A bestseller named Nanay Coring, Inspirational Story Options

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A bestseller named Nanay Coring
By Bing Parel-Salud People
Asia Magazine 02/09/2006

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At 81, Socorro Cancio Ramos has the joy and enthusiasm of people less than half her age. Sentences are punctuated with laughter, and her eyes crinkle when some amusing thought occurs to her. It's little wonder therefore that everyone - even those who are only meeting her for the first time - feels drawn to her. After all, Socorro Ramos is Nanay Coring, a gracious lady whose story is as interesting and as inspirational as the bestsellers in National Book Store, the country's top bookstore-plus chain.

The recipient of the 2004 Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year-Philippines award, Nanay Coring showed her business savvy at an early age, taking on summer jobs to earn money for pencils, notebooks and other things she needed for school. She recalls working in a cigarette factory, taking out moldy tobacco filling and getting paid five centavos a pack. Knowing she would not be able to finish a whole bodega of cigarettes by herself within two months, Nanay "subcontracted" and hired neighborhood kids to work for her at five centavos for every two packs. "We finished the work in one and a half months," Nanay Coring beams.



Poverty kept Nanay Coring from fulfilling her dream of becoming a doctor, so she worked as a salesgirl in Goodwill Book Store, owned by her brother Manuel Cancio and his wife Juana. It was here that Nanay Coring met Jose Ramos, Juana's brother, who would later become her husband. With nothing but "lakas ng loob (strength of will)," a determination to succeed and P211 for capital, the couple rented a 4x15-meter stall in Escolta, Manila and put up National Book Store. Funny as it may sound, Nanay Coring's choice of name for their fledgling business had nothing to do with grand visions of becoming the top book chain in the country. "We had a cash register, and its brand was 'National.' The name had a wavy design and I thought it was nice, so we took the name National," Nanay Coring discloses.

It was the time of the Japanese Occupation, and so books whose subjects had anything to do with America were censored by the hodobu, the Japanese propaganda office. Because most of the books came from the US, thick volumes would be returned with pages taken out. Only those with safe subjects such as mathematics were spared by the hodobu. "If you displayed anything that did not have the hodobu stamp on it, you ended up in Fort Santiago," Nanay Coring reveals.

The Ramos couple sold slippers, soap, pens and writing paper instead. The fighting soon broke out again, and when the Americans bombed Manila, the couple's tiny store was swallowed in the fire that engulfed Escolta. Undaunted, the couple revived their business, this time in a shack along Avenida. The post-war boom made business brisk, because the place was one of the few that offered textbooks, notebooks and other school materials. But just as the couple's business was picking up again, a typhoon literally blew away their tiny store. While others would have given up in the face of such adversity, Nanay Coring and Jose resolved to work even harder, manning the register, doing the inventory, and saving every peso they could until they had enough to build a nine-story building that they named "Albecer" after their children Albert and Benjamin, who are twins, and Cecilia, their daughter. Today, National Book Store has 72 chains all over the country.

Those who get to know Nanay Goring are one in saying that more than innate business savvy, hard work or frugality, the real secret to the gracious old lady's success is her disarming charm, for she gives off such a strong sense of joy and sincerity that one cannot help but like her. In fact, during the times when Nanay Coring would pose as a salesgirl to observe the buying habits of customers, there were those who would be so impressed by her that they tried to "pirate" her. "They would ask how much I was earning, offering to give more than whatever it was I was getting," Nanay Coring laughs, adding that she felt very flattered.

But what Nanay Coring finds most gratifying is the fact that through National Book Store, she helped contribute to the literacy of generations of Filipinos by providing affordable books and other reading materials. In typical fashion, Nanay Coring downplays this by simply saying that they were able to do this because "during the import control years, the government allowed textbooks of foreign publishers to be reprinted here, provided that we paid a two percent royalty of the cover price. We were thus able to lower the cost by 70 percent," she explains.

The Ramos couple also invested in a printing press in order to bring the costs down further. "Though parents want to educate their children, it is difficult if they have no money. I know what it's like because once upon a time I also had no money," Nanay Coring, now a widow, says.

Nanay Coring says she does not know why she was chosen as the 2004 Entrepreneur of the Year, adding that the 17 other finalists all spoke English very well, and were well educated with business degrees as well. "When they said I was chosen as Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, it was already more than I expected. Perhaps it is God's way of saying `Here, you're already 81 so I'm giving you a reward'," she laughs. And it's a reward that's undoubtedly very well deserved.

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/People200602148001.htm

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Nanay Coring Ramos is a well-known Filipina entrepreneur

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She's an inspiration to us all. (IMG:http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/love2.gif)