The Pursuit of Happiness

“You have a duty to protect you dream.
People will say you cannot achieve your dream simply because they cannot achieve theirs.
Believe in yourself.”

(I am paraphrasing Will Smith’s character in the film "The Pursuit of Hapiness" as he talks to his 5-yr old kid)

It was a wet November 8, and on that day, the graduation of 22 instructors from 6 schools in the province of Sorsogon was scheduled at 2PM. My institution was the venue, as it had been for the past 3 weeks of training, for the Ph Tesda’s TMC (Trainer’s Methodology Course), a requirement for keeping one’s capacity to teach in tertiary level.

I had made a deliberate effort to take it slow that rainy morning, owing to the fact that the day seems to mark the end of a very demanding month of academic activities for six of my school’s staff.

Two days earlier a panel of 3 TMC Assessors had arrived from Manila to pass judgement on those who took the course. I have seen the participants work morning till night to pass assessment. This is already the 4th week, a continuum of the 3-week TMC training proper during the previous month.

The past month of October was downright grueling. My staff also spent 2 of the last 4 days of the month taking the Comprehensive Exams (Compre) for their graduate course in MSIT. On 10.28.12 two examiners from Bulacan State University arrived in the evening from the airport to administer the tests for 10 subjects over 2 days.

That evening, even as dinner was cordial, what followed was unbelievable. Although they reviewed on and off for the past 2 months, my staff still reviewed through the night, finishing at 5AM. Exams are set for 8AM. They came late, as expected.

Tests for 6 subjects started at 9AM. It ran straight for 6 hours until 3PM, and lunch was served inside while taking the tests. The second day was worse, we lost all concept of time, and the examiners had to be rushed to the airport in the afternoon. Thank God the plane was late and they were the last 2 passengers to be boarded.

But now it is November 8 and I am in front of the TV watching cable of “The Pursuit of Happiness” starring Will Smith. The character of the story was in ‘desperation mode’. His wife left him because he could not make both ends meet. He is a salesman for a high-end scanner that he sells to doctors. After struggling with this job, he decides to change careers to be a finance management broker. But this entails being an intern for 6 months without pay. Only 20 interns are to be taken in and only one among them will be chosen. He and his kid ends lining up in welfare homes just to spend nights.

How Will Smith’s character hustled his way over the numerous challenges amid misfortune is awesome. It made me think of the backbreaking 1 month that I had just experienced and it all seemed frivolous. The end of the movie came in one word - “Come!” as he was ushered in to the board room. The boss tells him: “This is your last day.”

In the next scene the boss also tells him: “Tomorrow is your first day as a broker.”

There was no funfare or rolling of drums when success came. It came quietly as Will Smith stepped out of the boardroom, tears in his eyes. A breath of fresh air dispels so much pain. To what extent will you pursue a dream?

In my head I kept hearing success’s deafening voice: “You have a duty to protect you dream.” And boy did he! I wish all of us will, too. Cheers!

“Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles”. The Philippines soon to join 'Tiger Economies'

In his book “Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles” Ruchir Sharma said that the Philippines is positioned for huge growth.

Considering that he is chief of the Emerging Markets Equity team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, he must know what he is talking about. His book has since become best-seller.

The book said that in the 1960s, Philippines was Asia's second-highest per capital income earner and only behind Japan.

The Philippines "fortunes have shifted dramatically since then" while many of our neighbors made it big.

Malaysia and Thailand followed in the 1980s.

China boomed in the 1990s.

“Then in 2009, in a moment the Manila elite thought it would never see, Indonesia's boom made Indonesians richer than Filipinos for the first time modern history," Sharma wrote.

And so it was, that up until 2010, the Philippines still wallowed in the quagmire of economic decay, as "still the undisputed laggard of Asia, a nation mired in chronic incompetence."

However, Ruchir Sharma believes the Philippines may soon join the ranks of the world's "tiger economies."

Right now Asia's tiger economies include Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong. (It is interesting to note that although Hong Kong is a SAR (Special Administrative Region) of China, China itself was not mentioned as one of Asia’s Tigers.)

Sharma points out that an economic surge may happen for the Philippines if it attains a "modicum of political stability and some basic economic sense." He said it should manage its vast resources - having the world's fifth-richest in natural resources such as oil, copper, nickel, gold, and silver.

Sharma contends that the Philippines' booming population is not a disadvantage. In fact, he claims that the high population is a "big economic plus" because "the concentration of people and business drives growth."

Additionally, the Pinoys' ability to speak English, led the country to becoming the best choice of business process outsourcing-a $9 billion industry employing 350,000 people.

