On the playground of the MaSci (Manila Science High School) is where I had the first glimpse of tennis right on the courts of Philippine Columbian.

Thirty-nine years ago, I wouldn't miss tennis at MaSci. The usual 7AM flag ceremony is conducted on the playground beside the tennis courts. So as we were singing the national anthem, the tennis match was suspended as players at the other side of the fence stood still to finish the anthem. Never did I dream that I would be involved in the sports of tennis.

Four years later, our IV-Einstein senior class homeroom was located at the second floor of the Bordner Building. That time I had a vantage view of the tennis courts. After my bag is settled on my designated seat, the window on the northern part of the room was the usual hangout to watch tennis. Players were all in white attire and used wooden rackets. Sometimes a ball or two flew over the fence to the grassy patch of the playground. Those became marked balls and were used for softball games if the sports equipment room was locked.

Volleyball and pingpong were the popular sports in MaSci. Occasionally there were softball and basketball. Rizal Memorial Stadium, a jeepney ride away from the school not tennis was a usual hang-out to watch softball games, not tennis.

In May 1971, MaSci was slowly fading away after graduation so was tennis.

Then I bought Shine, my first tennis racket at a Raon sports shop. Head, Wilson and other brands were quite expensive. During Saturdays, An office mate, Ed Mateo and myself had our Tennis 101 drills at the rooftop of EEI building at E. Rodriguez Ave now C5. In 1979, I finally landed on a tennis court at Rizal Racket Club in Pasig using a red Head racket. Occupying the 12 to 1pm slot, we literally owned the courts.

Serious tennis started in Brunei in August 1981, my first month in Brunei Shell Petroleum. Oh, I had the luxury to play in two clubs, BSRC (Brunei Shell Recreation Club) and Panaga Club. My gear consisted of a Spalding racket and Puma rubber shoes. Game schedules were 5PM to 9pm almost everyday including weekends. With the absence of a professional trainor, our ground strokes, volleys and serves were not polished. But game after game of tennis made my stay in Brunei most enjoyable.

Going back to the Philippines, Meralco Tennis Club, became my home court. Jimmy Ledesma, a class A player with excellent ground strokes, was my first professional trainor. Since 1994 I have been playing tennis with Jimmy. And tennis I did learn.

Since 2003, Onay Cruz has been my trainor. A faulty forehand and weak backhand were corrected and improved. Now, I enjoyed every stroke and every game of tennis.

Playing tennis was not about a mighty forehand nor a powerful serve. The game is built around the players's ability to focus, patience to practice, quick mind to make decisions and anticipation to hit the ball early.

Tennis being a great sport, built my resilience to deal with very demanding and stressful business environment.

Here's a challenge, play tennis and learn to focus. Enjoy!

Labels: Brunei, brunei shell, BSRC, Columbian, Ed Mateo, EEI, Jimmy Ledesma, Manila Science, MaSci, Meralco, Onay Cruz, Panaga Club

 
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In January 1989, I was one of the students of Jimmy Licauco in "Silva Mind Control". Doing a lot of photography in Brunei, I got interested in Silva Mind Control because it was about creativity and visualization. Two of my classmates were Mike Relon Makiling and Maryo De Los Reyes.

Our final "exam" was to vizualize three events, places or people which were sensed from three of our classmates. Going back from aplha state after a long process, my classmates read their notes of what I described during the visualization process. They were all very excited when I vividly described three subjects :

• A relative suffering from epilepsy. I described him falling to ground in several places
• A relative staying Australia. The documented description showed the row houses and the cold temperature where the relative stayed
• A squatter house. I vividly described a very cramped room with one incandescent lamp located in a chaotic neighborhood

With the 3 out of 3 hits, I was elected president of the class.

Towards the end the class, I met Tito de Jesus, a dream analyst and a radio boradcaster ,was one of our facilitators. One hot summer day, I got a call asking for an assistance to locate a church worker, Julius Caesar Falcone, gone missing after sailing out to the sea. T

The next day, Tito with two nuns who worked in the parish as Julius helped me go aplha state to processed the scene. And they documented what I "saw" during the visualization process. Here's what they wrote:

Transcriptions from the conversations with Tito de Jesus as related to him by Efren Ricalde while in alpha state on April 11, 1990, between 4:00 p.m to 6:00 p.m.

