you jump, i jump

Today feels like that giddy bus ride to Sagada. AJA!

Hi.

2013. Wow. I suddenly wonder, “how many bloggers and writers have started their posts with ‘2013”? A LOT probably. 🙂

Anyway, this year, my husband and I, plan to work on some serious income-generating projects. Right now, for us to fully grasp the idea and really “oil” this future machine, our skype and bbm conversations have turned into mini-brainstorming sessions. No more facebook for me now, as I “google search” everything there is to know about the project. Hubby does that too. Too many information you can find online. Thank you to the sources, hehe. Slowly, we are going to build an empire. 😀

In relation to this, one of the most important things I have learned from having my dad as my boss is, the love for your work. He said, when you love what you are doing, you will never get tired no matter how much effort and time you’ve poured into this job. True enough, the only thing that tires us is a poor sales performance or an efficient staff leaving her job.

So, when my husband told me about this project, I right away felt there’s going to be future in this. This is something that he loves, one of the many somethings that he does best. The only flaw would probably be time constraints. But as we all know, when you love something or someone, we all make time for it. Plus, there’s never going to be a time limit. Charot. 😀

I cannot wait for Step One to start. The “about-to-take-off” state, usually, is the most crucial – it’s when you gather up all your data, and back it up with a full blown marketing plan. But, we have done this before. This is, in a way, similar to planning a wedding, or opening a new branch.

Everything must start from scratch. 🙂 So that Steps 2 to  Steps 1000 will immediately follow 😀

So, year of the snake, please be nice to Mr. and Mrs. May luck be on our side this year.

Updates soon!

The Tales of Retail

for a product to sell, get the best sales person 🙂

Hello,

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of our retail business, i have listed below, not lessons and tips, but the most memorable stories — both good and bad — we have ever encountered. Enjoy reading 🙂

1. A week after we opened a branch in the farthest part of the island, we met a teacher from a private college there. she asked for our permission to let her class visit our store for a little “field trip”. we thought it was only one class, but lo and behold, there were batches! 🙂 they went around the store, looking at our displays, having a little picture moment, here and there. they said they loved the modern look of the store and the latest in audio video 🙂 that was the first time we held an educational field trip. 🙂 and it was fun 🙂

2. When my siblings and i were still in school, we didn’t have any service truck back then. if my father sold a refrigerator, he would call “mang kikoy”, the “cuchero” and would hire him to deliver the unit to our customer. Cuchero is a calesa driver. A calesa is a two wheeled carriage pulled by a horse. How sosyal, imagine a calesa parked outside your house. 🙂 It would seem like a clip from an 18th century movie. Yesssss.

3. A couple went to our store. Something about them told us they were from the island but were currently settling at a different country, somewhere in Europe. How did we know? They were talking in a foreign language when they entered the store. 🙂 My team followed them around, gave the best sales talk, smiled, followed again, sales talk. The routine. But the couple werent smiling, they were just looking around. Then they started opening the refrigerators, and then like someone who’s carefully studying if the fish were fresh, began to knock the doors of our displays, not that softly though! “Hindi ganito ang mga ref sa I__y! Hindi ito bakal!” (These are not like the ones from ____! These arent made of steel!) They went on saying things like that about our products the entire time they were there.

We didn’t like it. But we’re made of steel too, and people who look down on our products are a mere laughingstock as soon as they exit our store 🙂

To cut the story short, they purchased that fridge. Labo.

4. During one of our grand openings, as a gift to a purchasing customer, we gave her a free shirt. She exclaimed, “Wow! Pang Christmas Party ko na ‘to!” (Wow, I’ll wear this to our Christmas Party!)

While in another grand opening, we gave a customer a free shirt. The lady said, “Wag na lang.” (No thanks). Tossed the shirt back to our cashier.

There are plenty of instances with regard the free shirt!

Another story is when a customer bought a TV set. It was a very lean month, a dead month we call it. As a gift, we gave the lady a shirt. And then suddenly she began to recall the units she bought at our store. “Sa dinadami-dami ng binili ko dito, tshirt lang ang give-away ko???” (Ive purchased a lot from this store and all i got was a free shirt??)

