Monday, November 03, 2008 Solid as ‘rocky’ By Jenara Regis Newman
BORN in Dumaguete city, he was transported to Manila when his family chose to live there. That’s where he took up his economics course.
Married at a very young age (at 20), he had to learn early to support a family. He found himself a night time job as telephone operator of Century Park Sheraton while he finished his studies during the day.
He stayed with Sheraton for 19 years, moving up from telephone operator to front desk, then front desk supervisor, moving up to middle level manager and duty manager.
The nice thing about Sheraton, Rocky recalls, is that when management sees potential, they send the person for training.
And so Rocky was sent abroad, signing a contract that he would stay with the company for three years.
Later on, Sheraton also sent him to one year hotel and restaurant management special course for senior hotel staff.
He became a department head, front office, but even while there, he was already given projects of immense importance. He was point person during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation and the second visit of Pope John Paul II for World Youth Day in 1995. Sheraton, being near the Apostolic Nunciature, accommodated all the cardinals in the papal party headed by the Vatican secretary of state. For this occasion, Rocky converted one suite into the cardinals’ meal room, and another to a chapel where the cardinals could say Mass.
He was later hired by Heritage Hotel to be director of rooms, moving up to resident manager after three years. From Heritage Hotel, he went to work at St. Luke’s Medical Center as vice president. He was made in charge of renovating, modernizing the 100-year-old facility with its half-a-century-old building.
For Rocky, this was “the most compressed period” of his working life, renovating not just rooms but the specialty rooms and the laboratories.
What he is proud of is the installation of a huge autoclave that treats medical waste with steam and electricity, the first facility in the Philippines of this type, and which earned St. Luke’s its Joint Commission for International Accreditation.
But because Rocky loves hotels, he moved back to the Microtel group, managing different hotels—the Atrium Hotel in Manila and the Amoreta Resort in Panglao, Bohol—before moving to Microtel in Mactan.
So far, he says, the Benedictos have been “excellent franchisees.” And he sees a lot of potential for the hotel, despite the economic slowdown. He is confident that the hotel, to him “unique and different,” will grow into its maturity “with very respectable figures.”
Coming from a seasoned hotelier, experience solid as a rock, these words will surely come to pass.