The following scenarios are not in sequence:

1. Julius is seen wearing a bracelet, flesh colored.
2. His silver-steel watch records on his arms at 9:00 a.m time. He wears a blue t-shirt with apiece of cloth tied to a part of his body.
3. A small banca is floating with an old blue rope tied at its tail . A small island is seen with a statue, and this statue grows bigger and bigger.
4. In a small island, seated on a rock are two men, one holding a black bag, looks like Julius. Somewhere in the island there is small house burning.
5. A recurring scene is Julius bubbling water with head alternating up and down, for quite sometime.
6. Efren felt a great pain in the chest, and then a pain in the throat. This was the most difficult part of the process. He was feeling very weak and Tito had to energize Efren to continue with his journey.
7. A white object is seen floating on the sea. This scene appeared earlier in the process. Efren mentioned he could not bear to look straight into this object. However, this scene replayed again. During the sharing, when Tito asked Efren could it be that this white object is Julius and that’s why he could not look at it straight, Efren answered yes, but he was afraid to look at it.
8. Efren sees himself together with Tito looking up to the sky and sees a hole, a small one. Suddenly Julius’ face with smiles peeps through this hole. Then he disappears. The hole becomes bigger and bigger, showing a very beautiful scenery that Efren could not describe and wish to take a picture of it, and names it “paradise”. After some time, Efren looks up and sees the sky and the clouds.
9. A high white wall. On it is written with Julius’ own handwriting this word “Goodbye!” , underlined, in a slanting position with a blue color. This scene of Goodbye appears twice.
10. Consistently, a hand was seen with a rosary extended over to Efren, this was seen many times. Efren had to go to Quiapo church to locate at a certain place where a rosary similar to what was seen could be found. The scene in Church was detailed. The rosary was colored green with silver, inside a whole bundle of rosaries on the right side of the altar, with novena prayer books below it, flowers beside, and a woman nearby.
11. The floating white object was seen in the Cebu-Manila navigation line in the open seas. (cf. marks on drawing)
12. Julius wearing a cassock, is preaching in a small chapel, where there are many children, in the island.
13. There is a small chapel with a cross on top of it. There are six rows of chairs, on the far right Julius is seated.
14. Seemingly strange as Efren expressed, is the alternating position of Julius being on and down the water surface

The nuns confirmed the existence of steel watch, bracelet, small banca, small island, and the church. They shared with me a chilling revelation that when I got out of the alpha state our dogs were suddenly howling in fright. It was the first that I felt very exhausted after a visualization.

Since then, I never did a similar process.

Labels: alpha, alpha state, Brunei, CEO blog, Efren Ricalde, Jimmy Licauco, Julius Caesar Falcone, Mike Relon, Silva Mind, Tito de Jesus, visualization

 
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Returning back to the Philippines from an eight-year stay at Brunei Shell Petroleum in August 1988, there was an immediate need to acclimatize myself to the new business environment and establish a network. Reading an advertisement from a local newspaper of a seminar at Meralco Foundation, I immediately visited its office to get and submit an application form.

The seminar, "Problem Analysis and Decision Making" was held on September 13 - 17, 1988 at Green Valley Country Club, Baguio City. Exposed mainly on software and hardware subjects, the training gave me a new insight in looking at new knowledge and opportunities especially in business.

On the very first day of the seminar, I was surprised that a former classmate from UP College of Engineering in Diliman, Gilbert Azagra, was one of the trainors! He put me on the spot when he introduced my name and said : "my classmate and seatmate at UP Engg whom I ask some help during exams." Gilbert, still with Meralco, took Industrial Engineering while I did Geodetic Engineering.

As the seminar materials where distributed by Gilbert, he opened up the session by sharing a quotation of Thomas Watson, Sr. - "You cannot be a success in business without believing that it is the greatest business in the world. You have to put your heart in the business and business in your heart."

Since then the quotation stayed in my heart. Ten years later, I read it again to myself, and put it into use when GeoSpatial Solutions hit the road as a start-up company.