Yes customers can sometimes be really choosy with the FREE gifts they bring home.

One more shirt story! We gave the customer, yes, a free shirt as a gift. She laid it down on the table and said, “Pano ko ‘to susuot? May logo ng tindahan nyo??” (How can i wear this when it bears your company logo?)

Hihi. I feel a smile on my face while writing these funny shirt stories. 🙂

5. Nothing beats the feeling of meeting a customer who would say, “Lahat ng appliances ko, dito ko binili. Buhay pa lahat ngayon! Wala pa kayo pwesto dito. Andun pa kayo sa lumang building ng Metrobank” (I purchased all of my home appliances here. And they’re all still working! You don’t have an outlet here yet then, you were still at the old building of Metrobank).

There, number 5 is a sure eye opener — let’s keep both feet on the ground, remember the beginning. That’s a note to myself by the way.

I, well, most of the time, get easily frustrated with the daily ops at work. Who am I to complain? The business is 40 years old, it’s withstood, possibly, the worst. Again, who am I to complain and act like a diva?

Like the old Pinoy saying, “Madami ka pang kakaining bigas!”  (You still ha ve a lot to learn; you still have  a long way to go). 

Anyway 🙂 Those were my top 5 Tales of Retail. I promise to come up with more.

Happy 40th Birthday dear store. I love you. Thank you for being a huge part of my life – and my family’s too.

 

The Picture above! That’s Tristan, Tel and me holding the camera. It was taken last summer of 2011 by my husband during one of our stopovers in Quezon – the land of longganiza (chorizo).

has gone to DFA etcetera

Pilipinas Kong Mahal

(i never knew i could upload bigger pictures here! they look 100% better!)

Hello,

My passport is due to expire early next year. Since it’s required by the C. Embassy to have a passport valid for 24 months, I have no other choice but to renew my passport a little earlier; and at the same time change my family name and my status. Hubby and I are currently preparing all the needed documents for the petition, and one major requirement is a passport valid for 2 years.

According to my sister, who’s recently applied her son a passport, everything at DFA is online now. Go to DFA here. Renewal requirements are there.

However there was a confusing requirement listed there. It went something like, “If married to a foreigner, you are required to attend a guidance and counseling seminar at the Commission on Filipinos Overseas; they would issue you a certificate and once you have your visa, they will give you a sticker which is required when you leave the country. you cannot board the plane without it”. That is the confusing requirement. Hehe. So i called the hotline. Boy! It took me 3 days to be able to talk to a customer service representative! And he said i would need to attend the seminar so i can renew my passport. hmm.

Before leaving for DFA, I did the following — everything required must be complete, DFA people are very very strict. Read along and comply.

Step 1. Go to DFA site.

Step 2. Click the link Set An Appointment. (if you wish to renew or apply for a new passport, you’ve got to set an appointment with DFA. gone are the days when you can drop by DFA anytime. No appointment means no transaction, so set an appointment)

Step 3. It will link you to the part where you must fill out a form completely and accurately. Make sure all details are correct, especially the spelling. If you are renewing your passport and would want to use the family name of your husband’s, please do not put it yet as your family name in your form. Please use first your maiden name.

Step 4. After filling out the form, you will be asked to choose your most convenient date of appearance at the DFA. Set the appointment. Make sure you’ll make it. 🙂

Step 5. Once you’ve set an appointment, it will ask you to check your email inbox so you can click on the confirmation link. Please click the link in order to confirm your appointment. One man went to DFA the same day as I did; showed the receptionist the confirmation email. However, he forgot to click on the confirmation link. Therefore, he wasnt able to secure an appointment with DFA at the time he thought he did.

Step 6. Be at the DFA on your appointment date. This is not the DFA located at Roxas Blvd. The new DFA is located near SM Mall of Asia, Macapagal Blvd.

Step 7. Bring all your requirements, original and one set of photocopy.

Note: if your NSO authenticated birth certificate cannot be read, please secure a new copy from the local civil registrar. Blurred birth certificates, though they’ve been issued by NSO, will not be considered.

