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[av_heading heading=’PEOPLE POWWOW | Retired but not tired’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
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Sunday, March 26, 2017
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YOU HAVE heard it said that the young ones look forward to the future but the young once look back to the past, often euphemistically called “the good old days.” This is understandable: Life is a journey to a goal or an ambition which, once attained, fades away to find a place in memory.
Be that as it may, the trait of looking forward does not confine itself to the young. You and I know of retired professionals who have not allowed retirement to bind them to idleness but to launch them into another adventure. One of them is Romeo T. Moscoso, a classmate of mine in the elementary and secondary schools. At 67, he has spent his first two post-retirement years cultivating his fruit garden in Davao City for a fruitful future for his children and grandchildren, as you will soon find out.
“You will see why,” he told me on the phone after I confirmed that we would be visiting him in Davao. “We” refers to Panay News’ founder Danny Fajardo, his wife Mary and me.
We found time one Saturday afternoon, with Romy driving us to the outskirts of Davao City on a muddy road leading to what seemed like the Garden of Eden. It was an orchard teeming with such fruit trees as mangosteen, lanzones, rambutan, and durian.
“That is my retirement office,” Romy joked, pointing at a modest cottage in the middle of the farm.
I rightly guessed that pagdating ng panahon, the orchard – already bearing fruits in commercial quantity – would bring him more money than the government salary he used to rely on.
“I have learned a lesson from my wife,” Romy beamed.
His wife, the former Bernardita “Edith” Ocampo, had quit her nursing job to go into backyard gardening, growing flowers and ornamental plants. Today, she sells potted flowers and ornamental plants in Davao City and neighboring towns.
Romy, who looks 10 years younger than his age, believes that his family’s appetite for fruits would add more years to their life and life to their years.
“Yes,” he quipped, “these are life-extending fruits full of vitamins, minerals and immunity-boosting antioxidants. Help yourself.”
On the table were baskets full of the aforementioned fruits waiting to be “attacked.”
To make the long eating short, we gorged on lanzones, mangosteen and durian until we had to loosen our belts.
We congratulated Romy for his foresight that would ensure his family freedom from hunger.
The Moscoso children have all finished college. Daughter Rodith, who graduated cum laude at Ateneo de Davao, is a practicing certified public accountant in Bangkok, Thailand. Son Richard, a nurse by profession, has chosen to help her mom in flower propagation. Son Reuben, also a registered nurse, is the orchard’s caretaker.
“What more can I ask God for?” Romy asked.
Romeo T. Moscoso, a Bachelor of Science in Commerce graduate at Central Philippine University (CPU) in 1970 and a certified public accountant by profession, has spent 45 years of accounting work in both the private and public sectors.
He joined the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in 1982 as revenue examiner, gradually climbing his way up. He was revenue district officer in Davao City when he retired in 2015.
He considers his professional retirement as a new beginning, a time to harvest the fruits of his labor.
I bet that if today’s youth would learn from Romy’s example, this country would lick poverty sooner than later. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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