Ang Magiting - The Official Web Site of Rotary Club Makati North

And now it’s Bert!

By: Treas. Robert Syjuco
Jan. 26, 2011

It’s about time we tapped our own club’s resources as guest speakers. Recently we had our no. 1 icon, PP Pabling Calma, and now our most senior and no less iconic PP Bert Lingad was on deck for today.

The venue was the Brasserie, much freshened up after a recent renovation; it was actually nicer than New World’s function rooms. The buffet spread not only tasted better, it was cheaper too…hmm…

Four plus tables worth attended, with the Anns occupying one. Some guys do come out of the woodwork to hear our members speak..even more than for many of our invited speakers. Nice surprise.

Bert came from a riceland owning farming family in the heartlands of Pampanga. Schooled there until high school, he went onto take mechanical engineering at Mapua Institute of Technology. His first job was an oiler at a textile factory in Marikina.

He thought that there had to be something better than that…he could not see himself getting rich as an oiler, it’s really not much of a job for an engineering graduate, after all. He reveled at the stories of a friend in sales, and told himself, in a eureka moment, that that was where he belonged.

He started selling packings and seals for an American company. No Joe, I got the spelling right..those things prevent machines from leaking..yes Joe, leaking..like…never mind… Sugar mills use them up like crazy, and Bert was really motivated, so before long he was number one salesman. It came to the point he was selling so much he earned more than his boss. P50k worth in a month was his income, at a time when a house in Dasma cost p150k.

Somewhere along the way he met Toni, whom he married. Bert was always out wining and dining customers, so it was endless arguments over his early in the morning….. arrival at home.

You can’t keep a good man down, so he formed his own companies to form a distributorship network for ever more packings and seals. And to take care of Toni, he set up a totally different company for her in a field unrelated, to keep her busy. Like making Lady Rustans and Charles Jourdan items. Wise move Bert! That took care of the wining and dining induced arguments.

He also put up a realty company and put up a building on Edsa, the EL Tower. And not to forget, Bert always made it a point to pay back to society the blessings he received. The Aetas of Botolan are witness to that, having made a huge paradigm shift in the lives of those nomadic people, who for once now owned land. Thanks to Bert. So in short, it was literally an almost rags to riches story. Way to go Bert! and just to show you that success in not thru sheer luck, but rather iron will and hard work, Bert shows his mindset by saying he has all the reason not to attend RCMN meetings, having to go through 3 dialysis sessions each week, yet he attends our meetings regularly. Truly an inspiration….now who is next to inspire us then??