Remembering a Kagay-anon Pioneer
By Chummy Chaves
“Great men are known to become more humble as they ascend to greater heights. The Chinese have a proverb for it: “The stately bamboo must learn to bend with the wind lest it breaks.” We bring back this story from three decades ago in memory of one of Cagayan de Oro’s pioneer immigrants.
Maybe there are just faces you easily like, persons you feel familiar with at once, and this often brings a warm feeling, like that of being home. Pushing this proposition further, perhaps experience does show on one’s face, like proud people actually begin o look snotty even when they don’t mean it.
So how does a person who has transformed hardship into personal and professional triumphs look?
Well, in a word, kind. Pablo M. Paras looked very forgiving as I disturbed him from his evening rest for a hastily arranged interview. Great men are known to become more humble as they ascend to greater heights. The Chinese have a proverb for it: “The stately bamboo must learn to bend with the wind lest it breaks.”
Pablo M. Paras, patriarch of the Paras family in Cagayan de Oro, is from San Fernando, Pampanga. When his mother died early, Pablo, seventh of nine children, was forced to quit schooling at the Bayambang Training Department in Pangasinan. The lad tucked his seven year’s worth of education under his arm and decided to explore Nueva Ecija. There the young apprentice repaired machines in various auto repair shops.
Right after the Second World War, he and his brother Tereso bought and sold surplus GI trucks and jeeps. In 1950 Pablo looked southwards. Mindanao was his verdant pasture.
“Nagustuhan ko ang Cagayan,” he says. The city was then newly chartered, with few vehicles plying its narrow streets. Mr. Paras met Pastor Macareso, a shop owner who wanted to shift to farming. Paras agreed to run the shop (at Velez-Borja, where RCBC is today), and the two split income. In February 1951, Paras brought a welding machine, a lathe machine, and a reboring machine from Pampanga. Four months, later he went back to his hometown and married Victorina Magbag, a teacher from a fine family in San Fernando.
The couple rented a small apartment in Pabayo-Borja and put up their own shop along Velez. “Whatever success I have in my life I owe to my wife,” the man says. “At the beginning she was the janitor, helper, accountant, and treasurer of our business. She helps me even now.”
It was only in 1958 that Paras bought a 1,400-sq. m. compound Puntod. Business flourished, and today this 5,000-sq. m. lot houses Paras Machinery, G & P Builders office, Art Piece Craft and Ceramics, and the couple’s residence.
Their children are now achievers in their own right. Elpidio is a mechanical engineer (he finished magna cum laude) who manages Parasat Cable TV. He and his wife Rose also run Sesame Sandwich Shop, Sugbahan Central, and Tia Nanang’s Restaurant.
Jesus Emmanuel is an industrial engineer who is the president and general manager of G & P Builders. He and his wife Consuelo own Paolo’s (in Cagayan and Iligan) and Javi’s. Jess Paras has also been elected as president of the Cagayan de Oro Chamber of Commerce.
Brothers Reuben, Raymund, and Victor remained in the family business. Reuben supervises the G & P construction department and Raymund works for G & P projects. Victor oversees the aggregate plant in Tagoloan. Pablo Jr. is employed with Paras Machinery.
And the ladies? Zenaida Paras-Sturzaker is in Australia, herself a dealer of car accessories. Angela Paras-Carpio is the proprietor of Art Piece Craft. Ines Paras-Fortich, a Fine Arts graduate, has just moved residence to Bukidnon and possibly works there. Twin sister Maria Salome Paras-Van Ommeren finished Journalism but now lives in the Netherlands.
Pablo M. Paras now counts 19 grandchildren, although not all of them are able to attend the Sunday dinners at grandpa’s residence. Sometimes gatherings are held at the Paras beach resort in Agusan, and the clan looks forward to Holy Weeks spent in another family-owned beach resort in Camiguin.
All ten children of Pablo Paras were reared through “a matter of example.” “Look at my hands,” he says. “My fingers are full of grease. The manual work I’m doing now is the same as what I’m doing way back in 1951!”
There had not been an opportunity to resume schooling since only the big cities of yore had schools. But this self-made man learned from technical books, plodded in perseverance, and was blessed by luck.
Pablo M. Paras will be 75 in June. “When I turned 70, I thanked God for allowing me to live to that age. So the years after 70 I considered a bonus.”
“I have enjoyed my life. I have served the community and helped other people put up their own business. I have nephews who stayed and worked with me and who are now doing well in the US. As far as I’m concerned I haven’t had any quarrel with anybody.”
Today he still toils in his workshop, dirtying those same hands that have worked so hard and helped him and others through the years. “Hard work,” he says “is the best example I can show my children.”
His familiar likable face shone with pride.
The stately bamboo remains sturdier than ever.
