“(T)hey parted ways on her instigation and left her former partners with nothing.”
by Ducky Paredes
I have written awful things about a fledgling company called MoAnima, Inc., which is in motion-picture animation and is run by several harmless nerds, among them Carlo Ryan Estrella, Ibrahim Bernardo, Grace Lacap-Bernardo, and Rina Ria Lacap-Esmundo.
For instance, I recently wrote that their offices had been raided by the NBI, which supposedly acted on, among other things, the complaints of “the software company AutoDesk that during one of their random checks, they found out that all of their software that MoAnima was using were trial versions which are not viable for commercial use and which MoAnima had not purchased.”
The truth is that the NBI did raid MoAnima but found nothing amiss – no purloined or pirated software and absolutely nothing wrong or in anyway illegal in whatever MoAnima was doing or using. So, what was going on?
Apparently, there is a character who we will refer to as the Wicked Witch of the World-Wide Web WW of the WWW), who through the connections of her foreigner husband was able to get contracts from the motion picture company where he was working. He passed these on to his Pinay wife, the WW of the WWW, who had set up offices in the country where she was born. Unfortunately for our well-meaning and harmless nerds, they made the mistake of working with her. They signed a contract that bound them to her and she to them — they could not work elsewhere and she could not hire others.
After several months, realizing that she no longer needed them and the wicked witch that she was, she set up her own company, using some of the people in the nerds’ organization to do the work. She then abandoned the nerds.
Left with about thirty high-salaried employees with no contracts, the nerds were saved by a businessman (who happens to be a relative) who helped them set up MoAnima.
According to Ibrahim Bernardo, MoAnima is not using any software that the WW of the WWW provided our nerds, as she has several times suggested in her complaints with the Intellectual Property Office, the NBI and whoever would listen to her. In fact, what qualifies this Pinay to be called the WW of the WWW is that since they parted ways on her instigation and left her former partners with nothing, and while MoAnima has only been trying to gain some headway in their business and are finding it tough going, she is doing everything to destroy them. Why she does this even as they have done nothing to do her any harm, qualifies her, in my book, as a wicked witch.
For the benefit of non-techies, what MoAnima does is motion capture tracking or mocap, which is the process of recording movement and translating it onto a digital model. This technology has various applications in the medical field, and is also used in military exercises and sports training. It is most commonly utilized however, in the entertainment industry for video games (a billion dollar industry) and when filmmakers create digital characters for computer animation. Box-office hits such as Beowulf, A Christmas Carol, Polar Express, and most recently, Avatar, are prime examples of this.
The WW of the WWW told the NBI that MoAnima was using proprietary technology that she allowed them to use (only while they were working for her) and was trying to take her existing clients from her.
This is simply not true – a total lie as the NBI found out from its raid.
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Recently, the WW of the WWW tried to get the president of the Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) out of the organization because he was someone who worked with MoAnima and represented the Philippines in the Game Developers Convention (GDC) in San Francisco.
Unfortunately for her, the GDAP stuck with its legally elected president and so did the Philippine Government. By adding the GDAP to her list of her witchcraft’s victims, she is working against the interests of this country, just as she is when she bandies around on the Internet (the WWW) her false accusations against MoAnima.
What I hope to see is for MoAnima who are led by my fellow Ateneans who are primarily “men for others” to take the WW of the WWW to our Philippine courts and have her answer for the trouble that she has been causing them. Of course, knowing our courts, that may take a lifetime, which is actually how long it usually takes to free oneself from the clutches of wicked witches.
* * *
While it is only proper for our legislature (the Congress and the Senate) to look into the huge salaries of executives of the Government Owned and Controlled Corporations (GOCC), why I would like to know is why it took the front page story of a newspaper for our senators and congressmen to know about this.
Don’t they have yearly budget hearings on what the government spends and will spend? Why couldn’t anyone of the more than 250 legislators or anyone on their staffs find this out beforehand? Why did they notice this only when they (and us) read about it in a newspaper? What do they look at in those yearly budget hearings, if they do not notice items like what these political appointees are making?
Right now, something that I wish they would look at is what first-time congressman Ben Evardone has been talking about – why after Epira, that allowed the National Power Corporation to sell its assets in order to extinguish its debts (the main cause of our extremely high power rates), and after most of the assets have been sold, the NPC’s debts have not been paid, our power rates are even higher and NPC is borrowing more money? Isn’t that more important than finding out why the GOCCs are paying so much to their managers?
After all, all that P’Noy has to do is tell these managers to take a cut and that problem is solved.
For the failure of Epira and our constantly increasing power rates, we need a solution that only congress can provide. They ought to be looking at what Epira has brought us.
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hvp (08.23.10)
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