When the 1997 Asian financial crisis happened, I did not have first-hand experience as I was still in school and was based in Panay Island then.
But I must say the past two years of the COVID-19 health crisis that we have all experienced seemed to be the worst crisis of our lifetime.
Just like a strike of lightning in March 2020, we were all caught off guard by the hard lockdown, one in 2020 and two more rounds in 2021.
As if those challenges weren’t enough, another crisis emanated when the Ukraine war broke out in February this year. The result is three straight years of facing a crisis, which we all had to navigate with a firm resolve and solid grit.
I am extremely grateful for the overall stamina that I believe our core team has naturally developed for many years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dealing with the series of challenges and obstacles of all sizes– from small, medium and large that our team and myself had to deal with day in and day out continuously during the start-up years of starting and growing Mang Inasal in 2003, then DoubleDragon in 2012, which also came in handy for MerryMart in 2019–taught us many lessons.
We have learned on the fly to simultaneously tackle and solve all kinds of problems. We learned to chop off massive challenges to bite-sized pieces that we could chew one by one.
We have learned to thrive and survive with very limited resources. We have learned the utmost importance of careful, deep and thorough study of each and every project or business we embark on.
We also learned to keep our discipline of being aggressive but always in tandem with also being defensive.
Most importantly, given that the companies we lead are still at adolescence stage and are not yet fully mature companies when the catastrophic crisis came in 2020, we are thankful that luckily, our core team’s grit had already been formed and mature enough to enable us to stay composed and in control, with presence of mind intact during the entire prolonged very rough waters.
Above all, we are grateful for His blessings of intuition that has greatly guided us in the series of vital decisions and choices we undertake.
As Jack Ma says, “Today is hard, Tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.”
I totally agree with this, as the law of nature will at some point, force an equilibrium as it cannot be all stormy weather for too long. We just have to keep our belts tight enough to tide it out and stay whole until we reach the U-Turn slot and at that point, have prepared and positioned the company to roll forward when the next page of the boom cycle begins.
The next page for DoubleDragon Corp. is basically two parts.
First, we will continue to push with our obsession and sharp focus to push DD’s current 1.2 million square meters of completed prime real estate portfolio spread out around the country to become fully mature assets before 2025.
Fully mature means the projects and leasable space by then should hit the most optimal recurring rental yield and occupancy. Second, for our team to firmly usher DD to become dominant in the three sunrise sectors in the real estate industry with its chain of CityMall provincial community malls; its chain of CentralHub industrial warehouses, and its chain of Hotel101 properties in the Philippines and overseas.
The next page for MerryMart Consumer Corp. is for our team to continue our intense passion to reach our 2030 set goal of reaching a 1,200-branch network and P120 billion in revenues from our various retail formats, wholesale distribution centers, and consumer technology ventures.
This is our next page and we are continuously working on it with passion, determination, grit and the invaluable support of all our customers and stakeholders.