PLDT Stockholder's Meeting

I went to PLDT's annual stockholder's meeting with may dad at the Dusit Hotel in Makati. He figured that it would be a good opportunity for me to learn the activities of the corporate world. We don't have any investments in PLDT but it turns out that all land line subscribers are technically entitled to 1 share. It's not at all significant but it's enough for us to get invited to the meeting. I saw some big personalities in the business world like Mr. Tony Tan Caktiong of Jollibee, Mr. Alfred Ty of Metrobank and of course, Mr. Manny Pangilinan. Believe it or not, Fr. Nebres was even there as an independent director and, as expected, he presided over the opening prayers. I don't know exactly what an independent director does that is different from the regular members of the board. I also have no idea whether Fr Nebres really owns stocks or if the Ateneo owns it and he is just the university's representative.

What I learned from the event... during the portion of the meeting where the shareholders ask questions about the company activities, there were (and I guess always will be) people who either asked irrelevant questions or did not ask any questions at all and just ranted random sentences. There was this old lady who began preaching verses from the Bible (weird!) and this greasy fellow, who looked like a drug pusher, who voiced out his useless concerns loudly and emotionally. He kept on hogging the microphone even after the technicians cut off the mic's power to force him to shut up. He finally stopped only when Mr Pangilinan threatened to throw him out (But I think he should have done that earlier). These people acted as if they had a majority of the shares when they probably don't even own one. My dad said that these nuisances are a fact of shareholder meetings. They're just there to waste everyone's time and annoy the board of directors. Now I'm really impressed with CEO's like MVP because not only do they put up with the rigors of corporate activities but they also put up with these disruptive lunatics every year.