Labels: Baguio, Brunei, CEO blog, entrepreneur, Geodetic, Geospatial, Gilbert Azagra, Industrial, Meralco, quotation, Ricalde, UP, Watson

 
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AMW, a Scot, always reported for work earlier than me. If it could have been a tennis tournment, he would have gotten all the Grand Slam.

At 10 minutes before seven in the morning, I was seated on my desk almost infront of AMW who was busy scribbling on his notepad. Having an open space arrangement, we have a 360 degrees view of the department as the staff of FIC/7 reported for work one by one.

A notepad supervisor, that is how I would describe him. Every morning, sensing that I am seated, he would raise his face from a stationery position and smile at me. With his notepad marked AMW FIC7 on his right hand, he walked to my desk and sat on my visitor's chair.

Business as usual, he started recalling the activities we had yesterday with the users from Petroleum Geology (DPG)and scribbled my things to do for the day. With about three bullet points of things to do, he demonstrated his exceptional skill of remembering user requirements by discussing the details of the tasks.

A very inspiring supervisor with happy disposition, I was motivated to excel in my work.

The notepad worked, the following year I got the maximum increment of six percent. Without wasting any minute, I was on the phone talking to my father at his office at the Insurance Commission informing him that I was one of the top performer at FIC7.

Work at Brunei Shell ended at 4PM. With Panaga Club and Brunei Shell Recreation Club, most of my officemates played golf, tennis, squash to name a few sports and activities. Before a game of tennis, a two-kilometer of jogging along the beach fron of Panaga kept me ready for my opponent usually a British or Dutch guy.

With a dog leash and not a notepad on his hand, AMW and his wife was also running along the beach. Aside from running, golf and squash were what kept him very fit.

Then, a FIC memo was circulated. A few minutes before the end of work, I stood in front of his desk and inquired about the contents of the memo. Without referring directly to the memo, he said that it is about time for him face other challenges.

Most mornings, the notepad session went on and on until he was finally posted to Shell UK.

A few days before AMW left Brunei, he shared a piece of advice on how to prepare for life after Brunei Shell. Vividly I could remember when he said -"be very flexible and be a generalist".

About two decades have passed since we last shook our hands together. After unsuccessful attempts to obtain his email address from web searches, I hope this blog could reach him soonest.

Oh, 'soonest' is one of his favorite words.

Labels: Alan Wood, Brunei, brunei shell, business 101, CEO blog, Efren Ricalde, FIC

 
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Gabriel or Gabs, my eldest child was born in August 24,1984 at the United Doctors Medical Center near the Welcome Rotonda at the boundary of Manila and Quezon City.

While we were waiting for Gabs' arrival, a huge and agitated crowd has gathered around the rotonda. From the hospital window, I saw a sea of protestors with red and yellow streamers and banners. Shouting in unison, they were demanding for the ouster of the Marcos regime.

The red banners belong to the progressive groups like KMU. Not as many as the progressives, the yellow banner group on the other hand belongs to the moderate August Twenty One Movement or ATOM. As they were maneuvering to cut through the phalanx of the anti-riot law enforcers, slowly all the group of protestors with red banners were massing in front as the yellow banner holders and followers moving to the rear position.

Then, we heard the news, Gabs was born. Four hours laters, I was with the protestors marching towards Mendiola. As I was on my annual one month leave from the office, I left the Philippines after two weeks. Just before December of the same year, Gabs was with me in Brunei.
As he was growing in a Brunei Shell company house at G9/36 Panaga, I noticed that Gabriel was different. He has an intense focus to learn, a passion for only one type of toy - many kinds of fan, enjoys listening to music especially Abba, identifying the A or B side of a cassette tape,

At 3 years old, his lady pediatrician at the Panaga Hospital was astonished when she was assesing Gabs' ability to identify objects. Asked to identify an object in a picture book, without hesitation he said "uniform". At an early age he can differentiate a dress from a uniform.

As all of us were amused with Gabs' attentiveness and with an advance tip that he can read, the doctor went further to check if Gabs can recognize not just letters but words. Word after word, Gabs read the words like book,tea, cup, glass, tatay, nanay, and many nore. Finally, the pediatrician wrote on the baby book - 'A gifted boy'.

Labels: atom, Brunei, brunei shell, CEO blog, Efren Ricalde, Gabriel Leiva, gabs, gifted, gifted child, KMU, panaga

 
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