At Large
The entrepreneurial spirit
By Rina Jimenez-David
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:17:00 08/06/2008
It was “empty-nest” time for Elizabeth Franco Africano, with her two daughters and one son having finished college and become gainfully employed, and her husband busy with his duties as a “barangay” [village] captain in their hometown of Cauayan town in the northern province of Isabela.
With time on her hands and energy to burn, Elizabeth brainstormed with her two sisters and asked themselves: What business will meet the needs of our town mates? The answer they came up with was surprising, if not daring. At the time, the eateries in the city served mainly Ilocano and Filipino dishes, and nobody had yet dared explore whether the local market was ready to expand its culinary horizons. But Elizabeth and her sisters could sense the city was changing, more residents were eating out, and the influx of tourism had demonstrated the need for more classy places offering more varied fare.
Thus was Franco’s Café born, named after the three sisters’ father who had worked for a long time with the local government. The approach Elizabeth and her sisters took was certainly daring: a restaurant offering Italian, Mexican and Mediterranean cuisine, along with a line-up of desserts, mainly pastries and refrigerated cakes, that no one else in Cauayan, not even the fast-food chains, were offering.
Even more amazing was the fact that Elizabeth, the spark plug of this culinary experiment, had no previous background in the culinary arts, being an education graduate.
A major test for Franco’s Café came when local franchisees of major fast-food establishments set up shop in Cauayan, but after a few years of weathering the challenge, Elizabeth found that by keeping costs down and the quality of food and service up, they managed to prevail even against the giants in the industry.
Today, Franco’s Café supplies refrigerated cakes to the Queen Jennifer Hotel, and its products are proudly carried by the city’s Pasalubong Center. To “give back” to the city of their origins, Elizabeth and her sisters have also been hiring part-time sales jobs to city health volunteers, who are rotated on a regular basis. They are also actively involved in cleanliness drives and environmental programs, understanding that a “business exists only (with the) community’s support.”
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Elizabeth is one of 16 awardees of Pondo sa Sipag, Puhunan sa Tiyaga (Fund for Industry, Capital for Persistence), a nationwide search for micro- and small-scale entrepreneurs sponsored by Senate President Manny Villar and the Nacionalista Party.
At the awards rites last Saturday, where each awardee received a P100,000 cash prize plus a trophy, copies of a slim volume telling the “stories” of the 16 awardees were distributed. The book makes for fascinating reading, tracing the growth and development of ventures that range from Elizabeth and her sisters’ “little restaurant that could,” to a former domestic worker’s exploration of the “rice coffee” market, to a Benguet housewife’s determination to reconnect with her roots by way of a gift shop exclusively selling native weaves and crafts.
If the examples I cite are all women, that’s because 9 of the 16 awardees are women, while one of the seven other awardees is a couple, Ernie and Alicia Paglinawan from Agusan del Sur, who developed their own corn coffee concoction and built a market for it by distributing it house-to-house with a rented motorized sikad (tricycle).
The awards are, therefore, testament as well to the entrepreneurial spirit of Filipino women, who make the short ends of their family incomes meet by taking on any and all challenges they need to see their families through the hard times, especially today.
Heading the search for outstanding micro- and small-scale entrepreneurs, including formulating the criteria for selection and visiting the different nominees, are Dr. Prospero “Popoy” de Vera, and lawyer Rhaegee Tamana, executive director of Sipag at Tiyaga Foundation. The book on the awardees’ stories was edited by Joyce M. Crisanto.
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Monday evening, a mix of media personalities, government officials and employees, and friends and family filled the Fiesta Pavilion of Manila Hotel for the “Salute from Media and Friends, Part 2.” The show, which draws a cast from both stage and the music industry as well as amateurs from both government and the media, was mounted this year for the benefit of media professionals who have taken ill or recently passed away.
When I congratulated him after his number, former presidential spokesman and PR practitioner Mike Toledo smiled and whispered: “The real joke is that our audience paid P5,000 each to watch us enjoy ourselves!”
I don’t know if you could say we actually enjoyed ourselves, though people in the audience later said we looked like we were having fun. To me, the crucial question was: “Were they having fun, too?”
By “we,” I’m specifically referring to our group assigned to do a medley of “retro-OPM hits”—Manila Bulletin columnist Deedee Siytangco, MOD Magazine editor Chai Santiago, GMA Network executive Rod Cornejo and myself.
Ominously, as the rehearsals progressed, we found the songs shortened considerably, and the backup singers singing more loudly. But we gave it our all, even if all of us ladies decided to give up our high-heeled boots and shoes in favor of flats, for fear of falling on our faces on the plexiglass steps.
Still, I hope the audience appreciated our efforts. To my mind, truly outstanding that night were Immigration Commissioner Nonoy Libanan who delivered his classic guitar pieces with such artistry, the Angelos who match their good looks with soaring voices, and tenor Nolyn Cabahug and soprano Rachel Gerodias as well as singer Ivy Violan who showed us amateurs just what professionalism is all about.
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