###

But before I went to DFA, I first went to St. Mary Euphrasia Foundation- Center for Overseas Workers to attend the required Guidance and Counseling Seminar. When you marry a foreign national, you are required to attend the seminar and at the same time register at Commission on Filipinos Overseas.

So I did. The guidance and counseling seminar started with a film viewing. It was an old documentary from Magandang Gabi Bayan about Filipino women who married foreign nationals and decided to leave the country to live with their husbands. These women who had dreams to achieve, who had beautiful lives planned out in their minds, unfortunately experienced the ugliest and the most hurtful.

They became victims of pornography, prostitution, and all forms of abuse.

I was very hesitant on attending the seminar; for me, I would just go there to comply with the DFA requirements. I never expected I would be highly interested and deeply moved.

The women who were sitting with me were a lot younger than me. The counselor said, most women who attend the seminar usually havent been with their foreigner husbands for a long time. Most of those women, according to her, have only known the foreign national for a month; and they they would go with their husbands to the foreign country after they get married — without any complete knowledge about who he is, where he lives, what he does for a living. All they have in mind is the idea they see on movies and read on papers — that living abroad is great! is fun! and will definitely make you rich!

The counselor said, those women would go abroad to help out the families they leave behind. She said this is the main reason of those women for marrying the foreigners. Now that is a very sad thought. They do not go to a different country because they want to have a family with the man of their dreams; for those girls, the foreigners are just their stepping stone in reaching their dream and well, making their lives comfortable. They do not know that their husbands have different lives from the lives these girls have seen. They’re not kind, they’re not generous, they’re not good-looking. Their worlds would now turn, their rights violated, their hearts and dreams crushed.

It’s very alarming that even until now, there are still so many victims. One theory I guess is our country is a poor country — it hurts me to say this, but this country is striving; this country cannot support the needs of its citizens — and this theory tends to push away those Filipinas to search for better lives. Another theory is we have insufficient awareness campaign, it lacks the support it desperately needs from our government. Organizations should stop talking about oil price hikes, and that perennial traffic problem in EDSA. Organizations should maybe concentrate on issues that really concern the welfare of Pinoys. Hay.

Anyway, during the seminar, the lady asked the youngest attendee. She’s only 18, and she’s married to a Korean. The lady counselor gave her a scenario that she was hit by her husband because she did something wrong; she was asked if she would stay or not. The young girl said she would stay. It was her fault anyway she said.

I was shaking at the back row. I felt my heart palpitating. I am not an expert, but all i know is when a guy hits you once, he will hit you again. I dont know who this girl is, or her reason why she chose to stay except for the fact that it was her mistake. I am in no position to judge, but i couldnt help but think what influenced her to think the way she does. She is very young; there’s so much ahead of her.

From the college I came from, we had a subject that focused on empowering the women; on making them aware of their rights, their opportunities and the many roles they can perform. It raised awareness on issues such as this.

That’s the only thing we need — awareness. Awareness prevents bad things from happening. Awareness educates the people, especially the women. Awareness gives voice and directions to the naive.

###

Back to DFA.

So I went there. And i had the ff docs with me:

1. Appointment Date

2. Application Form

3. NSO Authenticated Marriage Contract – original

4. Certificate from CFO (being married to a foreigner)

5. Valid IDs

6. NSO Birth Cert

7. other docs like land title, baptismal cert..

So i went there.

DFA was already busy at 7am. I guess there are so many Filipinos who want to travel and live abroad.

But DFA Consular Affairs has improved a lot, ever since the first time I went to the old DFA. It was chaotic then, lines under the heat of the sun, no orderliness whatsoever. DFA now is very modern, it is housed in a very comfortable building, air conditioned, clean and with ample seating. DFA is also very convenient, they deliver your passports wherever you are in the country. No matter how plenty the applicants are, they can all be served because of its very organized system. I liked it. 🙂 I hope SSS can be that efficient too 🙂 (it takes a year before you can get your SSS ID).

After two hours, I got to leave DFA and now patiently waiting for my new passport.

Love,

J.

will now write about the wedding

 hello lifetime. let’s get it on dreams! 

And so we are married! yes!

