While I was scanning an old Jeepney Magazine (no longer in circulation) I could hardly believe an article I read about an old friend in my high school days. He was no extra-ordinary student during our days but he was a good-looking Spanish mestiso and I would say a great storyteller. It was no surprised to me when we met 10 years after high school already a made man.
He finished B.S. Chemistry and easily landed a job at Unilab as a Med-Representative, and became one of the company's top salesman. On one of his seminars in China ably convinced a CEO of company manufacturing medical equipment to have him as act as the firm's sales conduit in the Philippines. He was given a budget, a fat salary, and all the backing he needed to make good. He was then earning millions even before he turned 30. We had some get together with some other old friends which ended in promises that we'll get in touch in later years. That was the last time I heard about the guy.
That day, some 30 years later, he was featured in four colored pages of the Jeepney Magazine operating a sort of shelter for abandoned and orphaned kids, taking care of their education until they let them go on their own after graduating from high school. There was no glamour in the job, and surely no high financial reward but he sure looked happy with his wife and with what he was doing. That article made me happy too - at least I am not alone in doing the kind of thing I wanted most.
I remember him telling me privately how frustrated he was with his job then, having have the play the dirty games of dealing with people who always demand something "extra" for them to approve the permits in importing their products as well as the corrupt doctors who wanted beautiful escort in their seminars abroad provided by the company before they approve the acquisition of the medical equipment. He said he felt "dirty" doing those things. Now, I am very sure he feels "clean".
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