My Slippers in High School

This article was written back in 2006.

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I don’t wear slippers when I go out of the house. I understand that wearing slippers is more convenient for most of us (besides from what others consider as a porma factor), but out of modesty, wearing slippers should not become, as what is happening these days, a typical attire for us probably in the university, in the workplace or specially in the church. Lecturing about wearing slippers is not my purpose of writing this article, rather, narrating the lecture I learned from it, would be more accurate.

My parents own a small ladies’ step-in manufacturing business here in our backyard in Cainta, Rizal. We produce cheap slippers which you can find in market places packaged in plain transparent plastic bags. It used to be a shoe manufacturing business until China started exporting very cheap goods to the Philippines, including shoes. Our manufacturing costs were already equivalent to China’s selling prices. How can anyone compete with such advantage?

In terms of manufacturing costs, step-ins are not as costly as shoes, that’s why our production shifted from closed shoes to open slippers. They were not adept in step-in manufacturing but at least it’s in line with what they were previously doing. Besides, what would you expect from my parents, who both came from Marikina, the shoe capital of the Philippines?

There’s really nothing special about the business. We simply operated at our backyard–turned–factory with no day passing by without our neighbors getting disturbed either by the noise of the sewing machines, the pounding of hammers, the shouting of the workers and the other annoying noises, all contributing to an “orchestra of irksome proportions”, that I’m sure nobody would want to live with everyday.

I saw my parents working very hard, but I still couldn’t imagine that the turn-out was only as small as five pesos per pair of step-in. Any simple mistake in production would cost us several times more than the profit of a single pair. Since the profit was very small, my parents had to compensate, and it had to be done in numbers just to sustain our everyday living. And to achieve the numbers, arduous labor was just one of the factors, both for my parents and the workers.

I was in junior high when my parents told me to sell slippers in school. They told me the earnings wouldn’t be used to pay our debts, but for me to use as extra baon. Whatever the purpose was, selling slippers was a feat I never wanted to attempt at that time. My classmates knew we were not rich, but it was not an excuse for me to sell slippers. What would they think of me? I couldn’t imagine myself asking my classmates or even my instructors to buy slippers from me. What will I tell them when they ask me why I’m doing this? My image was of utmost priority. Selling would just make me an embarrassing object of attention in school which is not at all gratifying.

My parents probably got the idea of persuading me to sell slippers from my cousin who already had a job but still thought of maximizing his opportunities. He realized that he has an aunt from whom he can get merchandise he can sell in his office for extra money. My cousin’s sideline clicked; he was getting bags of step-ins every weekend to satisfy his customers. Envy struck me with his earnings and all, but he couldn’t make me sell in school. He’s a grown-up man, he’s already working and these are enough reasons why he is doing this. I was just a student and my only job was to study.

One day I dropped by the registrar’s office and saw this classmate of mine showing mugs to the personnel inside the office. “What the hell is he doing? Is he selling these mugs?” These were my thoughts the moment I saw him.There could be no other reason why he was displaying different colored mugs in front of these people. At first, I felt pity for this guy, but that feeling lasted only for a moment. I’m sure he intended to earn some extra cash, for a purpose I may not know, but still, he is earning, and he’s earning in a noble way.

Then, that gloomy idea of selling slippers came by me in a more optimistic light. I cannot exactly remember what happened the first day I brought slippers in school and who were my first customers. I just knew that on that day, aside from my typical schoolbag, I was also carrying a large plastic bag filled with packed ladies’ slippers. As I was carrying the bag, shyness struggled to overwhelm me, pondering that other students might think that I was just a poor student who wanted to earn some extra cash to help the family. Whatever their thoughts were, like I cared anyway, I was already carrying this heavy bag, and there’s no way I’m going home without making my load lighter.

I started selling to my classmates, some of them bought on the spot and others asked for other styles. Some wanted the styles I brought but it wouldn’t fit them, so I took their orders, the sizes and styles they’ve chosen, and I made sure the delivery would be made after a couple of days.

I did not content myself selling only to my classmates. I had to get the whole school as my customer base. I went to the Humanities Faculty Room and asked the teachers if they wanted to buy. I wouldn’t ask the teachers whom I didn’t know to buy from me, being the coy one I was then. I still did not possess that kind of courage. Nevertheless, since my teachers knew everyone in the faculty room, I almost got the whole faculty to buy from me. Everything didn’t happen on a single day because some were demanding more styles and sizes so I had to bring them more the succeeding days.

I went to different departments and offices, from the Humanities Department, to the Biology Department, to the P.E. Department, to the Guidance Counselor’s Office, and even to the Registrar’s Office. Not everyone bought from me, but I was definite that I didn’t leave any office or department without reducing my bag’s weight. At that time, I already had to bring a duffle-bag to accommodate the orders of my classmates, instructors and personnel.

Whatever they called me, whether “the slipper man” or “the tsinelas boy”, I know there’s nothing wrong with what I was doing. Besides, I’m selling them good quality products manufactured by my very own dad and mom. I was proud of my merchandise, my parents and of course our backyard. I realized the noise back home can probably be considered music not exactly for me, but to the workers who solely depended on the slippers for their everyday necessities. Thanks to my classmate and his mugs. If not for them, the experience wouldn’t have made me earn, and wouldn’t have made me overcome my timidity.

