Last May 7, 2007, I was invited by Atty. Zavier Palao, Chairman of the Muslim Business Forum to give a seminar on Basic Parliamentary Procedures to its new set of officers. Since I am not an authority on the subject, I told Atty. Palao to scout for other speakers who are considered authorities on the topic, and consider me only if he cannot find one. He then told me that my practical knowledge and experience as Past President of JCI General Santos “Twin Star”, and my presentation skills being a JCI Prime Coaching Coarse graduate is more than enough to make me an effective speaker on the subject. Atty. Palao is a personal friend since college days, and after a couple of encouragement from him and telling me how important the subject matter to his group, I consented.
The Muslim Business Forum (MBF) is an organization of Muslim Businessmen and Professionals in General Santos City. MBF is an acknowledge partner of the Makati Business Club and General Santos Chamber of Commerce. It is being funded by the Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM), which is a project of the USAID. One of the major project of MBF was spearheading the creation of Halal Certification Body in SOCKSKSARGEN.
My appointment with MBF was scheduled at 7:00PM. I arrived at the seminar venue, the Office of Muslim Affairs (OMA) in General Santos City at 6:35PM. Atty Palao was there to receive me at the OMA lobby. He brought me to the seminar hall and introduced me to some officers who came in early. I recognized a few of them – Atty. Guialil Kanda, a practicsng lawyer; Datu Tungko Saikol, the Regional Director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), and one upcoming Businessman Harris Diamad who is also a former JCI Member, and several others.
As this group is very meticulous with keeping their schedules, I was introduced to the group at exactly 7:00PM. The seminar title was “Pleased to meet Robert”, coined after the name of the author, General Henry M. Robert. The version of GENERAL HENRY M. ROBERT who published the first edition of Robert’s Rules of Order on February 19, 1876 was used in my presentation as this is adapted by most national organizations.
Parliamentary Procedures is an established systematic body of principles, motions, and practices used by deliberative assemblies to govern the conduct of their business. First applied in the early English Parliament and developed over the ensuing centuries, the procedure enables any organization to accomplish its purpose in a manner that is efficient, fair, and in accordance with democratic traditions. To do so, the organization will usually designate a specific manual, such as ROBERT’S RULES OF ORDER or Sturgis’s Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure, as its authority on parliamentary procedure. In this case, its Robert’s Rules of Order.
My presentation consisted of two parts. The first part was the theory, which covered the history of parliamentary procedures, preparing the agenda, taking the minutes minutes, the objectives of meetings, the cycle of a motion, the use of gavel, the different types of motions and the precedence of motion. The second part was a workshop wherein each of them was given the chance to participate in a mock meeting with varying situations. This is intended to help them practice the process.
After the seminar, a short open forum was conducted. A lot of questions were asked, which I answered based on my knowledge and experience in handling meetings. After almost two hours and satisfying their questions, I thanked the group for inviting me. Meantime, I also took the opportunity to introduce the JCI to them and encouraged those who are still between the ages of 25-35 to join JCI if they want to know more about parliamentary procedures since it is being practiced in all our meetings.
I felt gratified leaving them with the basic knowledge on how they can effectively conduct their meetings using parliamentary procedures. As Atty. Palao escorted me on my way out, he profusely thanked me for acceding to his request, telling me that his officers learned so much from the seminar. But what I did not tell him was that I got the better of it since I had the opportunity to reacquaint myself with old friends and also meet new friends from the Muslim Business Forum.
