Online Influencers Should Never Be Under-Estimated

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The power and reach of online influencers should never be under-estimated.

Some traditional media are confused with how "online influencers" (including bloggers) actually work.

Like a damsel in distress, they are still locked up in their towers waiting to be rescued by their princes, when they could have used their long hair to escape through the window, and explore the real world outside.

They keep forgetting that online influencers and trad media are meant to be entirely different. The two should be several worlds apart. But since there are now trad media that have already become online influencers, vice versa, or both, some trad media could not accept the trend, sees only chaos, and starts degrading online influencers to make themselves feel they are still the better choice.

Influencers don't usually receive a fixed monthly income like trad media connected as regular employees with trad media outfits (print, TV or radio, or even online publications). Thus, asking for ex-deals or payment for the service of an influencer is understandable.  Similarly to how mainstream media have ad or commercial spots available for a certain (expensive) amount, influencers (aside from their online banner ads), mostly depend on blog or vlog features, write-ups, shout-outs, etc., in social media as their form of featuring brands. They are like celebrities endorsing products or services, of which we all know get paid (high) to endorse as well.

When media outfits allow brands to advertise on their spots, does it also mean they endorse these brands? Nope! But they would also highly put out a good word about the brand to keep them as advertisers. To keep the money coming in, I bet they are willing to go easy because if their media outfits lose their advertisers, there won't be enough budget for them to buy their own expensive gadgets or "review" units.

When online influencers write, blog or vlog, favorably about brands who gave them complimentary or free products or services, does it always follow that these influencers were biased to the brands?

Similarly, when online influencers purchase products or services with their own money, does it always follow that they could easily put out negative reviews about the brands?

Therefore, it does not matter if online influencers got something for free or for a price. Because when they write positively, or negatively, and their readers eventually disagree after personally trying the brands out themselves, they may lose credibility.

Data Privacy Awareness and Compliance Workshop

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The three-day workshop is intended to give attendees introductory knowledge about the need to protect and secure personal and sensitive data or information gathered, processed, maintained, accessed and disposed of by an organization, may it be from the government or the private sector, as mandated by Republic Act 10173 otherwise known as the Data Privacy Act of 2012, which requires all to “protect the fundamental human right of privacy of communication while ensuring free flow of information to promote innovation and growth, and to ensure that personal information in information and communication systems in the government and in the private sector are secured and protected.”

“The head of each government agency, or instrumentality, is responsible for complying with the security requirements mentioned in the law, which includes all sensitive personal information maintained by his or her agency are secured, as far as practicable, with the use of the most appropriate standards recognized by the information and communication technology industry and as recommended by the National Privacy Commission.”

From the workshop, we have identified the preliminary tasks that we need to accomplish:

1. Appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO). Notarized and registered to the National Privacy Commission (NPC)

The DPO will oversee compliance of the organization to the Data Privacy Act (DPA). He or she must see to it that there is transparency, legitimate purpose, and proportionality in the acquisition, storing, safekeeping, sharing or destruction of data or information.

The head of an organization is by default the DPO, but he or she could also assign the responsibility to someone who must be among the decision makers since it involves the creation of policies designed to secure the Programs, Projects, Processes, Measures, Systems, Technologies (PPPMST) of the organization. The DPO could form a team of Compliance Officers for Privacy (COP) to help him with this endeavour.  They will supervise the Personal Information Controllers (PIC) and Personal information Processors (PIP) involved in the handling of data or information. The PIC must implement the organizational, technical and physical measures intended for the protection of personal information against any unlawful or accidental processing, destruction, alteration or disclosure.


2. Conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA)

Evaluate and manage the impact of our PPPMST on data privacy to identify and minimize the privacy risks. The PIA would ensure that potential problems could be identified at an early stage to make them simpler and less costly.


3. Register all the data processing programs, projects, processes, measures, systems, technologies (PPPMST) of the organization to NPC

The speaker advises that compliance to the DPA is not a one-shot initiative but a process so we could register our PPPMST gradually. It would also show to NTC that we are actively engaged in conceptualizing our DPA procedures.


