YOU and I have heard of the oft-quoted proverb, “Time is gold.”
Obviously, “gold” here stands for wealth that anybody may amass through wise use of time. It not only enables us to buy things; it also gives us freedom to spend time as we want.
We wonder why some people make so much of it in the shortest time while most people spend so much time for a little gold. The ability of the rich to expand their material wealth in the shortest time amazes employees who work eight hours a day for sheer survival.
We know of hard-working lawyers and doctors who make hundreds of thousands of pesos a month but don’t have enough time to accommodate all their clients and patients, respectively.
There are those who, for lack of sufficient patrons, do not make enough money to maintain a decent lifestyle.
I once attended a multi-level marketing seminar where an articulate speaker said, wrote, “People who are locked into their jobs are victims of income creation, not wealth creation.”
Elaborating, he belittled the fixed income that eight-hour laborers make, no matter how hard they work.
“Lose the job and you lose money.”
Professionals like doctors and lawyers who go into private practice, he conceded, are better off but…
“Where would the highly paid doctor be if he developed arthritis in his hands and could no longer create income because he had to stop working? If you don’t have any income other than income from your job, you’re heading for disaster.”
This explains why the so-called urban poor who receive no regular monthly income squat on other people’s real estate.
The speaker reached for an issue of an American business magazine and read a line, “It takes the average worker half his lifetime to purchase a home, accumulate some savings and retirement benefits. It takes about six months of unemployment to lose it all.”
He commented that with a worse scenario here in the Philippines where even the middle class lacks sustainable monthly pay, the more creative ones strive for an income that does not rely on trading time for money. He cited business franchisers who earn a portion of their income from each of their hundreds of franchisees.
There and then, I remembered one young man whom I met only once when he was running a photo-supply shop on Delgado St., Iloilo City. His sidekick happened to be my friend Edwin Alcocero, who predicted a good future for his Filipino-Chinese boss.
I am so sorry for Edwin that he passed away before seeing the big dreams of his boss turn into fruition. His boss was Edgar “Injap” Sia.
Still young at 41, Sia today has the reputation of being the youngest billionaire – being the original owner of one of the country’s most popular chicken-barbecue food chains, Mang Inasal.
From that one location at Robinson’s, Iloilo City, Mang Inasal has ballooned to hundreds of franchised branches in partnership with Jollibee Foods Corporation.
Jollibee’s Tony Tan Caktiong has likewise partnered with Sia in putting up the Double Dragon Properties, which is behind the construction of City Malls in the cities of Visayas and Mindanao.
This is not to say that businessmen of lesser stature are less successful. Take the case of my friend Rodolfo Jarumahum, Jr.
“Dong well?” I asked him yesterday concerning his gravel-and-sand business.
“It’s just enough to enjoy life,” he answered. “I don’t have to be a Henry Sy to sleep on a comfortable bed. I eat the food that Lucio Tan and John Gokongwei eat. I also travel where I want to. Let them have more of everything. Who knows if they also have more problems than I have?” (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
