One thing about US presidents, they are usually genial, warm, sincere and have great people skills. I have observed four US presidents come to Manila—Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. I talked briefly to Carter when he visited Manila for a housing project, and saw at close range Clinton when he came to Subic for the 1996 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Bush and Obama—I just watched them from a distance.
There is something about US presidents that makes them real people. They are kindhearted, unlike a President and one presidential candidate I know.
Which makes me wonder: If Grace Poe, who is or was once an American, is elected President, will she behave like an American president—genial, warm, sincere, approachable, and kindhearted? If she will, my vote goes to her.
On Nov. 18, President Obama insisted to moderate an Apec CEO summit on small businesses. He was in his element, as a politician and as a real human being, and not as the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. He was witty, intelligent, informal, and quick at repartee. Was he being his real self, the son of an immigrant who made it good in America? Or was he being a Harvard lawyer and a former community organizer?
Obama was all praise for our small business entrepreneur and innovator Aisa Mijeno. The US President seems to have done his homework and did background check on the diminutive Filipina inventor.
Obama was profuse in his endorsement of Aisa’s invention—a LED lamp that is powered by a chemical solution produced out of sea or saltwater.
“I understand that Jack set the place on fire this morning already with his remarks—so he’s a hard act to follow. And I’m going to keep my remarks brief because, unlike some previous Apec CEO summits where I’ve just made a speech, we’ve got an opportunity I think to hear from a couple of outstanding individuals. I want to thank Jack, as well as Aisa Mijeno for joining us. And you’ll find out more about Aisa—you probably know about Jack—but she’s outstanding, and I think an example of why I feel extraordinarily optimistic about our future,” Obama began in his remarks.
I never realized an Apec summit could be so relevant until Obama moderated that forum with Apec CEOs. He talked about “the urgent and growing threat of climate change,” claiming “no nation is immune to the consequences of a changing climate.” He cited Super Typhoon ‘‘Haiyan,’’ “a storm that claimed thousands of lives and cost billions of dollars in damage.”
Obama warned: “If we want to prevent the worst effects of climate change before it’s too late, the time to act is now. And it is going to affect people’s bottom lines. Agricultural production will be impacted if we do not get on top of this. Economic disruptions—we will be able to price the costs. In serious ways already, insurance companies are factoring it into their determinations.”
For his part, Chinese tycoon Jack Ma of Alibaba recalls almost drowning in lake when he was 12 because it was deeper than he thought. Five years ago, he went back to the same lake to swim again. It had disappeared.
Obama retailed his climate change achievements as president: “We’ve doubled the distance new cars will go on a gallon of gas by 2025. We’re producing three times as much wind power as we were when I came into office. And we are producing about 20 times as much solar power as when I came into office. Thanks in part to the investments we’ve made, there are already parts of America where clean power from wind or sun is actually cheaper than dirtier, conventional power. Since 2005, even as our economy is growing, America has cut our total carbon pollution by more than any other country on Earth.”
Apec, Obama said, “is working to double renewable energy and reduce energy intensity by 45 percent over the next two decades.”
Obama’s message to his business audience: “your businesses can do right by your bottom lines and by our planet and future generations. The old rules that said we couldn’t grow our economies and protect our environment at the same time, those are outdated. We can transition to clean energy without squeezing businesses and consumers. When we doubled fuel-efficiency standards on cars, that’s money in people’s pockets because they’re spending less money at the gas station. And that’s true across our economy.”
Vital to pursuing growth, coping with unemployment, and conquering climate change is innovation. “Innovators are coming up with new ideas every single day,” Obama said, “which brings me back to my two partners here for this panel—Jack Ma and Aisa Mijeno.”
According to Obama himself, “Aisa is an entrepreneur here in the Philippines who launched a startup around a brilliant idea, which is selling lamps that run on nothing more than saltwater. She’s an engineer. She’ll have to explain the physics around this thing. (Laughter.) And I guess you’ve heard of Jack. (Laughter.) But he’s not just the founder of Alibaba, a giant in e-commerce, he also happens to be a leader on environmental issues like clean water and climate change.”
Aisa related she and her brother founded SALT—sustainable alternative lighting, “to address light inequality gap first in the Philippines by focusing on the people at the bottom of the pyramid because it comprises about 15 to 20 percent of the country’s population.” She explained:
“Most of these families live on island communities and they are not connected to power grids, so they may use kerosene and fuel-based lamps as the main source of lighting. And we know the danger that kerosene lamps poses. It can cause fire accidentally. So that’s the main reason why—what we wanted to see was we wanted to provide these people a lighting option that was more cost-effective, more safe, more sustainable and environmentally friendly by the way of a lantern that uses saline solution or ocean water as a means to generate electricity. In theory, we would be able to power up LED and of course, power up a USB port where you can also charge more power, more devices like your phones. Very essential during emergencies, especially disaster scenarios.”
“Just imagine if you would be able to power up a whole island using the ocean water,” she gushed to Obama. The $20 device is good for eight hours of lighting and by replenishing the salt solution, for P100 per recharge every six months, the lamp could last for 10 years.
Said Obama: “Aisa is a perfect example of what we’re seeing in a lot of countries—young entrepreneurs coming up with leap frog technologies—in the same ways that large portions of Asia and Africa, the old landline phones never got set up. People just went straight to mobile. And obviously they’re buying stuff through Alibaba on there all the time. (Laughter.) “
Interviewed later by Ted Failon, Aisa was asked what help the Aquino administration gave her. She groped for an answer. The government hasn’t even given her a patent.
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