So enough of this "talangka-mentality" (crab-mentality) of pushing each other down. If others believe in us, we should honor them by believing in ourselves. Let's Move!

I am reading Thea Alberto-Masakayan’ s article published by Yahoo! Southeast Asia Newsroom

How's the Economy?: The Philippines' 15 Richest

     Despite European woes and the general economic slow-down, the Philippine economy outperformed most of its neighbors. It grew 6.4% in the 1st quarter of 2012 improving on the 4.9% in the first quarter of 2011. It registered an 8.4% growth in 2010.

     The stock ­market index gained 17% from the previous year. The stock exchange composite index was also up 27% in 2011.

     The 40 richest in the Philippines saw their collective wealth grew over $13 billion to $47.4 billion, up from last year’s total of $34 billion, (where a minimum of $85 million was needed to make the list) and $22.8 billion in 2010 (where a minimum of $50 million is the cut-off). This year’s List of 40 richest in the Philippines has a cutoff of $140 million

     There are now 15 billionaires (their net worth is in USD), up from 11 billionaires in 2011.

     The top 15 of the 40 richest in the Philippines are billionaires whose individual net worth is in USD. 

They are:

(1) Henry Sy; 

(2) Lucio Tan; 

(3) Enrique Razon Jr. (International Container Terminal Services); 

(4) John Gokongwei, Jr.; 

(5) David Consunji (construction firm DMCI, Semirara Mining); 

(6) Andrew Tan (Emperador Distillers); 

(7) Jaime Zobel de Ayala; 

(8) George Ty (Metrobank); 

(9) Roberto Ongpin (Atok-Big Wedge, plans to shift from mining to oil and gas exploration);
(10) Eduardo Cojuangco; 

(11) Robert Coyiuto, Jr. (power transmission firm National Grid); 

(12) Tony Tan Caktiong (Jollibee, Chowking, Greenwich Pizza); 

(13) Lucio and Susan Co (Puregold, country's second-largest retailer); 

(14) Inigo & Mercedes Zobel (Shares of Ayala Corp. Other assets include 25% stake in San Miguel. Inigo was appointed to board of PAL in April after San Miguel took controlling stake in the carrier); 

(15) Emilio Yap (Manila Bulletin. Philtrust Bank);

(Perry's note: My source is Suzy Nam, who writes for Forbes. She is a former corporate lawyer who now follows the richest of the rich in Southeast Asia. She covers tycoons in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines and produces rich lists for each of these countries. As part of the Global Wealth team at Forbes, she also works on their World Billionaires List.)

Legacy #2: Snapshots of a Past Frozen in Time – A Tribute to Relly S. & Marden I.

I intend my “Legacy Series” to be a short story of old friends with whom I’ve had the opportunity to be reconnected recently. It certainly will not capture the persona in detail much like a biography would. But that is not the intention. 

It will however, give a glimpse of something special in each of them and how that has touched my life or what lesson I have learned from it. I’m sure I will miss important details here and there but that’s because I failed to make notes on everything, relying only on my recollection of our conversations.

This being the second, I will call it Legacy #2: Snapshots of a Past Frozen in Time – A Tribute to Relly S. & Marden I.

Relly Salle and Marden Iglesias are two of my childhood buddies in elementary grade because we all lived in Mandaluyong when it was still a town and not the urbanized city it is now. We could walk to each other houses and sometimes rode on the same jeepney to school. We seldom saw each other in High School and never after that, but as fate would have it, we got reconnected as recent as about 2 years ago through Facebook.

Relly is now a Colonel with the Technical Services of the AFP and I hope he will make it all the way to being Dental Surgeon General before his retirement in a few years. But that’s just me hoping. I do not know his career path so more than that, I hope he will enjoy more of his time stress-free. He had a heart bypass surgery in the recent past but he looked marvelously fit in the two times that we sat down over coffee and talked for a couple of hours about life’s twists and turns.

Marden, is now based in New York. He is a successful personality in the arts as can be gleaned from his FB wall. Marden had always excelled in fashion because I can remember reading his name occasionally on the fashion pages of Manila Dailies back in college. 

Although we still have not met each other since our elementary days, it is always refreshing to read Marden's comments as he drops in on my FB wall from time to time. You can tell he has an eagle eye for detail by the way he appreciates your photos and other posts. Most of all he holds a warm appreciation of life.

