From cars to e-trikes

New businesses are now being set up with many novel ideas translated into viable enterprises. Yes, business is bustling in the Philippines.

It is good to see new blood injected into old family businesses, but the dynamic ones come with new ideas.  Our most recent addition to B&L’s roster of business movers comes from an old business-oriented family, the Guevarras who started Radiowealth in the 1950s. Some of you may remember Radiowealth as the store to go to when you were looking for a new transistor or electric radio, television or even airconditioners.  But the old man Domingo, the family patriarch started Radiowealth as a radio repair shop in downtown Manila from Naga where he and his wife lived most of their young adult lives. Even without the benefit of a formal education (though he learned much from correspondence school), the founder of Radiowealth and eventually the rest of the business empire of the Guevarras was dynamic, hardworking and always open to new business ideas.

Comes now the son, Ricardo “Ricky” Guevarra, youngest of eight children in the family, who after 33 years living in the United States came home in 2012 to run the family business.  Ricky, the youngest, is now 60 years old, so it is understandable that all his brothers and sisters would pass on to him the reins as they all look forward to their retirement years.

Ricky grew up in Mandaluyong and studied in Lourdes School.  He spent his Junior and Senior high school years in Michigan, USA as an exchange student and came back to Manila in 1972 to study at the University of the Philippines. All his brothers studied at the Ateneo, but the dutiful son bowed to his father’s wishes to earn his college degree at UP. As everyone knows, that year was when martial law was declared, and activism at the state university was at its height.

He graduated with a degree in AB Philosophy because, he candidly admits he was bad with numbers and couldn’t pass Mechanical Engineering or Architecture which he initially enrolled in. By that time, the family business was going strong as Radiowealth was strong in manufacturing and they had gotten the franchise to import, assemble and distribute Volkswagen in the Philippines.

And then it was back to America for him, following his Dad’s request for him to run the Guevarra trading business there in 1979.  At that time, he was the only unmarried one in the family so he was the logical choice, though he got married a month before he left for the US. In the early ’80s, he had started a company making alloy wheels which was doing extremely well.  Eventually, his Chinese supplier decided to go public and offered to buy into his company.  Thinking he needed the resources of a partner, he agreed to the partnership but on the condition that after five years, he was going to sell out and perhaps go into early retirement.  The Chinese partner agreed but prevailed on him to extend this to six years, and so in 2005 he sold a lucrative business venture.

While in the US, he remembers that his Dad, who would visit him every year, voiced out a revolutionary idea back then:  why doesn’t Ricky venture into the remittance business?  There were already many Filipino families relocating or working in America, and at that time only the likes of Western Union was serving this need.  It was also his Dad’s idea to go into the Regalogram where Filipinos can send home television sets, etc.  Ricky found the ideas too impractical, unworkable, and now that he reminisces about those early years while seated in his corner office as CEO and president of Guevent, he acknowledges how wrong he was to have dismissed those novel ideas of his visionary father.

Fast forward to the present.  Guevent, the holding company of the family businesses had eventually expanded and ventured into  telecommunications, aviation, real estate and consumer finance. The Guevarras were also the franchise holders of Avis Rent-A-Car in the Philippines. New business ideas were pouring in, and the family needed young blood to pursue these. It fell on Ricky’s shoulders to continue with the family business and conquer new heights.

One of Ricky’s pet projects is the E-Trike ng Bayan or the electric tricycle which he is now running together with his friend and fraternity brother, Boying Soriano who presented to him simple figures that could not be refuted:  there are currently 3.5 million gas-powered, smoke-emitting tricyles in the country that need to be replaced. Why not replace them with the more modern, environment-friendly electric tricycles? The mechanics were simple: target the tricycle drivers, not the operators and make owning an e-trike easy. The  boundary system will be eliminated, and the tricycle driver will work for himself and earn decently for his family.  A validation of the income showed this could easily be double, even tripled because the e-trike could comfortably seat six passengers and maintenance would be minimal. Another big plus factor, of course, is tthe e-trikes have zero emissions, and financing would be no problem as Radiowealth Financing would be available. He recently reported the collection rate of Radiowealth for these e-trikes is quite phenomenal.

It is, in fact, this very reason why Mandaluyong Mayor Benhur Abalos, an advocate of “green” communities readily embraced the idea of e-trikes in his city. The mayor himself would talk personally to the tricycle drivers to persuade them to trade their old trikes into new e-trikes.  Though still a work in progress, the prospect for these e-trikes certainly look good.

Another venture Ricky  is now busy with is agribusiness.  With a large tract of land in Palawan, Guevent is now planting bamboo  and they have also put up a wood processing plant where they make bamboo floors, wood trimmings, etc.  They buy bamboo from farmers, set up coops and plantations.  The soil of Palawan is ideal for bamboo growing, and this plant is ready for harvesting in less than three years.

Through all these, Ricky does not neglect his R&R.  He is an avid golfer, playing at least twice a week.  His other passion is good food and good wine, and this he indulges whenever he travels with his wife. He plays hard, but works harder.

Mabuhay!!!  Be proud to be a Filipino.

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