(First published in the Philippine Online Chronicles)
by Myrna R. Co, SERDEF Media Bureau
What is a college diploma to the Pinoy everyman?
Something to hang on the living room wall? An achievement to crow about among relatives and friends? Pare, nagmartsa na si Neneng! Mga kapitbahay, nars na ang panganay namin! A feather in the cap of parents who worked hard to send their children to school?
Why not? After all, only 60 per cent of young Filipinos who enter high school are able to step into college. Of these, slightly more than half finish their degrees.
The average Pinoy pins his hopes on a college diploma for a better future . “Nagtapos na si Jun,” the parents would cry in relief. “Maaahon na tayo sa hirap.”
For the graduate, the college diploma is a passport to a dream career – fulfilling and profitable. He or she can take one of various routes going there.
Graduates of nursing and other medical fields have their eyes turned up, up, and away – to a foreign land. Preferably the USA or Canada. England, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand would be nice, too, they’d reckon. They try to wangle a working visa to these prosperous countries – but only as a first step to settling down there — permanently, for most.
Graduates of business, engineering, and technology may opt to stay put, while casting a moist eye on salaried employment in big business and industry, preferably in a multinational. They are happy to start as cadet engineers and trainee managers and from there hope to climb the corporate ladder, steps or even leaps at a time.
But these dreamy-eyed young graduates are bound to be disappointed. The unemployment rate in this country was pegged at 7.1 percent and underemployment at 19.4 % in 2009. The number of unemployed and underemployed will inevitably swell as members of Graduating Class 2010 join the ranks of new job entrants. A study done by Polytechnic State College revealed that only over 40% of new graduates will find jobs within the year of graduation; another 40% will be employed the following year; and the remaining 20% will be idle for the next two years.
Which brings us to a path less travelled. Sariling sikap. Sariling kayod. This is the road to entrepreneurship or self-employment.
Unlike most of his co-graduates, Ian Carandang didn’t join the great job hunt after graduating from business administration at UP Diliman in 1992. Instead, he enrolled in Fine Arts which he finished in 2000. Early on, he had realized punching a bundy clock wasn’t his cup of tea. He was musical, and he dabbled in bands. For a while, he was content leading the musician’s easygoing life. In 2002, he knew it was time to get a little more serious, although he thought he was serious enough with his music. He put up a restaurant called Hotstix Barbecue on a property owned by his family along Quezon Avenue in Quezon City. His heart wasn’t into cooking and serving barbecue, however. He was more in his elements developing the restaurant’s ice cream menu. (Dreamers, doers, risk-takers, 2008)
As a child, Ian loved ice cream; it was and still is his passion. As a youngster, he was beside himself with joy when a balikbayan-aunt brought an ice-cream maker for him with which he concocted his own frozen delights.
At Hotstix, he began to commercialize his ice cream creations. It was a college friend, Vito, who suggested these could be the basis for a new business. As fate would have it, Hotstix folded up soon after.
Ian, Vito, and another classmate, Tony, became partners in putting up Sebastian Ice Cream. In 2006, their first ice cream studio was inaugurated at the New Alabang Town Center even as the old Hotstix restaurant on Quezon Avenue was converted into an ice cream kitchen. A second scooping station opened at the Podium in 2007, followed by another at SM North Edsa’s The Block a year later.
Ian is the production man in the business while his partners handle personnel, SSS benefits, payroll, taxes, and other administrative nitty-gritty. He won’t have it any other way.
Ian now admits that Sebastian’s Ice Cream has brought him more popularity – not to mention profit — than his music ever did. But more than the popularity, he likes being able to elude the abhorred nine-to-six trap and let his creative juices flow freely.
Bong Villanueva of Davao seems naturally predisposed to business, although he did try to give in to his doctor-father’s wish to join the medical profession, too. He took up B.S. Biology as a pre-med course even as he tried one business after another. His first venture was buying and selling The Bar, a popular imported alcoholic drink. Then he opened Burger Bar at the canteen of the hospital where his Dad was practicing. By the time he graduated from Ateneo de Davao University in 1989, he had acquired as well two burger vans, ala Burger Machine. It was clear at this point where all these projects were taking him and when the time came, he decided not to enroll in medical school. (Dreamers, Doers, Risk-takers, 2008) Apparently, working for someone else never once entered his mind.
Today, Bong is the brain and entrepreneurial drive behind Banok’s, now a big chicken inasal chain in Davao, with 10 outlets all over the province. Franchising is a logical next step for a thriving food business, and that is the way Bong wants to go. Other businessmen have applied for the right to put up Banok’s outlets not only in Mindanao but also in Luzon and the Visayas.
Bong reckons that even his father has begun to concede he had found a secure niche in business. Once, he told his father that although he wasn’t healing or prolonging lives as doctors do, he was providing livelihood as an entrepreneur.
There are others who similarly opted, wittingly or unwittingly, for sariling sikap.
Ariel Co only took a six-month job at the Department of Public Works as engineering assistant while waiting for the results of the civil engineering board. Once he became a licensed engineer, he began a small contracting practice. At first, he would do very simple projects like constructing deep wells and patching broken roads. Today, he is the president of Innobuild Corporation, which has built up a record in constructing roads, schools, gymnasiums, government buildings, and many more.
Photo: From google images
