Poverty drives 2 Pinoys -- one a former OFW -- to succeed

from ABS CBN

Poverty deprives people of the simplest, most basic things – food, clothing, shelter, safe drinking water, even education. But hundreds of opportunities for change may be lurking behind such misery.

Take the case of two inspiring entrepreneurs – Rey Calooy and Cherry Yack Sr. – who both made poverty their driving force to succeed in life.

Cherry Yack Sr., 44, worked in a rattan factory in Cebu from 1984 to 1991 until he decided to go to Malaysia in search of greener pastures.

There, he worked as a bulldozer operator for seven years. He was earning P20,000 a month and remitted half his salary to his wife back home. The rest was barely adequate for Cherry’s monthly expenses.

His earnings failed to give his family in the Philippines a comfortable life. In 1999, he returned home after realizing that the amount he was earning did not compensate for the sacrifice of being away from family.

They then settled in Zamboanga, his hometown, and put up a fish-drying business.

Unfortunately, the business did not thrive and it further depleted their scarce savings.

Cherry and family decided to close it down and set up a cassava cake business instead.

Cherry, who serves as the "chemist" in the business, started with a single oven.

In a year’s time, the business started to pick up and as it prospered, Cherry and family were able to buy their own house in Consolacion, Cebu in 2003.

Year 2004, meantime, proved to be a challenging year for Cherry’s business, following the mass food poisoning in Bohol after residents ate cassava.

The event adversely affected Cherry’s sales as clients either returned his products or stopped placing orders for his cassava cake.

With this setback, Cherry had to reduce the number of workers as he couldn’t afford to pay their salaries due to loss of income.

Cherry also thought of closing down the business and look for another job to sustain his family’s needs.

But he and his wife are strong believers in the power of prayer.

They decided to temporarily stop baking cassava cakes and introduce an alternative product – banana cake. Soon enough, they were getting quite a number of orders again.

Two years after, Cherry brought back his cassava cake with a new, improved taste. His customers began patronizing again his original product and his business began to thrive once more.

To date, Cherry delivers orders daily to the University of Cebu (UC) branches, South Western University, San Jose University, San Carlos University, Mandaue Market, and to numerous canteens and restaurants in Danao and Cebu City.

The innovator

Rey Calooy came from a poor family in Libagon, Southern Leyte.

A graduate of Bachelor of Science in Accountancy from the University of Cebu, Rey early on showed his entrepreneurial skills when he sold bookmarkers made out of used carton, greeting cards out of recycled paper, and other homemade recycled goods to his schoolmates just to make money.

Now, Rey’s innovative mind has gone a long way.

He is the brains behind the innovation and technological breakthrough of ginger tea powder (with anti-cancer compounds), squash pancit canton (the idea came to him when typhoon "Besing" struck the towns of Southern Leyte in 1984 and Rey’s family had nothing to eat except the squash that his father planted), and Rhea laundry soap which uses cooking oil as the main ingredient.

Rey developed the idea of making soap out of used oil when he was looking for a product that is highly marketable and inexpensive.

Not only are Rey’s products marketable, his innovations have surprisingly helped the field of agriculture as well.

More farmers are now encouraged to plant squash and ginger so they can become suppliers for Rey’s Ginger Tea Powder and Squash Pancit Canton.

Rey also does toll packing of coffee, non-dairy cream and refined and brown sugar, which are being supplied to all branches of the famous Starbucks Coffee. Now very successful in his businesses, Rey dreams that someday the Philippines would become a nation of entrepreneurs.

Cherry and Rey are two of the Most Inspiring Cebuano Entrepreneurs to be recognized on June 20 at the Go Negosyo sa Cebu, to be held at the Cebu International Convention Center.

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