Why it is easy to like this guy
Published Mar 9, 2020 12:00 am
OPINION AND OPTION
By ELINANDO B. CINCO
Elinando B. Cinco
If a socio-business survey were to be conducted in the three-province island of Samar as to who is their most popular businessman and well-admired man-about-town, the 82-year-old lawyer and real estate developer Eddie Gomez of Calbayog City will win hands down.
Prime assets that are the right mixture of a man eyeing a political position?
Not him. This San Beda College-educated lawyer is through with politics, and is not about to be enticed to follow the more famous Bedan’s path to the Palace by the Pasig.
By any measure, Eddie Gomez’s popularity is a perfect symbol of someone propped up by sheer services of his profession.
After passing the bar in 1960, he went into legal practice and it was a profitable one. It opened up his popularity among the masses owing to hefty cases that he won for clients, many of them pro-bono.
His name also got into the wheels of business as he opened Mobil Gas Service Station shortly thereafter. The combination of resources obtained by public and private practices was a harmonious medley of someone’s name getting around and the public noticing it, with the easiest of efforts on his part.
From then on, it was not difficult that the name got around from Catarman, in Northern Samar, Catbalogan, to the west, and Borongan way out to the east. All as easy and breezy as the cool amihan wind the province is known for.
But the idiosyncrasies of politics were not meant for him.
He ventured into a career in a national government agency in 1971 -- the Commission on Audit. This was briefly interspersed by his joining old San Beda buddy Mel Lopez, then Manila mayor, as city administrator. Then back again as state auditor at CoA.
The last position he held in a national agency was that of deputy administrator of the National Food Authority,from where he retired, finishing his stint of government service, in 2000.
Bedan Ely Solidum, an old “barkada” during their “pelota” days, now chairman of the board of the family-owned Peso Resources Development Corp. in Quezon City, with branch office in Iligan City and satellite offices in Bulacan and Pangasinan, says of Eddie:
“A good conversationalist is natural of Eddie. He can easily merge his personal views on any topic with those of his listeners, regardless of their station in life.”
PRDC has opened vast job opportunities for people who are computer-literate and information-technology savvy.
Now in town as a “balikbayan,” Max Ballesteros who headed NFA’s media management section (and later on at FTI) , has this observation of the former deputy administrator:
“Ed was a straight-forward government official who knew his law, and was very strict with figures.”
Today, watching his daily routine in his hometown, Eddie seems all too contented overseeing his investment projects in the city come to fruition. “This place will soar to new highs within the next five years. Watch it,” he says.
Already there are visible indications, as evidenced by the sprouting of new buildings to house commercial establishments from the private sector, with the local government providing the partner role of building the needed infrastructures.
Both sectors are aiming to spruce up Calbayog as the pivotal urban center of Region 8.
And how does the amiable and articulate Eddie Gomez come in? Many believe he is the most eloquent unofficial spokesman of the City of Calbayog.
He is as sure that investing in Calbayog will pay off, given the satisfactory service rating of the local officialdom, buttressed by the favorable natural resources of the city and its strategic location.
Recently, he was in Manila with his wife Helen (nee Ronquillo, a retired anesthesiologist) for a brief vacation.
In an informal gathering of fellow Calbayognons, Eddie talked lavishly of the city and its prospects as an investment region.
He painted Calbayog in a rosy picture frame, beaconing to its far-away sons and daughters to come and pay a visit, and be once again cajoled by the hometown’s bosomy warmth and care.
That, my dear readers, is the irresistible music dished out by the popular Calbayog icon and now the city’s unofficial national drum beater – Eddie Gomez
.
Elinando B. Cinco
If a socio-business survey were to be conducted in the three-province island of Samar as to who is their most popular businessman and well-admired man-about-town, the 82-year-old lawyer and real estate developer Eddie Gomez of Calbayog City will win hands down.
Prime assets that are the right mixture of a man eyeing a political position?
Not him. This San Beda College-educated lawyer is through with politics, and is not about to be enticed to follow the more famous Bedan’s path to the Palace by the Pasig.
By any measure, Eddie Gomez’s popularity is a perfect symbol of someone propped up by sheer services of his profession.
After passing the bar in 1960, he went into legal practice and it was a profitable one. It opened up his popularity among the masses owing to hefty cases that he won for clients, many of them pro-bono.
His name also got into the wheels of business as he opened Mobil Gas Service Station shortly thereafter. The combination of resources obtained by public and private practices was a harmonious medley of someone’s name getting around and the public noticing it, with the easiest of efforts on his part.
From then on, it was not difficult that the name got around from Catarman, in Northern Samar, Catbalogan, to the west, and Borongan way out to the east. All as easy and breezy as the cool amihan wind the province is known for.
But the idiosyncrasies of politics were not meant for him.
He ventured into a career in a national government agency in 1971 -- the Commission on Audit. This was briefly interspersed by his joining old San Beda buddy Mel Lopez, then Manila mayor, as city administrator. Then back again as state auditor at CoA.
The last position he held in a national agency was that of deputy administrator of the National Food Authority,from where he retired, finishing his stint of government service, in 2000.
Bedan Ely Solidum, an old “barkada” during their “pelota” days, now chairman of the board of the family-owned Peso Resources Development Corp. in Quezon City, with branch office in Iligan City and satellite offices in Bulacan and Pangasinan, says of Eddie:
“A good conversationalist is natural of Eddie. He can easily merge his personal views on any topic with those of his listeners, regardless of their station in life.”
PRDC has opened vast job opportunities for people who are computer-literate and information-technology savvy.
Now in town as a “balikbayan,” Max Ballesteros who headed NFA’s media management section (and later on at FTI) , has this observation of the former deputy administrator:
“Ed was a straight-forward government official who knew his law, and was very strict with figures.”
Today, watching his daily routine in his hometown, Eddie seems all too contented overseeing his investment projects in the city come to fruition. “This place will soar to new highs within the next five years. Watch it,” he says.
Already there are visible indications, as evidenced by the sprouting of new buildings to house commercial establishments from the private sector, with the local government providing the partner role of building the needed infrastructures.
Both sectors are aiming to spruce up Calbayog as the pivotal urban center of Region 8.
And how does the amiable and articulate Eddie Gomez come in? Many believe he is the most eloquent unofficial spokesman of the City of Calbayog.
He is as sure that investing in Calbayog will pay off, given the satisfactory service rating of the local officialdom, buttressed by the favorable natural resources of the city and its strategic location.
Recently, he was in Manila with his wife Helen (nee Ronquillo, a retired anesthesiologist) for a brief vacation.
In an informal gathering of fellow Calbayognons, Eddie talked lavishly of the city and its prospects as an investment region.
He painted Calbayog in a rosy picture frame, beaconing to its far-away sons and daughters to come and pay a visit, and be once again cajoled by the hometown’s bosomy warmth and care.
That, my dear readers, is the irresistible music dished out by the popular Calbayog icon and now the city’s unofficial national drum beater – Eddie Gomez
.