonder about PLDT. How can so many changes at the helm not affect the company's labyrinthine bureaucracy, its incredibly bad work ethics and a company mindset equaling that of a government bureaucracy with tables full of red tapes? Into the 21st century. And PLDT continues to frustrate. Jess N. San Agustin, [email protected] August 07, 2004 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
| PLDT of Samarkand By Antonio C. Abaya July 15, 2004, Manila Standard I have been trying to determine to what century the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) rightfully belongs, judging from the speed with which it replies to the legitimate complaints of its unsatisfied customers. Certainly, PLDT does not belong to the 21st century, the age of instant communications via email, in which messages fly off to cyberspace at practically the speed of light. Not to the 20th century either. Radio communications, via electromagnetic radiation or radio waves, also travel at practically the speed of light. What about the 19th century then? Communications by telephone or by telegraph in which sound waves or dots-and-dashes at one end are converted into electrical impulses and transmitted through wires, and then converted back to sound waves or dots-and-dashes at the other end. Still too fast by PLDT standards as the only force that slows it down is the resistance of the copper wires, not the resistance of bureaucratic fat asses. Semaphore signals, reflecting mirrors, tom-tom drums and puffs of smoke have also been used by various tribes and pre-mechanical empires to transmit messages, but they are limited in range to the line of sight (or hearing) and are pretty useless during heavy downpours, earthquakes and collisions with comets and meteors.. The historical milieu that fits PLDT best, in my opinion, is the Mongol empire of Genghis and Kublai Khan (13th to15th centuries), the most extensive land empire in the history of the world, where communications were by squadrons of hard-riding horsemen using relays of fresh horses between stations, to transmit messages from central command in the Gobi Desert to outposts of the empire as far away as Hungary and Poland, Muscovy and Persia, and back. From Karakorum to Samarkand and back in, what, 23 days on the Silk Road across the steppes of Central Asia. That�s how long it took to get a reply from PLDT to an email I had sent to them on June 21. I was then a subscriber to their high-tech pldtdsl broadband server and I emailed to complain of deteriorating service and to ask to be disconnected from it ASAP. When there was no reply or acknowledgment even after three days, I sent another email. Still no reply or acknowledgment. On June 29, disturbed at the prospect of having to pay another P2,273 plus EVAT for another month of infuriating non-service, I wrote a letter to an old acquaintance, Tony Samson, senior PLDT vice president, and had it hand-delivered to his office by a former PLDT staff member. Alas, it turned out that Tony had retired months earlier. My letter was handed over to his replacement, one Butch Jimenez, and I was assured that my request would be acted upon. But days and days later, even as I write this, I am still getting (mostly junk) email on my info.com email address, precursor to the pldtdsl email address assigned to me, so I am not sure if and when I was ever or will ever be disconnected from the pldtdsl server. So what a relief it was to finally receive on July 13 an email from pldtdsl replying to my original email of June 21, or 23 days later, offering �sincerest apologies� for not having replied sooner and asking me to confirm request for termination by providing them with �DSL PO no. or the telephone where it is currently connected.� Don�t they have any record of this? The email is not signed by any human, only by �PLDT HOME DSL.� The good news is that it looks like I will finally be rid of pldtdsl; the bad news is that they are docking me with a pre-termination fee of P3,000. I hope Manny Pangilinan is reading this so he will know why I want to disconnect. As I explained in my letter to Tony Samson, I had been using pldtdsl since February. Around the second week of June, the service began to deteriorate. When I scrolled to the pldtdsl address and clicked, more often than I would get the PLDT home page. When I finally got to the pldtdsl home page and I logged in my user name and password, more often than not I would get an error message that �the page cannot be displayed,� so I would have to start the process all over again and hope that I would not land in the PLDT home page again. It was frustrating and infuriating. I felt like Sisyphus condemned to pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to have it roll down again, over and over, but I did not know what I was being punished for. And there was no human being that one could call up and complain to. The supposed service number (173) is manned by the disembodied voices of androids who are not descended from Adam and Eve, and the promised �customer service associates� are perpetually busy even at three in the morning. The recorded palaver that �your call is important to us� is meaningless since the call cannot be completed in the first place. Is Manny Pangilinan listening? In the broadband server that I now subscribe to, there is a telephone number that one can call in case of problems and connect to human beings with DNA molecules, instead of diodes and capacitors, in their innards. Last week, after an 8-hour service interruption, a human being actually called me up to ask if everything was all right. Is Manny Pangilinan listening? It is only fair that you cancel any and all charges to my account after June 21, including that silly pre-termination fee. May the desert sands swallow this insignificant insect for presuming to render Thee a favor, O Great Khan, by telling Thee, Most Serene Majesty, what Thine fawning courtiers in Karakorum will not tell Thee, that the entire supply of yak butter, from Samarkand to Novgorod, has spoiled. But how else would you know why your empire stinks? ***** My articles appear every Thursday in the Manila Standard and every Saturday in the Philippines Free Press magazine. All articles are archived in www.tapatt.org. