It was the regime of President Marcos, who wanted to divert the attention of the youth to a more productive endeavor than in other things.This fellow taught a very important precept in life. . . how we should treat our work in government. He often lectured us that we should always demonstrate the spirit of missionary zeal in our job. This was the first thing that he taught me. Not as source of income but rather an opportunity to be of service to the people without expecting something in return; not as a training ground for potential government executives.
The first shock of our lives came as a result of the fielding patterns of the student. Was that part of the program design? Initially, I did not understand why we from Luzon and Greater Manila Areas have to be fielded in the Visayas and Mindanao. Some in rural areas. I foresaw that communication would be very difficult to most of us. But I was proven wrong. If I were to survive, I have to learn the conversational dialect. “Para dili mabaligya”, the Cebuanos said. In a span of one year, I learned a little more than 100 Cebuano words and phrases. At least, the Cebuanos were not able to sell me. I was very lucky that time because I was assigned in the Beautiful City of Cebu.
Living on a meager allowance, those days were really a challenge. In our communication with fellow students, many said that the allowance that we received was not enough. Being in government, provisions sometimes arrived late (is this still true today). But we managed to survive with the help of our parents. To save on board and lodging, some slept in the town plaza and in bus stations when were looking for and giving assistance to proponents (clients). Some have to sign a promissory note to their landladies just so they will not be ejected from their boarding houses. Majority “enjoyed” the job and some just could not do anything but complain deep inside.
Being young and first time to be away from my family, I learned to live independently hundred of miles away.In the field, we experienced situations that we were not taught while in training. We were taught the technicalities of the actual job but not on the aspects of people and organizational relationships. How to approach private banks and government banks, how to deal with these institutions, how to deal with proponents and the like. Some were exposed to corruption in securing finance, some fought with some big banks because they disapproved our proponents’ proposal, these are some things that brought shock to some of us. Still there are many good stories with our proponents and our bankers.
One thing I learned in the program was “Utang na loob”. Proponents whose projects were approved never forgot to return the favor to us. They would treat us to fancy restaurants or they would bring us to beautiful beaches in Cebu. From the outset, we told the proponents that we would not accept cash from them. The Cebuano proponents respected. We sometimes spent for the reproduction of proposals of some proponents.
Our experiences with bankers are kinda exciting. There was this rural banker who approached us to assist him look for financing. Since it is not allowed for bankers to use the funds of the bank for their projects, we referred him to a local development bank. His proposal was approved. Since then, we developed friendship with this banker. A banker befriending government professionals like us! And this particular banker is only one of the bankers we developed working relationships with.There is this bank that we avoided at that time. The experiences of some of the students with this bank can not be considered fruitful. It was (is?) very conservative and very strict with their policies (some profess that they had good relationship with this bank). And to think that this bank is tasked with helping small and medium industries! (One decade later, some of us joined this bank and one became its Senior Vice-Presidents).
There were many more experiences and lessons learned but I have already forgotten. . . but not the person who made these experiences possible - - - FR. GEORGES PIRON. Fr. Piron, or Ronpi is MASICAP (Medium and Small Scale Industries Coordinated Program) and MASICAP IS FR. PIRON. This program was a brainchild of his and the former President of the Development Academy of the Philippines, Mr. Horacio Morales, Mr. Jose Pardo and some people that I cannot remember (with regrets).
Without FR.PIRON and company, we would have not developed this important value in government work, missionary zeal.It was the Program of Fr. Piron that exposed me and my fellow students to the SME sector. From those experiences we drew further lessons on how to start and manage a small enterprise.
This is for the budding entrepreneurs, for the students who dream of making a small business enterprise a big one, for the wives who painstakingly manage a meager income just to make ends meet and who are now thinking of succeeding in an enterprise, and for ordinary people who are thinking of ways and means to improve their economic lot.
Kaya nating lahat ito!
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