It was in my Mandaluyong ancestral home that Relly and I met for the first time over coffee. He recalled how 3 young grade-school boys rode the bus all the way to Cubao to watch the Harlem Globetrotters at Araneta Coliseum. The three boys were myself, Relly and my elder brother, Lope. Harlem was a team that played wacky basketball against a serious pro team and that they made bumbling fools of.

After a few months, it was time for a second coffee sit-down and this we had at Relly’s ancestral home in Tanglaw street. Although it was renovated, I could still picture the basic structure of an apartment complex that Relly’s parents owned years ago. His dad played pro tennis while his mom worked in a mental hospital that Mandaluyong is famous for. Both his folks are gone now.

The first thing Marden recalled as we exchanged messages on the internet was my old house and its stair steps. It was atop an elevated sloping terrain that you can reach first, by crossing a sturdy wooden bridge that my dad constructed over an open canal by the road, and second, by climbing a series of uphill ground steps. By this time you would have reached the elevated wood balcony of our house but you need to take another 3 stair steps to enter it. I guess this is why among engineering topics, I hold a fancy for the stairs the most.

Marden is an only child. His home was one of the plushest houses I’ve seen as a kid, although, to reach it we had to pass open fields where the uncouth indiscriminately dumped their garbage. He told me that both his parents had passed away and that he left this patrimonial home in the care of a relative.

If you think hard about it, the blessing that childhood friends bring is that they are repositories of memory. In IT lingo they are like our backups or redundancies – the memory storage devices, in case ours crash or get deleted in oblivion as we take our life journey. They can give you a snapshot of a common past that is frozen in time. And when the memories come rushing in, they will jolt you pretty much like lightning, you will get goosebumps as you visualize images of a pleasant, distant past.

To Relly and Marden, thanks for the memories. Cheers.

Legacy #1: Taking Care of Parents – A Tribute to George F.

Today is Easter. 

This should be a day of joy so I think it’s a good day to start my “Legacy Series”. I had been thinking about writing this for the past few weeks but I could not find the time because of my heavy schedules. I intend my “Legacy Series” to be a short story of friends and how they touched my life or what lesson I have learned from them. This being the first, I think I will call it Legacy #1: Taking Care of Parents – A Tribute to George F.

I’m sure I will miss important details here and there but that’s because I failed to make notes on everything, relying only on my recollection of our conversations in the 4 meetings we’ve had in the last 2 years. My friend George T. Fernandez left the Philippines for USA as a young professional in 1983. He lived there for around 27 years although he would infrequently visit the country of his birth from time to time.

I did not see him from the time he left the country until we got reconnected about 2 years ago through Facebook. On my birthday in February of 2010 he took a vacation. Meeting him for the first time in 25 years was quite a blast. 

We traveled Luzon from north to south. We talked for hours on end, mostly about life and its twists and turns. Before the year was over, in December, George came back a second time, bringing his 87-year old mom to settle her back to their Project 4, Quezon City residence.

The following year, 2011 George made 2 travels to the Philippines. In May, he brought his kid KJ, a college student whom I taught how to scuba dive. In October, he came to visit his mom and also made arrangements to refurbish their original residence at Project 4.

A long time ago, George’s parents migrated to the USA where they both worked. Later, 3 of their kids, including the youngest, George, joined them there. Before passing away in 1997, his dad, an engineer, intimated to George his desire of a burial in the Philippines. But when the end came, it was all too sudden.

His dad had expired when George arrived at the hospital. Still, to comply with a dad’s final wish was the burning desire that consumed his focus and energy. And so it happened that a loving son made a father proud. George’s dad’s remains were laid to rest in his native soil.

George’s nephew and niece help in the care of his mom. I think it somehow relieved his worry that if he hadn’t taken his mom home, at some point in time she may land in a care home for the elderly in the US. Although her mom shows signs of impairment of short memory, she is still smart and lean, perhaps owing to long time profession of being a teacher.

What struck me about George’s life journey is his concern for his parents. My mom and dad passed away within a year of each other, in 2010 and 2011, respectively. I know too well the burden that bears upon a bereaved family and how difficult it is to attend to the thousand and one details that demand your attention. 

And yet my friend George traveled 12,000 kilometers, first to bring home the remains of his dad, and next, to assist his aging mom settle down back in her country of origin. And he will continue, as he has done so 4 times in the last 2 years.

Filipinos are gifted with a strong sense of filial affection and family ties. I know a few people who took exceptional care of their parents. One of them is my sister, Bonit, who went a fantastically extraordinary mile to take care of our mom and dad. 

I believe that people like them are blessed with a cloak of invincibility that exempts them from the normal travails of life. To George, you made this friend proud. Cheers.