Teamwork, PDIC & Wonder Island

Many more photos at end of article - All photos byFrank A Hilario.

Under the canopy of Wonder Island's all-white tour boat, during the cruise around the island, in the middle front row (in blue) is Ms Elizabeth E Oller, First VP, PDIC

By Frank A Hilario, guest blogger

TEAMWORK is what catapulted the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to become Outstanding in the eyes of the World Bank and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR); read my story ‘Al Gore Of Science’ (2007 July 14, americanchronicle.com). Here, Rated O equals a World Bank grant of US$2.4 M. That’s not the great value of teamwork – that’s only an example of the great value of what teamwork can do.

‘Strengthening working relationship’ is what the Insurance Claims Group (ICG) of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) went after at Wonder Island near the city proper of Calamba in the province of Laguna last July 13-14. The prize they went after: Teamwork.

How important is teamwork at PDIC? We can have a good idea of that when we consider that there are 18 groups that make up the PDIC, as according to Ms Eloida B Indorte, Coordinator of the ICG affair at Wonder Island; there were 80 of them from the ICG alone attending the two-day workshop. Thus, teamwork is not only important – it is indispensable. Such significance can also be appreciated considering the role of the PDIC, this according to the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI) (iadi.org):

The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) is a government corporation established in June 1963 under Republic Act (RA) 3591. PDIC's role as envisioned by the Congress is to encourage savings in banks and draw idle funds into the banking system, protect insured deposits in the event of bank closures, help promote a sound and stable banking system, and foster public confidence in the banking system.

We were at Wonder Island on the last day of the ICG event, ‘we’ meaning me and Roman Romeo Nagpala, who owned the digital Kodak EasyShare camera and the Dell laptop we were using to cover the PDIC event in both print and visual media: I shot and we uploaded to the laptop, then deleted from the camera and got ready for another round of shots – I always shoot many more than I know I need, whether or not it is for a pictorial or a coffee table book.

Yes, we are a team of two. Romy is an excellent PR man who is always ready with stories and jokes right off his head that everyone likes to hear. And I am the writer, editor & publisher who is this time also the photographer and webmaster. He has been PR-writing for at least 32 years; I have been writing for about that long. Lately, we agreed to work together as a team of multi-media marketing consultants. If you hire us, you hire a team. That is only logical, as marketing is itself a teamwork of four: the promoter, the pricer, the positioner, the packager. Romy and I, the two of us are all of the four, simplifying marketing for your product or service. It takes two multi-taskers like us to team up beautifully for marketing in the electronic universe.

Teamwork is the word for the week. The event we attended at Wonder Island was called the ‘Annual PDIC-ICG Teambuilding Workshop (2007)’ and led by Ms Elizabeth E Oller, First Vice President at PDIC and the Officer-in-Charge of the ICG. Ms Lanie Pua-Almasan, daughter of Rudy Pua, owner of Wonder Island, had arranged with Ms Eloida, who is Assistant Manager of the Claims Settlement Department of the ICG, for us to be at the breakfast on the Wonder Island houseboat just before the cruise around the island.

The Insurance Claims Group is composed of three Departments, and they were all there: Presettlement Examination, led by AVP Luisito M Carreon; Claims Processing, led by AVP Atty Elaine B Deticio; Claims Settlement, led by DM Merlie M Cañaveral. The objective, says Ms Eloida, is ‘nurturing growth’ and the purpose is ‘to promote camaraderie and harmony among officers & staff of ICG, to further strengthen working relationships.’

At noon on the second day, we asked Ms Eloida about their stay at Wonder Island so far, and she said her group were all very happy: ‘Tuwang-tuwa sila.’ They enjoyed the workshop, they enjoyed their stay. They had games and such, and the island resort had everything they needed, including dormitory units, seminar-workshop facilities, including an overhead projector, karaoke – coffee that flows as long as you want it. Our breakfast this morning had longanisa (the Filipino tasty meat sausage), eggs sunny side up, tinapa (smoked fish), fried rice, papaya, pandesal (salted bread) with melting butter. A teamwork of food items like that made the day for the more than 80 of us in the houseboat, with which we circled Wonder Island after the meal.

Wonder Island has sports facilities with minimal fees: volleyball, table tennis, billiards, darts. It has aqua sports facilities, with three rates per hour: Wave Runner I, II & III. It has kiddie pools, adult pools, water playground and a children’s playground. All of these come together beautifully like teamwork. Strictly by reservation.

The PDIC went to Wonder Island to work out their teamwork more. Because of its unique location (just off the lakeshore of the City of Calamba), near Manila, its particular configuration (a whole little island that can exist entire of itself, with generators all over the place for electricity), because of the teamwork of intelligence and technology, Wonder Island gave the ICG the perfect place for their workshop. These photographs should be enough proof of that.