A day at play
BY JIM BOLANTE
Suits and ties are traded in for shirts and sun hats
at the 2016 Meralco Power Club Pro-Am Challenge.
Monday. The word carried with it a certain gloom, closing the door on the weekend, signaling the start of another work week stacked with paperwork, lengthy meetings and, of course, traffic jams.
This particular Monday, November 14, was an exception. Executives of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco), corporate partners, and VIP guests traded their boardrooms and offices for the beautiful, sprawling greens of the Sta. Elena Golf and Country Club in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, to compete in the 2016 Meralco Power Club Pro-Am Challenge.
'Of course, any time you're outside the office, you feel blessed!" quips Alfredo S. Panlilio, senior vice president and head of Customer Retail Services and Corporate Communications of Meralco. "It's always good to be out on the golf course."
An annual event, the Meralco Power Club golf tournament is a venue for the company to interact and enrich its relationships with their customers in a casual, light-hearted atmosphere.
"They look very formal when you see them in the office, in Congress, but here, they're really fun and laid-back," Panlilio narrates. "I had [Marinduque] Rep. Lord Allan Velasco in my flight, along with [First Gen Corp. and First Philippine Holdings Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer] Francis Giles Puno."
The 2016 competition is the seventh since the tournament's inception, but it was only the third Pro-Am challenge, which featured some of the top professional golfers in the Philippines.
The participants were broken down into four-man teams, with the best score on each hole counted as the score for the unit. Each flight consisted of three amateur players and one professional player, with full handicaps (up to a maximum of 25) applied.
Panlilio, Puno, Velasco and Tony Lascuña, one of the country's highest-ranked golfers, made up Flight 1A. Right behind them were Flight 1B, which featured Rep. Rey Umali (2nd District, Oriental Mindoro), Pwersa ng Bayaning Atleta party-list Rep. and Vice Chairman of the Committee on Legislative Franchises Mark Sambar, MVP Group Media Bureau Head lawyer Michael Toledo, and pro golfer Jay Bayron.
"They're great to play with," says Bayron. "I was actually excited and nervous at first, but when the game started, I saw how dedicated they were at golf."
But Flight 15A, with Glades International Corp. President Alfred Gatchalian, Terumo Philippines Corp. President Yasuhiro Omura, Meralco Relationship Manager Pat Panlilio and golf pro Rico Depilo, turned out to be the day's biggest winner.
First runner-up went to Flight 22B, composed of Eaglecor Inc. President Ernesto Lim, HGST Philippines Corp. President and General Manager Chandra Anamirtham, Miescor Senior Vice President and Head of the Project Development and Engineering Department Chito Torres and pro Dante Becierra, which finished 19-under with two eagles. Flight 3B, with MServ Consultant for Eco Solutions Ramil Agustin, Hitachi T&D Systems Asia Pte. Ltd. General Manager Atsushi Komuro, Automated Technology Inc. President Danny Acuña, and pro Orlan Sumcad finished as second runner-up, scoring 19-under with one eagle.
"It's nice to have one day in the year to hang out and enjoy the game we love in a relaxed environment," observes Victor S. Genuino, vice president and head, Corporate Business Group of Meralco. "At the end of the day, one group will claim scores of minus-10, another group says they did minus-11, and another group says minus-13, minus-15, and so on. You can see it's a very competitive tournament, and I'm happy that everybody's having fun along the way."
As Mondays go, this one turned out to be a mid-month pick-me-up and a great way to energize the rest of the week.
