[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’PEOPLE POWWOW ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
‘You can’t keep a good man down’
YOU and I have surely heard somebody say, “You can’t keep a good man down.” As to who said that first, there is no way of telling; anybody could have said it at the spur of the moment. But I remember the phrase sung in the song of the same title in the 1950s by a black group, Billy Ward and His Dominoes.
The quotation also reminds this writer of the parable about a farmer whose old dog fell into a deep dry well. After assessing the dog’s seemingly hopeless situation, the farmer thought that neither the dog nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. So he decided to bury his helpless pet in the well. Using a shovel, he dumped soil on his dog, only to notice that the smart dog, by shaking off the soil and stepping up the rising pile, was always on top. Eventually, the dog jumped and leaped over the now shallow pit.
The quotation likewise reminds me of two of my friends, whom I first met in the 1990s at the defunct Phil-Am Bank on Ledesma Street, Iloilo City. Rene Tagamolila was then the bank’s branch manager while Eva Vencer was one of his subordinates. Unfortunately, the bank folded up, forcing its employees to fend for themselves.
Fortunately today, that sad moment has become a blessing in disguise. Rene Tagamolila is now Iloilo branch manager of Isuzu Philippines, reputable dealer of Japan-made cars, trucks and vans. There was a time when Rene asked me to witness “Challenge the Terrain,” an event that has been attracting buyers of their pick-ups. That promotional come-on held at the hilly, unpaved outback of SM City-Iloilo saw volunteer motorists successfully test-driving new units up and down difficult slopes, drifting into 180-degree spins and kicking up the powdery fine sand into the air.
That promo compelled the test drivers to patronize the pick-up brand. It reminded me of another adage, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
Concerning the still young and beautiful Eve Vencer, I last met her just yesterday morning at the coffee shop of Hotel del Rio while in a powwow with hotel proprietor Alfonso Tan, who happens to be one of her valued clients.
Their talk over, she sidled up to my table and happily broke the good news that, as in the past, she still works with a bank, but now holds the higher position of senior manager at the Iloilo City branch of China Trust Banking Corporation (CTBC) at the Insular Life Bldg. on General Luna Street. She revealed that after the closure of Phil-Am Bank, she had moved a few times more from one bank to another.
The name of the CTBC Bank sounded Greek to me. I wondered whether it is destined to be gobbled up by a bigger bank – a familiar practice euphemistically called “merger.”
“It’s not what you think,” she corrected me. “This bank is one of the most stable in Taiwan, where it began banking in 1966 – half a century or 50 years ago! It now has 147 branches in Taiwan and 68 in the Unites States, Canada and Asia. It began operating in the Philippines in 1995. The new Iloilo branch is actually its 25th branch in the Philippines.”
A man and a woman doing well – namely Rene Tagamolila and Eva G. Vencer – make us sing the first lines of the song You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down.
“I can see where I’m going. Although the road’s not clear, sometimes it doesn’t seem so. But I know you can’t keep a good man down.”/PN
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
