Reflection Paper No. 3 My Passion by Josh Go - Go for Mayor

Hi Prof,

Sending reflection paper no. 3 about my passion. Thank you for a wonderful experience. For the different approach in facilitating the class.

REFLECTION PAPER NO. 3
By: Leader Josh Go

What is your passion (what is it that you love doing)? How is it reflected in your work, daily life, and life's journey?

The struggles and experiences I have gone through in my life made me passionate about leading by doing the best I can be to serve and make a difference.
This passion manifested from my elementary, high school and college days. I am not the top performer in school academically but I am always a top contender for presidency positions in class and in any organization that I am associated with. In high school, I was the Class President and President for different organizations. I initiated various projects like fund raising activities, providing trash cans for all classrooms, school wide general cleaning among others. As a confirmation for all the accomplishments I have contributed to the school, an outstanding leadership award was given to me during our graduation. It was then that I realized my passion in leading and making a difference because I enjoyed doing it without expecting any reward. The only secret I had was simply being me and did what I love to do.


This passion continued when I was in college being elected as President of an academic organization (UPLB Society of Chemical Engineering Students) only a year after joining the club. Even just being nominated as President came as a surprise since I was very young with the organization and there were 4 batches ahead of us. Even more surprising is that I was elected President with 90% of the total votes. This experience built a lot of confidence in me considering the responsibility the members entrusted to me. I knew then that I was not probably the best candidate but the success of the organization that time came from the support I got from the members. I was able to initiate changes in the organization and introduce new projects. I was able to amend our by-laws by putting in black and white that physical contact with the new members during the final initiation is not allowed. Majority were not in favor including my batchmates but I was able to convince
them there is no single positive reason to continue this practice. Many projects were also introduced like the First Chemical Engineering Week wherein we had a one week exhibit about the Chemical Engineering course in UP Los Banos and about the organization and its objectives. The very first Natural Science Quiz participated by different high schools all over Laguna. This is our way of promoting the course since it the newest course offered in UPLB way back in 1986. The success of this project was overwhelming and even the College of Engineering gave us recognition for this. This project already evolved into a major event not only in College of Engineering but to UPLB as a whole. Somehow these exposures started to nurture my abilities as a leader.


My first job as Shift Engineer in a Filipino owned chemical manufacturing company opened up this opportunity for me to explore further my abilities and capabilities as a leader. As a Shift Engineer, I was responsible for the overall operations during my shift and to the whole plant during weekends and holidays. I was able to challenge the old practices for long years and introduce a new system to do things. I was able to gain the respect and trust of the whole production team because of the positive results of the changes I initiated.
After almost 4 years, I left the company for a better opportunity. It was a bigger and tougher responsibility to widen my leadership skills. I was one of the pioneers who put up Yokohama Tire Philippines here in Clark. Starting from scratch, we were able to establish Yokohama to where it is now. From a thousand tires per day in 1998 to about 30,000 tires per day today and still growing. The journey with Yokohama was not easy. In early 2000, a group of employees tried to put up a union supported by KMU. They staged a strike that heavily affected the operations and held the projects. I got a lot of death threats being one of the Managers of the company but honestly, I was not threatened since I did nothing wrong with the people. There was no unfair labor practice done by the management because I for one will not allow these unfair labor practices to happen.
Now, as the Plant Manager of Viskase Asia Pacific Corporation, my passion to be the best leader that I can be continues. I can proudly say that this is my company where I started my journey from building construction until the stable operations today.
As we keep on aiming high, I am bound to make it happen. We achieved some milestones as we made remarkable performances after 3 years of operation. The journey was not easy. It was not easy because while learning the business, I was also preoccupied establishing the operations and building its foundation. It was not easy because the journey was not only a bunch of success but also a cluster of failure. It was not easy because the journey demanded greater time than what was anticipated and even sleepless nights until today. Truly, these stellar breakthroughs continue to inspire me to do better day after day.
I have proven my worth. I have proven my capability to run the operations. I have proven that the existence of this facility in the Philippines is indeed a great and a right decision for the whole Viskase.
Standing still, here I am today to continue the journey driven by faith, strong determination and commitment to become the biggest, most productive and most profitable among other Viskase plants and in the world.
This passion serves as my guiding principle in every choice I make in life. It always boils down to what is the right thing to do, as a father, as husband, as a leader and as a person over and above myself.
At times, my passion to lead and make a difference goes beyond my wildest dream of becoming a mayor of Angeles City. After 18 years of stay here in the city, there are still lots of work to do. The education, health, road development, more accessible transportation, regulated tricycle fare, public market improvement, traffic reinforcement, cleanliness and beautification, waste management, peace and order among others. By mere thought of the possibilities to improve these areas drives me to aspire someday. Actually, I already have my campaign lines that goes like this, " Marahil po nagtataka kayo kung sino ako. Wala po akong baong pangalan gaya ng mga kilalang politiko. Ang tanging baon ko lang po ay ang pag asang mabigyan kayo ng mas maayos na pamumuhay sa syudad na ito. GO for a change…GO for a better life…GO for a better Angeles City…GO for Mayor 3.5