###

but before everything has become so perfect and beautiful, R & I have done a lot of homework. preparations have been in full swing since 2010 and Google has been a very great source to our one million and one FAQs.

r & i have been engaged since 2010.a little story about the proposal: it happened in march of 2010, at a local beach in D., Sunrise. that was the second vacation of R (hubby lives in a different country). after a short speech and some Q&A slash assessment of our relationship, R asked me to marry him. and all i could ever said was “sure thing” — the lamest and corniest and most awkward response i could ever give. but i meant “yes” there. 🙂

with the help of my sisters, he got my ring size and brought with him a 14kt. white gold natural canadian diamond. like this:

really beautiful, sparkles all the time..

after that vacation of his, he flew out of P again and promised to be back by 2011.

###

they say organizing a wedding can really give so much stress and pressure to the couple, especially to the bride. this is why it is best to plan the wedding one year before the desired wedding date. we planned ours for two years.

i have listed below some wedding planning tips, hoping to help out the brides and grooms out there. r & i have used these tips and half of the list, we learned after the wedding only. 😉

1. After the sweet, romantic, tearjerking wedding proposal, be sure to back it up with a real solid wedding plan! the wedding proposal is only the surface of what’s more important — THE wedding! 🙂

2. Wedding plan. This primarily includes your budget and your desired wedding date. After you’ve set these two, you may now proceed to changing your status on facebook! hehe. but seriously, after these two, you may want to ask the blessing from both your parents, especially the bride’s. Not only would it make the parents feel so special and important, but it’s more of showing respect to the people who brought you here on earth. So call your parents, make a dinner reservation and announce to them your very important news. You may also invite your best friends.

3. Ask yourself these:

1. Where would we want to hold our wedding ceremony ?

• Would we want a church ceremony?
• A summery garden wedding rites perhaps?
• City hall? Plaza? Beach?

Choosing the venue is one of the most crucial parts of wedding planning. There are so many couples out there and surprisingly, you all have the same venue (and sometimes wedding date) in mind! So finalize asap and book your desired wedding date!

I tell you, it is very heartbreaking to find out that your desired wedding date and time have been already booked by somebody else. When this happens, take out your contingency notepad and select another date! Your second favorite date. Don’t leave empty handed. Sometimes, it’s not advisable to while away time when planning a wedding — thinking you’ve got plenty of time (because you really dont). Believe me, the soonest time you could book a venue and the date, the best! so book it fast!

Remember, you cannot move forward with your wedding planning without a booked venue.

If you’re having a wedding in the Philippines, be sure to ask about the requirements. These requirements are sometimes very complex, especially when you are marrying a foreigner (like in my case). We had to get a “legal capacity to get married / freedom to marry” certificate from the C. embassy and a “clearance from the Archdiocese”. The two certificates are required when you’re going to apply for a marriage license. A marriage license is a major requirement for ALL those who intend to get married. Without it, you simply cannot get married (at least here in Phils). So after we obtained the two certificates, we applied for a marriage license in our City Hall. The processing would take 10 days and it would be valid only for 120 days from the date of issuance. More about Marriage License here:

http://www.weddingsatwork.com/culture_laws_license.shtml

We had our wedding at St. James The Great Parish, Ayala Alabang Muntinlupa City. They have the usual Church requirements, however, St. James doesnt have packages unlike some other churches who have choirs and flowers already.

At St. James, you need to look for your own choir and as for the flowers, you would need to talk to their Mother Butler Guild. All different charges and quite expensive. But St. James The Great is a very beautiful church. The first time I saw it (online), i knew this would be our church. It is situated inside an exclusive subdivision, so there’s no need to worry about the noise a busy street brings. It has a very long aisle, giving everybody the spotlight when they walk down. And the architecture is simply superb. You would just have to provide a very detailed map for your guests.

St. James The Great though is somewhat strict with their policies. They do not allow any pop song to be part of the wedding ceremony. All must be Catholic Church songs. They do not allow the photographers, videographers and the wedding coordinators to be loitering around during the entire ceremony. Everything has to be sacred and solemn. We love that. (and we got the best coordinator and photographers, so it wasnt a problem at all 🙂 )

St. James The Great Parish, Ayala Alabang Muntinlupa City

2. Once you’ve decided on the venue, it would now be easy to ask yourself this:

• What kind of wedding would I want? How many guests? What kind of food? The wedding dress?

