A woman with many goals, the 5-ft.-8-in. Jackie, at the time, was also a part of the Philippine national team for women’s basketball, and she traveled with the team around Asia.
Jackie also gave birth to her first child at 20. You would think that between her studies, the family business, her baby and basketball, Jackie would gladly warm the bench, so to speak. Not quite.
"I sort of like to defy the odds," says Jackie, who married her college sweetheart Limuel Tolentino. Despite her busy schedule, her game plan included taking up her masters at the Asian Institute of Management.
At 25, with a master’s degree in entrepreneurship tucked under her belt, Jackie applied for the franchise of an Informatics computer school. She hit the goal.
After she was given the franchise, she set up a school in Harrison Plaza, which struggled in the beginning with 30 students. More than 1,000 people have since graduated from the school, most ending up with well-paying jobs.
Jackie invested in a competent faculty and offered a smorgasbord of courses to her students–from a basic five-day IT course to a masteral degree from affiliate universities abroad. Most of the students were overseas contract workers, since a lot of recruitment agencies had offices in the Malate area.
At the moment, the most popular course in Informatics is the basic IT course, and a course on building websites.
In two years, Jackie’s venture started making money.
"In two years, I was able to pay all the debts I incurred in setting up the school," recalls Jackie. She said that if one were to plot the school’s growth, the line would resemble a hockey stick. The line dipped for a while, but when it went up, it only went higher.
"It’s a concept that we have to prove will work," says Jackie. "A mall is well-secured. It is very clean, offers quality services and it has a community. Besides, I have always believed that learning should be stimulating and fun."
Jackie says Informatics offers courses wherein students have an option to graduate in their second year. "In other colleges, if you drop out in first or second year, your options are limited. Di ka pa makakakuha ng trabaho. With us, because the program is so high-impact, you can drop out any time in the four-year course and be qualified for a job," says Jackie. Tuition ranges from P5,000 to P100,000.
"But we always encourage them to finish the four-year course," points out Jackie. Certain courses also come with four diplomas–one from Informatics Philippines, one from Informatics Singapore, one from the University of Cambridge, and another from the University of Oxford. "Imagine, you are studying here, but you get diplomas from Singapore and England," says Jackie.
At present, the youngest Informatics student is nine, and the oldest, 70.
Most of the 500 students are professionals, since the school targets their sector. Jackie notes that the older one is, the greater one is intimidated by information technology, so her classrooms, designed by Tess Vargas of The Bowery, are unconventional. They are as enticing and visually appealing as nursery school classrooms.
"They do not have the usual blue and gray settings that make you feel sleepy and lazy," points out Tess, whose showroom Bowery Interiors on Aguirre Ave., BF Parañaque, was especially sought out by Jackie. "In a nursery school, toddlers are attracted to bright colors. So why not adults? The objective is the same, anyway–to hold their interest."
Jackie and Tess also wanted the interiors to complement the functional look of the high-tech computers in the school.
There are nine classrooms in the sprawling (1,200 sq. meter) Informatics "campus" and Jackie hopes to add four more.
Jackie has also set up computer training programs in some public schools in depressed areas. She has also made arrangements for children in these schools to make use of Informatics facilities.
"Even if their schools don’t have computers, they could go to an Internet cafe and not be totally ignorant of how a computer works," says Jackie.
And when she hits the ripe old age of 30 in two years, Jackie wants to become a farmer.
"I’ve seen the world of information technology and its many wonders. When I turn 30, I want to go back to the basics," she smiles.
She likes defying the odds, remember?
Gina de Venecia, president of the Congressional Spouses Foundation, Inc., with the rest of the congressional ladies, gave the visiting dignitary a tour of The Haven’s nine buildings. She showed them the livelihood center, the nursery and the dormitories.
Other guests during the early Christmas party included philanthropist Bea Zobel and actress Assunta de Rossi, whose fiance, as if you didn’t know, is a congressman.
De Venecia said more buildings will be added to The Haven. She also announced the construction of The Haven for Children, also in Muntinlupa City, which will provide shelter for stray children and try to raise them in a home-like atmosphere until they are ready to rejoin mainstream society.
The De Venecias also tendered an intimate dinner for the prince and his party at their home in Dasmariñas Village, and later took them for a private tour of the speaker’s congressional district in Pangasinan.
The Ranariddhs have particular interest and fondness for the De Venecias because Speaker JDV and his wife, Gina, were among the few friends who stood by the prince’s side when he was temporarily deposed through a military coup in 1997.