Bringing Down the Gauntlet

I'm not allowed to record conversations unless with permission otherwise the recording is inadmissible. Worse is that in the Philippines it is an illegal act to record a conversation:

Section 1. It shall be unlawful for any person, not being authorized by all the parties to any private communication or spoken word, to tap any wire or cable, or by using any other device or arrangement, to secretly overhear, intercept, or record such communication or spoken word by using a device commonly known as a dictaphone or dictagraph or detectaphone or walkie-talkie or tape recorder, or however otherwise described:

It shall also be unlawful for any person, be he a participant or not in the act or acts penalized in the next preceding sentence, to knowingly possess any tape record, wire record, disc record, or any other such record, or copies thereof, of any communication or spoken word secured either before or after the effective date of this Act in the manner prohibited by this law; or to replay the same for any other person or persons; or to communicate the contents thereof, either verbally or in writing, or to furnish transcriptions thereof, whether complete or partial, to any other person: Provided, That the use of such record or any copies thereof as evidence in any civil, criminal investigation or trial of offenses mentioned in Sec. 3 hereof, shall not be covered by this prohibition.

Sec. 2. Any person who wilfully or knowingly does or who shall aid, permit, or cause to be done any of the acts declared to be unlawful in the preceding Sec. or who violates the provisions of the following Sec. or of any order issued thereunder, or aids, permits, or causes such violation shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment for not less than six months or more than six years and with the accessory penalty of perpetual absolute disqualification from public office if the offender be a public official at the time of the commission of the offense, and, if the offender is an alien he shall be subject to deportation proceedings. chan robles virtual law library

Actually this got cleared up very quickly because of the Hello Garci Controversey. That despite the FACT that the president cheated in the elections, having no legal way to prove it let her get away scot free.

So we brought down the Guantlet. We had no other choice, we were operating WITHOUT any pay for 4+ months! The reason why they tried to starve us of money is multi-faceted:

• They wanted to move the campaign to one of their people who can operate it for less, (by not paying the utilities and accruing all kinds of costs and run away not paying all debtors, like the last time the company was run)
• They wanted more money, money they did not entail any legal risk (which is what our client is paying us for: to take the possibility of being legally charged if there was a way to charge us the fault).
• To gamble that because we have a new management we would "bend the knee". Being run competently, we were not in a position of weakness and could afford to switch campaigns if need be so this did not work out to their expectations.

Now the demand letter is sent and we will have to live with missing about half a million dollars of revenue for a while. They should have not with-held the money, they violated the contract, just to get at money they had nothing to do with (thats why the client didn't have to involve them).

Currently, I'm amazed by how often contracts are violated and not followed to the word. there are some fudging with late payments, especially when there is a good reason (cashflow is tight) and only a couple of days. These things are the norm, business tend to extend good-will to each other but never abuse the allowance.

The reason why contracts are not so heavy handedly enforced is because of the social norms aspect and the market cost of enforcing the contract to the very word. There are periods of waiting, lawyers, and all the due process. Also, a very thick and detailed contract is a "signal" something's up, raising the barrier/cost of understanding/transparency (making intentions known) creates suspicion.

Racism or Just Generalization.

Nit-picking contracts are a turn off and gets people to levels far below their character and estemes. Right now we are dealing with a client that has low balled us and we are forced to commit to because of the betrayal of my mother's lightbringer. So we are technically losing money having this deal if you compare it to the opportunity costs we have.

It is an IT company with a CRAPPY (emphasis) IT contract. Whats crappy is that they didn't make any specifics in their IT requirement and are making us address it. Nothing in the contract that gives them the right, just a lot of hot air, threats and bullying.

Now that we showed we got our own people's back we have turned the tide, for now...

Currently a certain Indian BPO firm is breaking Philippine Tax and Labor laws left and right. This is leading my parents and our partners to generalize about the Indian businessmen who come here. Leading me to remind the of "the Rape of Manila" when the British employed their Sepoys in the destruction of manila.

Being one of the rare Filipino Owned BPO firms that will be employing the most cutting edge tech (cloud services) and being a Company that can replicate and sell that replicative service means we can make other filipinos own such a business. I guess, in a way we are allowing more filipinos to own and run BPOs.

Moving away from Brokers.

Can you really be free from brokers? I guess in a way you can, and it may be much healthier for the business. Particularly our business. Brokers do connection work, but are in a situation of insecurity where they are threatened by unscruplus partners OR the other way around they are unscrupulous and threaten others.

Now the question is there a way to avoid the 3 way partnership? A 3 way partnership, is more complicated than a two way one, because there is someone who should not pick sides. there is that difficult illusion of impartiality and wanting the best for the other two parties. A difficult illusion to maintain.

When you've been in the Biz and deal with a lot of tech and large companies, you won't need brokers and you tend to get a lot of refer-alls. Especially if you have a good Rep.