Francisco J. Colayco relates the story of the female caller on his radio program. The woman has no savings to show for all the 23 years she had been working as an OFW in Hong Kong. It was the same story of hard-earned bucks being spent on new dresses, changing cell phone models, jewelry, good time.
"I told her if she cut her unnecessary expenses, she would have savings," recalls Colayco. Nine months later, the same caller would report P175,000 in savings, a typical story but with a happy ending on Colayco's radio chat.
Heartwarming was how this white-haired veteran of many a corporate battle described the episode. He was a professional manager up to the age of 40 before making the shift to being an entrepreneur. Now in his late 50s, he is facing his next big challenge: changing a mindset among OFWs and tapping their earnings to make them save for their future.
"I want to generate a mindset epidemic among the expatriates and even among small-income earners here. I want Filipinos to imbibe an appreciation of laying money in store for the future," Colayco tells Planet Philippines in an interview.
It was his interaction with listeners on his Saturday radio program (simulcast to Hong Kong from the RMN station in Metro Manila) that spurred Colayco into compiling his callers' experiences and his insights in book form. The result is "Wealth Within Your Reach: Pera Mo, Palaguin Mo," a 232-page tome now on it sixth printing in just over one year, a rarity in local publishing.
"I have always believed in sharing," writes Colayco in the foreword. "Sharing thoughts, experiences, discoveries, news." Having lost his father when he was barely four months old (father Manuel Colayco, a guerrilla leader, died liberating the UST concentration camp from the Japanese in 1945), Colayco knew what it was to be the beneficiary of kind and generous souls who helped his mother put him and six other children through school (in his case the Ateneo de Manila, where he earned his AB in Economics and MA in Business Management).
Colayco's own wealth of experience began to pile up when he managed a local construction and shipbuilding firm and turned it by the early 70s into the first Filipino service contractor to do business in the Middle East. After ten years and several other firms later, he capped his stint as a professional manager by becoming president and CEO of the international arm of one of the largest Philippine conglomerates at the time, First Philippine Holdings Corp.
Since turning self-employed in 1984, Colayco has had his shares of successes and failures, distilling lessons along the way. For the past two years, what he now considers his personal advocacy has been to reach out to the OFWs through his radio program, sharing his thoughts with ordinary workers and small business owners eager to learn how they can keep earnings or make them multiply.
He set up the Kalayaan sa Kakapusan Movement to reflect his advocacy. In November 2003, KsK held its first seminar on personal finance in Hong Kong, with 400 paying participants showing up. "For four hours I lectured at walang tumatayo (no one took a break)."
Colayco believes most everyone is driven by the desire to earn money. "Yet how many have real understanding of how to keep and manage money?" he asks.
Taking the case of OFWs, he notes how they tend to change lifestyles as soon as they draw their first pay checks. "They are unprepared for the sudden abundance," he laments. Mention to them the need to save, or the meaning of financial planning, and what comes to their mind is something that is complicated, something for the experts.
He continues: "People do not seriously understand why they should save, what they should do. Fifty percent of OFWs don't have savings. They have barely any idea how they should prepare for the future."
Some venture into business but ask the wrong people for advice, often a favorite relative or a friend with his own agenda. Financial literacy, the simple way, is what Colayco hopes to instill in them.
"The sad fact is that 85 percent of start-up business ventures end up as failures," he notes and ticks off some examples he has encountered in the course of his radio program and seminars.
"One OFW put his meager savings into buying a tricycle, failing to reckon with the fees for permits, association dues and other expenses. Another placed her savings into a supposed bakery in her hometown, only to find out upon returning to the country that the business was not running. She went back to being an OFW to recover her losses."
One OFW he had counseled was sending 90 percent of her earnings to relatives back home to meet their needs. "I advised her, your first obligation is to yourself," recalls Colayco. "Don't foster mendicancy by your relatives." For the last nine months, that OFW has been sending only 30 percent of her savings. " Mayroon bang umangal (Did anyone complain) ? I asked her and she replied, ' Wala po (No one).'"
The launch of his book in June 2004 led to more requests for him to conduct seminars, especially from corporations. "Recognition came from sectors I did not expect -- banks, some of the top 500 corporations. Tinamaan kami (We were affected), they told me. They needed an awakening among their own employees, how they can supplement their incomes while staying with the company."
He found a lot of interest, too, among ordinary people who wished to multiply their savings. He admits that mantra is easier said than done. But as a start, he advises people about being financially literate -- knowing and understanding what one wants for himself and how to match his resources to meet future wants.
"I tell them, even an employee can look at himself as 'You, Inc.' Financial independence does not mean having so much money and assets. It is simply having the means to maintain the lifestyle one chooses to have without having to actively work," Colayco explains.
He writes: "If you are to become financially independent, you will have to accumulate earning assets or investments that will generate earnings and allow you to maintain your current level of lifestyle by the time you retire. You need to plan for it."
No lotto or pyramid schemes for Colayco. But treasury bonds or high-earning financial instruments are sure things for him. "It is easier to earn money than to keep it," he enthuses.
Colayco admits to having been remiss himself in his business ways before he came up with his advocacy. "I was impulsive. I did not look at the negatives of projects I went into. I was not personally involved in some. Nasama lang . (I just went along). Kaya ko (I can do it), I would tell myself."
In the late 80s, he guaranteed the loans for a major project with some partners. " Nag-coup si Honasan and the project went down. Because of my guarantees on the loans, I had to do a lot of sacrifice like selling some of my investments that were doing well."
Those experiences, he says, taught him valuable lessons in managing personal and corporate finances. Asked if social or political factors are a deterrent to what he is advocating, he replies: "If all of us will feel disheartened, walang mangyayari sa ating bansa "(nothing will happen to our country).
Ultimately, it boils down to the individual: his willingness and his discipline. "Understand yourself. If you are not seriously or personally committed to something, nothing will come out of it. Have the passion. Your heart must be in your venture."
These days, Colayco busies himself running the Colayco Foundation for Education and the Kalayaan sa Kakapusan Multipurpose Cooperative which he incorporated in the Philippines to avoid conflict with the laws of the OFWs' country of employment. He is into a sequel to his book that will contain specifics on how to 'grow' your money.
"My wish is for an OFW to return home not to a failed investment or another round of job-hunting but to a place in a company owned by his own cooperative."
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