On perseverance, hard work and fiscal discipline...
(Speech of Jose Gerardo J. Guadarrama at the 2006 Commencement Exercises of Jaro National High School)
Part 1
It is a great honor and privilege to be chosen as your commencement speaker today. However, this honor is not mine alone and should also be conferred upon two individuals whose contribution to society far exceeds mine. Let me go back one generation and allow me to tell you the story of my parents, the late Dr. Carlos L. Guadarrama and Mrs. Teresa Jalandoni Guadarrama.
My father came from humble beginnings and grew up not too far from here. He was the youngest child and only son of Juan Herrera Guadarrama, a farmer, and Matea Quimbiong Ledesma, a very enterprising housewife. He went to Jaro Elementary School for elementary, and to Iloilo High School for his secondary education. With assistance from relatives, he went on to become a doctor, finishing medicine from the University of Santo Tomas in 1937.
My father practiced medicine with very little regard for compensation for his services. Patients who consulted with him came from all walks of life. His medical practice was more spiritually rewarding than financially. As I look back, I can only admire his selfless devotion to his profession. I remember the countless times when he had to wake up in the middle of the night because he always answered every llamada or house call. While in America, I was so proud to tell people that my father really lived up to the Hippocratic Oath whenever I was frustrated with medical practitioners whose approach to the profession was material in nature. I remember the many times when his grateful patients would bring eggs, fruits and vegetables in exchange for the services he never exacted compensation for.
His needs and desires were very simple. The only major expenses he probably incurred were those for printing the prayers he shared with other people. I remember receiving them regularly while in America, although I must admit that most of them were stuffed back into the envelopes they came with. I have kept them all over the years and have taken them all back with me.
I remember the time we spent together doing my projects while I was in grade school at Colegio de San Jose. Those were my first experiences working with a wishful engineer. I also remember our trips to Passi via Panay Railways to the property of the Ledesmas. He was so loved by the people there whom he vaccinated and treated for their aches and pains. That was my exposure to the profession that enabled him to serve his fellow men. I know it was his secret wish for me to become a doctor; however, I just didn't have the slightest inclination towards it. As a consolation, my younger sister had become one while I had become the engineer he initially aspired to be.
My father's life was a life of simplicity, generosity and basic goodness. When he passed away a little more than three years ago, instead of mourning his death, I celebrated his life. If I grieved at all, it was for the loss of goodness personified.
My mother, Teresa Javellana Jalandoni, came from a landed family. She was the 13th of the 14 children of Maximino Benedicto Jalandoni and Dolores Gamboa Javellana. Early in life, she was forced to assume a great responsibility, having managed with her older sister the meager supplies they had when their family evacuated to a safer place during the Japanese occupation. She was barely out of high school then. Soon after the war, her father passed away and she was once again forced to shoulder a great responsibility, having been tasked by her widowed mother to administer their rice land at what is now Barangay Camalig.
My mother personifies hard work, perseverance and fiscal discipline. She always had a "sideline" on top of her full-time job as the Cashier of Rural Bank of Iloilo City. In the beginning, my mother's goal was very simple. She just wanted some financial leeway so that she can provide the best education for her children. Because she had that goal, I never saw her waste a whole afternoon playing mah-jongg, although she comes from a family of gamblers. Instead, she devoted all of her free time towards hitting her very simple goal. She never resorted to the Bahala Na attitude. Bahala Na means leave it to God, but God will only help those who help themselves.
What we all now know as Biscocho Haus is the product of my mother's entrepreneurial spirit. It is my mother who is the entrepreneur but my father was always there to lend physical and emotional support. They started Biscocho Haus around this time 31 years ago with hardly any start-up capital. The only capital needed was for the initial loaves of bread and other ingredients needed to prepare the first few batches of biscocho. In the early years, my parents had full-time jobs but would wake up at 4:00 a.m. everyday and personally slice the bread before hearing mass at 6:00 a.m. They would spend more time during lunch breaks, in the evenings and on weekends doing everything necessary to get the products ready. Of course all of the children were also involved in whatever capacity during the various stages of the business' growth. Personally, I had my share of slicing of bread and preparation of meringue whenever I was home from school in Manila.
(To be continued)