THROWBACK THURSDAY | 03Sept2015: Back to 'Back-to-back-to-back' and our first SOX launch party

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I guess I look like I can really sing in that photo. It was July 2007 and I did sing. I mean, I performed in front of my bosses and colleagues at a party -- twice!

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Singing Maroon 5, my first of two numbers that evening.

Now why did we have a party in the middle of the year, you ask. Because we just wanted to have a party. I was part of our department's original Events Committee and we were thinking of a mid-year event then. We've already done sports fests and bowling games before, and then having a party came to mind. I pushed for it to happen and the reason for such an event was to herald our 2nd year of SOX testing activities.

SOX, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, also known as the "Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act" (in the Senate) and "Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act" (in the Lower House), is a U.S. federal law that set new or expanded requirements for all U.S. public company boards, management, and public accounting firms. Early on we also playfully referred to it as SARBOX. It was enacted as a reaction to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals, the most notable of which were Enron and Worldcom.

Because our parent company is listed in the U.S., the company I work for, as a major subsidiary, is required to comply with this law. And mind you, this compliance thing involves a whole lot of work. But anyway we decided to welcome this whole lot of work in a fun way. We christened the party "SARBOX Season 2 Launch Party."

Incidentally, today we're having another such party to welcome our 10th season of a whole lot of work for SOX.

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Me doing a voice-over on how SOX came to be. How educational! And boring.

Anyway, this party of ours 8 years ago wasn't really some grand shebang. The venue may be Club Intramuros in Manila but we only had a set dinner, augmented with several snack items and drinks.

We had at least 2 SOX-themed games and a few musical numbers, including our first "back-to-back-to-back." An ode to a segment of the same name of the now defunct Sunday noontime variety show SOP, it's a song number involving some 3 or 4 singers taking turns performing a song, with everyone joining in for the final piece. Back-to-back-to-back became a tradition at our parties thereafter, at least for the next few years.

It was also the first time I got everyone to dress up (somehow). I mean, I got the ladies to wear dresses for pete's sake! Before that nobody ever agreed to dressing up even for our Christmas parties.

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Our inaugural back-to-back-to-back. So what do we do when it's not yet our turn with the mic? We just sit.

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My only fan.

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Altogether now for the finale. We're so poor we could only afford 2 microphones.

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Yes, it's still us but I just want to direct your attention to the left of the photo. Our event had a logo! With Voldemort in it!

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A string of photo ops followed. This was with my team at the time.

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The original Events Committee.

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The Internal Audit Department, ca. 2007. Why so serious?

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Okay, you can smile now...

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...and clown around.

Alright, time to party!

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