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Monday, August 08, 2005
What’s the Way Up?
By Jenara Regis Newman
FOR Philippine Airline’s Barazel “Bob” Salazar, Assistant Vice-President, Visayas Sales and Services, the way up is through sheer determination, to aim high but to plan for it a step at a time. Where he is now is truly a long, long way up from being a temporary school dropout.
He said his mother died when he was in second year high school and he almost quit school altogether. Finishing high school took a lot of hard work, he sometimes went to school on an empty stomach. He quit school after that, taking on odd jobs: selling newspapers, sweepstakes tickets and working as an ordinary laborer in a construction company. And at 18, he married Salvacion Calamucha.
His salvation, quite literally. He made a deal with her family, they’d get married but he would work in the security agency of her family so he could support a family as well as go to college.
And finish college in four years he did, BSBA major in accounting at the Aquinas University in Legazpi. He joined Philippine Airlines in 1974, first as ticket freight clerk in Masbate. Then he was assigned for ten years in Naga, during which time he was able to finish his MBA at the University of Nueva Caceres, taking Saturday classes.
When he was again assigned in Masbate, he left it up to his family whether they would join him or not, as they had taken roots in Naga (Bob was born in nearby Legazpi, Albay) where his wife had set up a business. The family opted to join him.
From Masbate, he was transferred to San Jose, Mindoro, and then to Manila, then to Iloilo and back to Manila, before he was assigned to Cebu in April this year. Despite the travel privileges that the airline gives, it was not until he was with PAL for twenty years that he and members of his family could make use of the privilege.
By that time, he was in charge of cargo sales in Manila. His assignment in Cebu puts him in charge of all Visayas, including Bacolod, Iloilo, Tacloban, Tagbilaran, Kalibo and Roxas for sales and services. He looks forward to PAL having flights to Beijing late this year, not from Cebu but with easy connecting flights to Manila and onward to Beijing.
Having risen through the ranks, Bob can relate to everybody in his staff, from the lowest to highest-level management. Now he can afford executive perks, but his hobbies remain reading, basketball, listening to music, and just recently, “learning the sport of the elite, golfing.”
His advice for those who dream big dreams is “not to expect too much because if you do, you won’t be happy with little but if you expect little and you get a lot, you will be happy a whole lot more. Be ready to forgive so that anger will not make you suffer ill health.
And do not look too far because it can be discouraging . Take things year by year. "Kung malayo ang titingnan mo, ma-discourage ka.” These are words Bob Salazar has lived by. And look where he is now, flying high with PAL!
(August 8, 2005 issue)
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