Based from my experience, when i have asked myself this question, I have so many things I wanted to do during the wedding. I have thought of a bugle band to play on our wedding (festive!), hubby has thought of building a mock up “runway” complete with our polaroid pictures on both sides, and all those little special gimmicks we think would interest the guests.

And of course there’s the internet. Google and all those wedding websites have a complete lineup on the different kinds of wedding themes. Information overload, yes. So before you panic, list down everything you want to do during your wedding. Discuss it with your groom.

After discussing it with your groom, talk to your venue coordinator about it. Sometimes there are limitations in the venues or churches. So it’s best to lay them out early. And of course you need to know also about how much they would charge you for that. The start of endless quotations would now flood your inbox. Be sure to read everything carefully, especially the inclusives. Most venues have wedding packages that are very practical. There’s no more need to outsource some things. Sometimes the venues already have wedding emcees and even party organizers.

Our reception was held at The Bellevue Manila. It is a mere 20 minute drive from St. James The Great, it is the perfect choice. LIke what I have said, discuss the packages. Bellevue has a very practical lineup for its inclusives. Everything you need, they already have them in their packages — the cake, the car, the wine, the accommodations, the food… Your groom would even have his own room. And you too! So you’ve got two free rooms. Grande right?

Plus, The Bellevue Manila boasts of its very friendly staff. They’re very warm and approachable. Unlike some hotel staffs from various five star hotels who are either snobbish or plain lazy to give you feedback. Anyway, TBM may be a little expensive, but it’s very worth it. If you’re the bride or groom who easily gets stressed out, please choose a venue with an account executive who’s accommodating and reliable since day one. Trust your instincts. 🙂

The Bellevue Manila has the most beautiful ballroom I have ever seen!

More pictures of The Bellevue Manila, click me!

 4. When you’ve booked the reception and ceremony venues, everything else would follow. You may now book your photographer, videographer, caterer, invitations, wedding coordinator, wedding gown designer, band, hair and make up artist, etc. 🙂
When you’ve chosen and booked your suppliers, be sure to print out their packages and their contracts. It is best to put them in one file folder, so everything will be organized and you won’t miss out on anything. Start working on your guest list too, because drafting this takes a whole lot of time. Confirming their attendance is also another ball game, so good luck. Make a table. 😉

• Our wedding Photographer — PUY TALDE of Really Awesome Weddings. Puy and Chie Talde are best in their craft. They’re very friendly too. When booking a supplier, go for someone who feels like a friend to you. This is your big day, your wedding day. You would need all the nicest people around you. Don’t go for someone who’s very popular but doesn’t seem to care about you on your big day.
• Our Hair and Make-Up Artist — ARA FERNANDO. She made everybody beautiful during the wedding. She’s very professional, always on time and very talented. Even until the reception she was there for a quick touch up. Book her. She’s great.
• My wedding gown designer — DREZZEE BY CHERRIE CARIAGA. Please look for Ms. Cherrie or Sir Jorge. They have their shop in Makati City. They design shoes and bags too. I like them because Ms. Cherrie and Sir Jorge are very warm and nice. I like talking to them. And I feel comfortable transacting with them also. Client-Supplier relationship is very important to me. I did not book any supplier who feels distant and snotty. No no no. 🙂
• Our wedding invitation was designed by my husband. We had it printed in GA PRINTING c/o Ms. Marge Damian (who is also very bubbly and nice!). Almost everybody liked the lay-out of our invitation. Should you wish to inquire about lay-out designs, you may reach me here. 🙂
• Wedding Coordinator: Book Ces Ong of Fit2BeTied. Everything was organized during our wedding. And Ms. Ces is also very professional. She’s one hundred and one percent reliable and dedicated to her clients.

5. When you’ve booked everything, smile. Go to church and pray.

6. Be extra excited. 🙂

Love,

J.