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From campus
waiter to one
of RP's top mining engineers
Posted:
10:06 PM (Manila Time) | Aug. 03, 2002
By Tina Arceo-Dumlao
Inquirer News Service
Second nature
HARD work is second nature to the Kankanaey of Mt. Province, and
Rufino Bomasang,
president of PNOC Exploration Corp., was no different from the other members of
the peace-loving tribe.
From the time he was 5 years old, he stayed in the dap-ay where all the
unmarried members of the tribe lived and did his duties for the good of the
community. He kept the fire burning to warm the tribe in cool Besao, Mt.
Province, collected firewood and followed orders set by the tribe's council of
elders which could include scratching their feet.
This form of tribal discipline honed in an atmosphere similar to a military camp
served Bomasang well when he eventually moved to Manila in 1958 to pursue his
degree in mining engineering from the University of the Philippines.
Bomasang moved from the hinterlands of the Mt. Province to bustling Metro
Manila because he won a scholarship given by the Commission on National
Integration, a government body created to integrate cultural minorities into
mainstream society.
As a scholar he was able to study for free and received a stipend of 70 pesos a
month. The stipend was barely enough to pay for his dormitory expenses, so he
augmented his meager funds by working as a waiter at the cafeteria of the
Sampaguita ladies dormitory in the campus.
"They paid me in the form of meal tickets that I could use in any canteen in UP.
One hour's work earned me one meal ticket," Bomasang tells SundayBiz.
During summers he worked as an ordinary miner in the mine operated by Lepanto
Consolidated Mining Corp. near his hometown.
It was a backbreaking and dangerous work where he hauled stones, helped carry
dynamite and then light them as part of the mining operations. He had to do it,
he says, because he badly needed the money to put himself through school.
His father, who worked the farm, and mother, with four daughters to take care
of, could not afford to pay for his education.
Far from being discouraged by his circumstances, he used it to drive himself to
excel, knowing that education would take him and his family out of poverty. And
excel he did.
Bomasang graduated at the top of his class and that earned him an invitation
from top company Procter & Gamble to work there as a management trainee. He
ended up getting one of the three available slots out of over 1,000 who applied.
"I guess one of my advantages was that I was not taking it seriously. If they
get me, fine. If not then I will go back to the mines. Luckily, I got one of the
three available slots," he says.
Bomasang was paid 375 pesos a month when he worked for P&G in 1963, which was a
lot of money at that time considering that he lived on just a little over 70
pesos just a few months before.
He was put to work in the oil mill of P&G and in less than a year he was
promoted to shift engineer earning 410 pesos a month. He was in charge of the
manufacturing process that extracted coconut oil from copra or dried coconut
mean, which was then used to manufacture soap.
"I really liked the job with P&G. It was there that I learned management
philosophies that I carry until now. The first was that there was always a
better way to do things and the second was people orientation," he says.
Bomasang explains that P&G taught him that all processes, no matter how good
they are, could still be improved. He also learned there that getting the
cooperation of people is the main job of a manager.
"You may be the best engineer, but if you cannot get the cooperation of the
people then it will not work," he says.
Much as he liked the job, however, he left P&G after a year when his old
professor in UP gently persuaded him to go back to the mining profession,
especially after topping the board exams for mining engineers in 1964 with an
average of 85.79 percent, the highest since 1953.
"My professor told me that the mining engineering students were asking why the
top graduate of UP was not in the mining profession. Did it mean that the
profession was not good? So he convinced me to go back to mining because I was
setting a bad example to the undergraduates," he says
Not treated
equally
Bomasang hesitated because he was already earning good money in P & G, he liked
the job, and the prospects in the mining industry were not good. Filipinos, he
says, were not treated equally even if they were qualified engineers.
Only Americans got the top positions, thus, he thought there was no future for
him.
His professor, however, informed him that
there was a small mining company that was localizing its operations and was
willing to hire a Filipino to be the mill superintendent. Bomasang was
recommended for the position.
"It was a big thing at that time for a Filipino to be a mining superintendent. I
took the offer. I was confident because I already had experience in management
with P & G. I think that if I did not work for them I would not have gotten the
position," Bomasang says.
So with a higher salary of 450 pesos a month and a superintendent's position at
just 24, Bomasang moved from his comfortable office in P&G, Tondo to Palawan
where Palawan Quicksilver Mining Corp. had a mercury mining operation.
"After a week there I asked myself why I accepted the position. It was a very
isolated place infested by malaria. But then I was able to adjust," he says.
But just as he was just starting to really like his job, the allure of
underground copper and gold mining beckoned so he moved back to the Cordilleras
as head of planning for Itogon-Suyoc Mining Corp.
From there he moved to American firm Frontino Inc. which managed the old Black
Mountain and Benguet Exploration mines, the remnants of which can still be seen
today on the way up to Baguio using Kennon Road.
Then in 1975, he became resident manager of a barite mining operation in Mindoro.
The barite was mainly used to prevent gas blowouts in oil exploration projects,
which were numerous at that time. Local oil exploration was at its height at
that time with discoveries as Nido and Matinloc. As fate would have it, PNOC was
a big client and it was through one of the visits of PNOC top people to Mindoro
that Bomasang met the former Energy secretary Geronimo Velasco and former
Presidential Adviser on Energy Affairs Wenceslao de la Paz.
Bomasang impressed them so much that he was asked to join the government to help
accelerate the development of local coal as an energy source.
"The attraction for me then was that I could be with my family. Before that, I
stayed in Mindoro while my family stayed in Baguio. I was already 36 at that
time and I thought it was time to spend more time with my wife and two
daughters," he explains.
The day he joined Petrophil (now Petron) was Aug. 16, 1976 and now he is about
to celebrate his 26th year in the public energy sector, fulfilled with the
knowledge that he helped develop many of the country's energy development
programs, particularly coal and indigenous oil and natural gas.
Bomasang says he was fortunate to have many mentors along the way who helped him
become who he is today. First were the Episcopalian missionaries who taught in
his high school alma mater in Sagada. #
Best teachers
"They were a very good influence because they were the best teachers. St. Mary's
School also used to be one of the best," he says.
College life in UP was also helpful even if he did experience a culture shock
when he realized that the term Igorot was a derogatory term in the lowlands,
when it just meant "from the mountains" in Mt. Province.
"UP enables one to be not just an engineer but
to also be a manager. It was more than just a technical schools," he says.
In government service he says he learned a lot from the late Pat de la Paz, whom
he refers to as "the best Energy secretary the country never had."
"He taught me all about being fair and about doing things for the good of the
country. It also agreed with what I learned in P & G," he says.
He shares these lessons with his staff wherever he goes, from P & G to the
mining firms, to the DoE where he once served as undersecretary and now as
president of PNOC-EC.
"I have always believed that there is something good in everybody, it is up to
us to let that good come out. If we did that then we would be better off," he
adds.
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