4. Formulate and implement the organization’s Privacy Management Program (PMP)

Draft the organization’s data privacy rules, privacy manual and complaints mechanism. These include providing adequate and proper notifications on how data is acquired (like putting up visible signage of CCTV presence), practicing cyber hygiene (like creating strong passwords, locking devices, installing anti-virus, etc), securing physical locations of records (like keeping filing cabinets containing records locked and accessible only to the authorized persons), etc.,

A hard copy compliance manual and 1 year subscription to full DPMS which includes response management module is required.


5. Designate members of the Breach Response Team (BRT)

The BRT could draft the Breach Management Procedures to be followed when a data breach occurs.  They will take action and investigate if ever a possible breach is suspected or detected. A breach has occurred if the confidentiality, integrity or availability of data is compromised.  A corresponding incident or breach report should be submitted to the NPC within 72 hours.


DATES TO REMEMBER:

Deadline for Registration of DPO to NPC: March 8, 2018

Deadline for submission of Annual Incident Report to NPC: March 31, 2018

DOE Saves Billions for Consumers with Tighter Watch on TRAIN Oil Excise Taxes

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The Department of Energy (DOE) saved consumers billions of pesos with its efforts to ensure that the imposition of the new excise tax rates on petroleum products under the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law in the industry would be fairly and responsibly implemented by all the participants.

The DOE estimates that its actions saved consumers around P2.64 billion for liquid petroleum fuels, and P58.4 million from liquid petroleum gas (LPG).

Long before the onset of the TRAIN law's implementation, the DOE, through its Oil Industry Management Bureau, acted to safeguard consumers' welfare. These included meeting the industry stakeholders for guidelines, providing advisories to the public, conducting random inspections, data gathering and reviewing the inventory, examining the paper trail, as well as issuing show-cause orders to retail outlets that raised prices before January 15, the projected average period for exhaustion of old inventory.

“We implemented a lot of initiatives for the smooth implementation of TRAIN Law, because we did not want consumers to be compromised. The goal is to protect everyone, especially the consumers,” Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi said.

The DOE directed oil companies to: 1) submit duly notarized inventory report as of 31 December 2017, on per depot and per product basis for effective monitoring; 2) impose the excise tax under TRAIN only after the 31 December 2017 stocks of finished products are fully exhausted; 3) submit the daily summary of withdrawal starting 1 January 2018 until the depletion of the declared inventory as of 31 December 2017, supported by the Official Registry Book (ORB); and 4) advise their retailers to post in a conspicuous area, for transparency, notice of new excise tax implementation under the TRAIN in a signage measuring 1 meter by 1 meter in size.

The DOE responded to initial reports of early implementation of the TRAIN Law by some liquid fuel retail outlets (gas stations). Thus, a number of outlets were issued show-cause orders directing them to explain in writing why they had already imposed the new excise tax rates.

To validate whether the implementation of the TRAIN Law was proper, the DOE closely examined the supply chain, starting with the scrutiny of the dates of the source depot run-out vis-à-vis the implementation dates of price increases due to TRAIN; the latter being validated from the delivery invoices submitted. The delivery dates of the excised products were then compared to the implementation dates of the price increase in the outlet or gas station involved.

Despite the big number of retail outlets nationwide for validation, the requirements of the DOE Secretary were complied with, along with the order of the Senate, through Committee on Energy Chair Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian, to reconcile and validate all the submissions. Based on these actions, the DOE has taken all the necessary steps to ensure that the TRAIN Law was properly implemented by the industry.

To help mitigate the impact of the imposition of the new excise tax rates on the commuting public, the DOE also held talks with several oil companies to provide, renew, and/or to expand their discount mechanisms to public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers.

In the following weeks, the DOE will be executing Memorandums of Agreement with several oil companies to formalize such Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs to alleviate the plight of the PUV drivers.

Based on the three factors — (1) the mitigating mechanisms of the TRAIN Law; (2) the CSR programs to be extended by the oil companies; and (3) based on the correlation of historical data of petroleum prices and fare rates between 2014 and 2016 (where the increase in oil prices did not have a significant impact on the prices of rice and transport fares), the DOE believes that there would be a minimal impact on the public transportation sector.

Nevertheless, the DOE reiterated its commitment to ensure protection of the Filipino consumers against any disadvantageous trading of energy.