Two years passed, I came back to get my diploma at the registrar’s office. Nothing has changed. Everything was still glued to their old places and it was still populated with the same people I left 2 years ago. The personnel recognized me and before I even told them the purpose of my visit, one of them immediately mentioned about the slippers. “Wala ka bang dala?” They remembered! Honestly, I totally forgot about the slippers. That moment reminded me of my experiences in that office. How could they forget, specially if one of them was still wearing what I sold her 2 years ago? Just imagine how tough we make our products. Best bang for the buck!

A Blessing in Disguise

Being able to study at the University of the Philippines was the best dream I could ever have. “There’s no other way but UP” according to Penshoppe. But not being able to do so turned out to be better, at least for me.

Back in 2004, I took all the exams in the top universities in Metro Manila just to be assured of a college. Graduating from Philippine Science High School gives you about a 99.9% assurance that you can get into your dream school. Coming from PSHS forces you to acquire a mindset of considering UP Diliman to be your sister school after noticing that everyone seems to be going to UP from PSHS. It didn’t work for me. I didn’t get into UP Diliman. I passed UP Los Baños though, but still, it’s a big daunt on my ego. Boys do cry and at that time, I had a valid reason.

After making a research of UP’s criteria on admissions, computing the chances of someone not getting into Diliman and painstakingly convincing myself that there was a flaw in the system, I had no other choice but to go to De La Salle University which was the next best option. BS Electronics and Communications Engineering with a financial grant, I hoped my parents wouldn’t have a hard time sending me to college. DLSU saw my worthy-of-a-scholarship label tagged to my name thanks to PSHS.

After 3 years of having a not-so-easy time studying how cellphones work and how 1s and 0s make your computers run, we were down to a handful of regular students. Not failing in any subject in this rigorous engineering program gave me the chance of being in the roster of ECE students that will help in building the first Philippine Solar Powered Car. Yes it’s a car that runs on solar energy and it will compete in the Panasonic World Solar Challenge in October 2007. Considering that it’ll be the 20th anniversary of the race, (are we really behind by two decades? maybe more) at least, if ever we don’t get another chance in the future, we can still say that we had our first time.

Imagine how on earth can a number of mechanical and electronics and communications engineering students build a car inside the campus? Plus the fact that you have to design it in such a way that it runs on solar energy and not with gasoline. With the help of professors and big names in the industry, yes it was possible. Tips? Simple. Just block-off all your free time. Prepare not to play basketball for 9 months. Cancel all your dates for the following year. Argue every night with the school guards that you are making a project for the country so they should let you in. Get a permit from the Department of Justice that you be allowed in the DLSU campus to work on the car on the first four Sundays of September with the bar examinees taking their exams upstairs. Simply put, it’s just like enrolling another 54 units for three terms.

By September, I had no choice but not to enroll any academic units to concentrate on the development of the car. Being the most pessimistic member of the team, I would normally doubt finishing the car on time for the race on October. We were still waiting for equipment and components purchased outside the country, designs of electrical and mechanical layouts were still to be finalized and from our assessment, the actual time needed to complete the car wouldn’t fit in the remaining days that we still had before the race (now I’m wondering why we were able to race in Australia).

The deadline was crawling towards us faster than our car can run. We still had to do tests in Subic Raceway and in Star Toll, Batangas. We started to turn down interviews by newspapers and TV stations to concentrate more on the car’s construction but my own personal reason was not to further heighten the expectations of those who know that we were building a solar car and possibly in the end be unable to attain our goal.

Thanks to our sponsors, two weeks before the flight to Australia we were able to overcome major problems which we thought would end the project. It was amazing how these people can really move things this fast. We were set to leave for Australia in no time and we had the car leave ahead of us.

We thought we only needed to do minor adjustments when we got to Australia. It turned out that problems we faced in Darwin were enough to stop us from joining the race. But still, thanks to the help of other countries, and of course the team’s own effort, the car was able to race from October 21 to October 27 from Darwin to Adelaide. A lot of things happened in the desert but that would be another story.

The World Solar Challenge was not like other typical competitions. Besides being able to race in the desert using a solar car which was very unique in itself, unlike competitions where you would want other competitors to lose, it was a competition where everyone wanted everybody to finish. Teams would normally visit each other’s pits just to have a chat, specially two Canadian Universities, the University of Calgary and University of Western Ontario which both had their own Filipino team members. Most of them would even offer some help if they can and we would also give help in one way or another. I remember that I mistakenly offered too much help to Venezuela in terms of brake fluid that we almost braved the Australian desert without an extra bottle.

Aside from going to Australia at no cost, being able to experience how to live for seven days with only two baths, meeting students from top universities around the world and representing our country, crossing the Australian desert from Darwin to Adelaide in 7 days was an experience even a typical Australian would be envious of (at least according to the locals whom I talked to).

The whole project was very tiring but indeed very rewarding. If I only knew 4 years ago that this would be a project of DLSU by my junior year, then I wouldn’t have acted unmanly after seeing my name beside “Los Baños”. In the end, not being able to get into UP Diliman, my dream school 4 years ago was not bad. Not bad at all.