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �PLDT of Samarkand� I truly commiserate with you. Perhaps it would help if you send a "regalo" i.e, ten thousand coconuts, to facilitate your transactions. Eaglewings [email protected] July 16, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, maybe you mean manny pangilinan, and not mark. i guess three thousand is the fine the bestow upon you for disconnecting earlier than one year. a favorite clause by the telcos. whether good service or bad, they got us by the proverbial balls in this contract however lopsided it may be. the NTC should allow us to have our lawyers go over the onerous contract, make our own comments and corrections, and if there are enough of us, force the telcos of broadband suppliers to abide by a better agreement. as it stands, it is all in their favor. as your example shows, you were not even given the courtesy of a return call. you are not alone, tony. i have a number of complaints regarding similar problems. not all exactly like yours, but similar. for your information, the fellow who you claim did not return your calls is butch jimenez, one of manny pangilinans favorite sidekicks and heir apparent to tony samson. Gerry Kaimo [email protected] July 16, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Humorously well said, Tony! Dick Powell [email protected] July 16, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I was laughing out loud as I read your article describing your frustration with the service of PLDT. In our subdivision we are perennially plagued with a subdivision wide breakdown of PLDT service for many days, the most recent one having occurred last July 1 to a couple of days later. PLDT on its own does not give rebate for periods of non-service. Subscribers must always notify them (at the time when there was no PLDT service) of such non-service despite the fact that they already have knowledge of such breakdowns in their facilities because they would have to do subdivision-wide repair work. Thank you for your article. I trust it will serve as a wake up call to the decision makers of PLDT. Inday G. Berroya Blue Ridge, Quezon City [email protected] July 16, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Antonio: I'm with you on this as well. I think PLDT is a corporation filled with morons. As much as I wanted to get a DSL, i'd rather wait for other companies to build their DSL presence in my area. I never did believe in PLDT. They are never a service oriented company ever since. I suggest you make an appointment with their president and check if he really is human or just brain dead. Tell him to change their adverts "PLDT Brains" to "PLDT Brain Dead" Best, Alan Plata [email protected] July 16, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww tony --- the name is manny pangilinan not mark. also, i forwarded to him your earlier e-mail complaining about their dsl service. i am probably notorious in pldt circles for complaining to manny everytime my dsl service goes on the blink and there is no one in pldt able to take my call. i took the strategy of befriending the linemen and so now, i call them first. Boo Chanco Philippine Star [email protected] July 16, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony, So you have also undergone the PLDT "help" line treatment. Welcome to the club. Here is a pertinent letter of complaint from a Brit to his telecom company. It may or may not be true, but it sure is funny. And certainly applicable to the twits at PLDT. What follows is an example of British humour in a complaint letter sent to a British ISP. The piece suggests two things: 1) Americans and Canadians are not the only ones who get poor service from their ISP, cable or alarm companies. (NTL is a cable operator in Britain). 2) The Brits probably write the world's best letters of complaint. Peter1 [email protected] July 16, 2004 Dear Cretins, I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your four-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, telephone, and alarm monitoring. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative and seek to rectify these difficulties -- or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking, and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office. My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website. HOW? I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes -- an activity at which you are no doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools -- such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over four weeks my modem arrived, six weeks after I had requested, and begun to pay for it. I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35% -- the hours between about 6pm and midnight, Monday through Friday, and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made nine calls on my mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals who are, it seems, also highly skilled bollock jugglers. I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back), that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answering machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman, and several other variations on this theme. Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of those crucially important testicle moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care. It's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue. I truly thought British Telecom was shit, and they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations; and that no one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum incompetents of the highest order. BT -- wankers though they are -- shine like brilliant beacons of success in the filthy mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver. Any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief and will quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused rage. I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cat's litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit -- they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless employees. Have a nice day. May it be the last in your miserable short lives, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twits. Rgds Michael Luck wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, If only to inform you that you are not alone in suffering PLDT-DSL you may visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pldt-dsl/ and see how people have been suffering since the service was introduced. "Torturing Lives" is a very appropriate tagline for pldt.com.ph and their pldt-dsl brand. Tet Gambito [email protected] July 16, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww COULDN'T AGREE WITH YOU MORE ABOUT PLDT'S SERVICE. GOOD LUCK ON YOUR PRAYER FOR THOSE CHARGES TO BE DROPPED! BUT KNOWING HOW PLDT IS SO SERVICE-DISORIENTED AND CLIENT-UNFRIENDLY, I DOUBT THAT YOUR CHARGES WILL BE SCRAPPED PER YOUR WISTFUL THINKING. GOOD LUCK, ANYWAY. MY INTERNET PROVIDER IS TR-ISYS. MAYBE YOU MIGHT LIKE TO TRY THEM. THEIR SERVICE IS A LOT BETTER THAN PLDT, AND THE CHARGES ARE MORE REASONABLE. Ed Valenciano [email protected] July 16, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I have to tell you how much I enjoy your messages. This latest one is a real jewel. I'm not sure how I got on your mailing list, but look forward to continuing to receive your future epistles. I am an American, but I have lived in the Philippines for the past 17 years. I am married to a wonderful Filipina, originally from Cebu. We are settled in Davao. I am an independent consultant, specializing in private sector led agribusiness and rural enterprise development. As such, I spend much of my time consulting in East and South Asia, for ADB, World Bank, USAID and others. I just finished a three month stint in Bangladesh and am currently working in Vietnam for a few weeks. The Philippines will always be my preferred place to live, but the direction of the country over the past several years has often made me heartsick. I spend much of my time advising other countries how to improve their agriculture and agribusiness sectors (focusing not only on how to improve the systems, but also on how to integrate small farmers and small rural enterprises into these systems), but I find it difficult to understand why the Philippines has failed to effectively utilize its vast physical and human resource base in the rural areas to help solve the nation's economic and poverty problems. I began my career many years ago as an agricultural journalist, so I do appreciate talented writing. Keep up the good work! best regards Don M. Taylor [email protected] July 17, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Mr. Abaya, Just wanted to know if by 'Mark Pangilinan' you are referring to PLDT Chairman Manny Pangilinan, or is there another Pangilinan in PLDT worth mentioning? By the way, I work for Innove Communications, the fixed-line subsidiary of Globe Telecom. Regards, Tonton Mapa [email protected] July 19, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww At 12:35 AM 7/16/2004, Antonio C. Abaya wrote: >Is Mark Pangilinan listening? In the broadband server that I now subscribe >to, there is a telephone number that one can call in case of problems and >connect to human beings with DNA molecules, instead of diodes and >capacitors, in their innards. Last week, after an 8-hour service >interruption, a human being actually called me up to ask if everything was >all right. Hmmm, you must mean Manny Pangilinan :-) Jim Ayson [email protected] July 19, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I subscribed to PLDT myDSL in 2001 and suffered the same poor or non-service after a few days of good service. we dialogued with PLDT senior management in October 2001 but things did not improve so umalis na ako sa PLDT my DSL noong March 2003. I can send you a copy of my inq7.net column on "myDSL blues'. We also formed an "Ireklamo PLDTDSL" egroup in 2001. But since I am no longer a myDSL subscriber, I have not been visiting that e-group. Bong Mendoza [email protected] July 20, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, Our common experiences with PLDT's poor DSL service allows us to comment on it and pass judgement by saying they belong to an age very remote to what is supposed to be the age of telecommunications. I would like to relate to you another type of people that negate the existence of the new technology in the manner with which they reply to official communications. Maybe it is not really the technology but the twisted sense of what kind of "public service" is practiced by these officials concerned. May I refer you please to the following url's to illustrate this malpractice: http://rpweb.ph/eo170 http://rpweb.ph/sf14 I wonder to which age you might consign these officials at the DOTC and the Office of the President. Tet Gambito [email protected] July 21, 2004 MY REPLY. Perhaps to the Kalahari Desert AD 2004, where they haven�t invented the written language. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |
 |
 |
| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Sir, Please add to this Land Bank of the Philippines. I emailed them at their website to complain on the "very frequent off-line" operation of their ATM facility in Baguio sometime June. Up to now I haven't received a reply. Is it possible that theirs is 20th century speed too? Keep it on Sir. [email protected] July 22, 2004 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |