New book

It's finally out! Entrepreneurship Rising: The Brunei Edition compiles stories from 51 Bruneian companies and business personalities. Each article tells the journey of a company or business personality, including their motivation, challenges, and goals.

Featuring:

Brumee-Asli KTM. Enya Bijoux. Make A Book. Mangrove Paradise Resort. Marimin. NaForrer. Sparkly Domestic Divas. Sweet As Sara. Al-Huffaz. DotRoot. FirstBlood. Itsybytes. Nollybook. Snapfeed. SocialDeal.

Wu Chun. HjMorshidi. PgIsman. Lisa Ibrahim. Deno Goh. Dr Kamaruddin. Cahaya Gaharu. Ghanim. Ken&Tan. Madu Maanggaris. Sabli. Sahamada. Wira Bina.

Blue Oceanic. Brunei River Cruise. De Royalle. InfOmars. Regus Brunei. Zyrus. Tum Tum Cycles. Bajoo. Bruvera. Cube City. Cube Junction. Dee Jay. Euro Classic. Interhouse. Thomson Furniture. 

Bintudoh Resort. Daikyo Recycling. Poni Divers. S&R Aquafarm. Sallima Recycling. SolarBrunei.com. SunweiTrading. 

This book serves as is my inaugural book management project. I am credited as editor, and am also a co-writer.

Published by Confex.

Focus: 10 Reasons to go to Belgium (BusinessWorld)

 Originally published in Businesssworld Weekender on August 5, 2016 (click here for original story)

Focus: 10 Reasons to Go to Belgium

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By Jennee Grace U. Rubrico

Belgium, a tiny country in western Europe, is easy to overlook. Nestled among bigger and more popular travel destinations, the de facto capital of the European Union rarely comes out as the first — or second, or even third — option of holidaymakers when they plan a trip to the continent.

Few seem to know what Belgium can offer that its neighbors do not already do better. It has a fashion capital in Antwerp, for instance, but it is Paris that is widely recognized as the City of Style.

Belgium is overshadowed by other European countries in terms of tourism readiness. In the 2015 edition of the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Rankings, which looks at countries’ tourism environment, infrastructure and cultural resources, Belgium takes the 21^st spot out of 141 countries, lagging behind most of the countries with which it shares borders. France comes in second, Germany, third, and the Netherlands 14^th. The UK, at fifth place, also outpaces Belgium. The only neighbor that Belgium overtakes is Luxembourg (26^th).

The recent terrorist attack on Zaventem airport and the Maelbeek subway station in Brussels have not done the country’s tourism sector any favors.

But if Belgium is eclipsed by the tourist magnets that are its neighbors, it is because the country is judged on standards that play on the strength of others. Enveloped in an irreverence that borders on flippancy, Belgium revels in its role as the eccentric sister in a family of aristocrats that is Europe.

Belgium’s reputation of being cold, apathetic and boring is contradicted by its graffiti-embellished walls, famous comic strip characters, and a beer-making industry that has spawned hundreds of beer varieties. When a country’s national mascot is a little boy urinating, it cannot be completely oblivious to fun or devoid of personality — even if this can be on the unconventional side.

VIEW OF the canal and buildings in Bruges, about an hour away from Brussels. — FREEPIK.COM

Here are 10 reasons to visit Belgium: 

Terengganu’s understated charms (BusinessWorld)

Originally appeared on the March 27, 2015 issue of BusinessWorld. Posted late because I only just discovered that this story came out last year. Click here for the original article and more photos

By Jennee Grace U. Rubrico

Terengganu’s understated charms

Posted on March 27, 2015

SCULPTING a section of wood that will form part of the hull of a 50-foot boat, the shipwright says that the vessel, when completed, can travel the seas for up to a century.

  

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Terengganu sights: a shipwright builds a boat at Pulau duyong

“It is made of cengal,” the man, whose withered face makes it difficult to ascertain his age, declares through Syed, our tour guide and translator, as he dusts off wood shavings. “Yes, (it will last) up to 100 years.”

The boat maker from Pulau Duyong (Mermaid Island) in Terengganu cannot tell us what makes cengal (pronounced che-nguhl) special. But Syed, a staff member of the local campus of Malaysian university UCSI who used to work for the tourism board, says that the hardwood, endemic to Malaysia’s forests, has been the timber of choice of the state’s shipwrights for generations.

Duyong Boatyard builds yachts and fishing boats, the shipwright says as he takes out pictures of the vessels they completed over the years. It takes a year and a half to build a big vessel, three months for a small one.

Patrons pay a premium for their work. “The price of one fishing boat is 800,000 ringgit,” Syed says, adding that a yacht can go up to 5 million ringgit. The shipwrights build the boats one at a time.

Two relatives join the boat maker at the dry dock. He mentions that the shipwrights of Terengganu build boats from memory and do not use plans. The trade, he says, was learned from their fathers and passed on to their sons.

Nowadays, orders come in trickles. The artisans say that only one other family still makes boats on the island. “They are closed right now, because they don’t have projects.”

In Brunei, Filipinos take part in the month-long Eid celebrations (BusinessWorld)

Originally published in Businessworld (click here)

By Jennee Grace U. Rubrico

In Brunei, Filipinos take part in the month-long Eid celebrations

Posted on July 14, 2016

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei -- On the second day of the Muslim holiday of Eid, Liza, the wife of a Filipino journalist working in Brunei went to the residence of reigning monarch Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah to attend a royal banquet.

Dressed in blouse and jeans on that sunny day, she and her teenage daughter Zaki got off at the gates of the Istana Nurul Iman, the Leandro-Locsin designed royal residence, and boarded a shuttle that took them to an area within the palace grounds that was prepared for the feast.

“We arrived at 9:30 a.m. We only got delayed when we were boarding the bus. There was some pushing, but when we got inside, there was no queue for the food,” said Liza, whose family is experiencing Eid in Brunei for the first time.

After getting their fill of the traditional Malay dishes prepared by the royal caterer, the mother and daughter pair joined the queue to the Palace halls, where guests were to meet the monarch and his wife, Queen Saleha. By tradition, adults were to receive souvenirs, and children, green money packets at the meet-and-greet session.

Just a few meters shy of the entrance, however, Liza and Zaki were asked to leave the queue.

“We were not able to get in, because we were in jeans... Everyone else was in their traditional outfits,” Liza said.

Missing the chance to rub shoulders with Bruneian royalty during her first visit to the Istana, Liza nevertheless has other opportunities to meet them in the future: the session that she and thousands of residents and tourists in Brunei attended that day was the first of six that were organized for the three-day Istana Open House, which the Royal Family hosts annually to celebrate Eid, the Islamic holiday that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan.

Perhaps underscoring the importance of Eid in the sultanate, it is only during these three days that the 200,000-square meter Istana, which holds the Guinness world record for being the largest residence of a state head, opens its doors to the public. Every year, more than 100,000 people visit the Istana over the three-day period to see the Royal Family, take part in the banquet, and receive gifts.

Buying peace of mind (Entrepreneur Philippines)

Came across this old article that I wrote for Entrepreneur Magazine. Great editing by Maricris Carlos.

Click here for the original story. 

Buying peace of mind

You may never actually use it, but that is the beauty of buying insurance.

By Jennee Grace Rubrico | Mar 31, 2016

For many business owners, buying insurance is an afterthought. Who can blame them? The benefits of buying insurance may not always be as obvious as in more tangible purchases—say, raw materials or inventory. Getting business insurance tends to feel a little less pressing, as buyers hope they never use it.

Yet, business insurance can be just as important to an enterprise as any other consideration. In a country like the Philippines, where unpredictable natural and man-made calamities happen all too frequently, insuring one’s business from risks could be the best thing for entrepreneurs to do: If or when disaster strikes, they will not have to worry about business-related expenses that are covered by insurance.

“Insurance is an excellent risk management tool, especially for catastrophes or calamitous events which are difficult to program for or plan ahead for. Insurance mitigates risk by transferring particular risks or exposures to an insurer in consideration of a payment or premium,” said Nico Lacson, chief operating officer of Lacson & Lacson Insurance Brokers Inc. “Aside from protecting your assets, you also protect your income statement by converting an unknown risk or exposure into a fixed or predictable expense,” he added.

Hence, getting an insurance policy cannot really be compared with buying off-the-shelf products, said Scott Judy, AIG’s head of distribution. “With an insurance policy, you are buying a promise—a promise to pay in the event of a future claim,” he said. That promise, Lacson added, is kept only when a claim is made and settled.

Business insurance typically provides risk cover over a 1-year period, but some insurance companies provide flexibility based on the operations of the business. AIG, for instance, has 45 different products only for business insurance. “Policies can also be contract specific, which would typically mean longer term policies to match the contract duration,” said Judy.

FREE FLOW, MANAGED MOVEMENT: LABOUR MOBILITY POLICIES IN ASEAN AND THE EU (EIAS)

This is the abstract of a research paper I wrote, which was published by the European Institute for Asian Studies. Click for the full publication.

JENNEE GRACE U. RUBRICO
October 2015
EIAS BRIEFING PAPER 2015 │ 03 EUROPEAN INSTITUTE FOR ASIAN STUDIES

Abstract: Europe has been at the forefront of labour mobility since 1957, when it enshrined the principle of free movement of workers in the treaty that created the European Economic Community. Over the years, the region worked to expand the rights of its mobile workers, mandating equal treatment and non-discrimination on the basis of citizenship. The concept of the “European Union citizen” was introduced in 1992, and by 2007, the free movement of labour in the region had become a fundamental right. Fifty-eight years after Europe started its intraregional labour mobility effort, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is set to follow suit. Under the framework of the ASEAN Economic Community – an ambitious plan to create a common market for the 10 member states by the end of the year – ASEAN promotes ‘free’ flow of skilled labour within the region. ASEAN’s approach to labour mobility, however, differs sharply from the EU’s policies. This paper explores the two regions’ frameworks of intraregional movement of labour, looking into similarities and differences as well as the principles that led to the formulation of such approaches.

Provincial beauty (Businessworld)

First appeared in the Aug 7, 2014 issue of Businessworld. Click here for the original story 

Special thanks to family for bringing us around and opening our eyes to the beautiful lass that is Negros occiental.

Text and photos by Jennee Grace U. Rubrico

Provincial beauty

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Negros Occidental greets its visitors with a sunrise that paints the sky pink and purple, and sugarcane plantations that turn both sides of the highway into seas of green. Its people speak in soft voices, their inflection melodious, and one wonders if they ever get into a fight.

One of the rivers in Mambukal where bathing is allowed.

The breeze ruffles the trees and blows some of the summer heat away, and makeshift one-room houses with earthen floors and a Singer sewing machine still stand in subdivisions, beside mansions with multi-car garages.

Its capital city of Bacolod, known for its chicken inasal, pastries, and the Masskara festival, is opening up and hosting new malls and peak hour traffic along Lacson Street, its main thoroughfare. Bars make for a lively nightlife in a section of the city, while on parcels of land farther away, the state of its economy is seen in new villages being built by the country’s biggest real estate companies.

But even on the cusp of urbanization, Negros Occidental holds on to quaint provincial pursuits. And like the refined country lass that it is, Negros Occidental does not flaunt its beauty, choosing instead to let suitors discover for themselves its many attractions.

ROMANCE IN THE RUINS
In Talisay City, less than an hour away from Bacolod, stand the ruins of a mansion that hints at the opulence in which the landed gentry lived. Story has it that The Ruins, which is touted as the Taj Mahal of Negros, was built by sugar baron Don Mariano Lacson for his first wife, the Portuguese Maria Braga.

To see it up close is to know why a skeleton of what was once an elegant home that was burned down by the US Air Force in World War II could draw so many visitors -- and catch the eye of the makers of a local teleserye about star-crossed lovers who are born and raised in an hacienda. The multi-storey structure, which looks more like an unfinished building than a victim of arson, bewitches at dusk with its Italianate architecture and egg-white glossed neo-Romanesque pillars.

In one wing on the ground floor, a glass chandelier hangs from the ceiling, belying the extent of the damage done by the fire on the building’s integrity. Although the floor is cracked, the staircases are intact, and the sections are held in place by intricate columns.

Sky Ride at Campuestuhan

The second storey, where a belvedere is located -- to allow the owner of the mansion to gaze at his property, according to the tour guide -- the damage dealt on the building is more telling. At the landing, a section of the floor that is covered in plastic indicates renovation work and only allows for a path that is about a foot wide for people to walk through. The cement floor is broken in places and when a girl jumped off a raised platform after her picture was taken, the building shook.

From the vantage point, the grounds and a classical fountain that has been fronting the building since the 1920s evoke romance. How many parties have the grounds hosted? How many dalliances has the fountain seen in the 90-odd years it has stood there?

The building itself holds a secret that betrays the owner’s affection for his wife -- on the pillars that hold it up, M’s that are rotated sideways to face each other are embossed. The initials are said to be Don Mariano’s way of showing his love for Maria.

HIGHLAND ADVENTURES
Talisay knows how to have a good time, being home to a mountain resort that offers fun and adventures for children of all ages. Campuestuhan Highlands is a carnival for kids, complete with playgrounds, park rides and swimming pools. For the adventurous, a suite of outdoor activities covering an obstacle course, horseback riding, zip line, and canopy walk are available. Those who require an extra boost of adrenalin can try mounting a bike and cycling on a tightrope with the Sky Ride.

The squeals of delight may drown out Campuestuhan’s quiet grace, but those who pause to take in the view of the mountains that abut the property on one side and the valley that stretches out on the other are blessed with a glimpse of the resort’s substance. Wait for that magic hour before sunset, and on the platform for the canopy walk, see the property bathed in diffused orange light that brings out the inner radiance of everything it touches. This, along with the breeze that blows feathery kisses on the face, makes the stretches of dirt road one needs to maneuver to get to the resort worth the effort.

TOUGH TREK
Meanwhile, an hour’s ride down a road through sugarcane fields on a well-maintained highway would take one to the foot of the dormant volcano Mt Kanlaon, where a sanctuary of a different kind rests. Mambukal Resort is a natural showcase of 12 waterfalls that requires stamina, determination and sense of humor to explore.

The ruins of the mansion of sugar baron Don Mariano Lacson, also known as the Taj Mahal of Negros.

The mountain trek starts out difficult for beginners and only becomes more challenging, but those who embark on it can turn back at any time. Sometime after setting out, a suspicion that the waterfalls serve more as markers of progress rather than the destination for the journey sneaks into the mind. From the base of the trail, where guides are available to assist adventurers, to the first waterfall takes 10 minutes for the moderately fit, more for the sedentary. To climb all the way to the 12th waterfall would take three hours, according to the estimates of John Rey, our guide.

Between the second and the third waterfalls, the trail turns into an obstacle course that requires arm and core strength, smarts and a healthy dose of self-depreciation to get through. The gaps between the footholds are too wide, and arms are needed to pull one’s weight to close them. Looking like a monkey that has just started learning to swing on trees while navigating the section is not only allowed, it is likely.

The trek is on rocky ground lined with boulders, with the mountain on one side and a continuous flow of bodies of water on the other. It has a slope that starts out benign and turns into a challenge to the mind and body by the third waterfall. But it is worth enduring not only for the satisfaction that comes from measuring up against nature, but also for the song of the brook that accompanies the trekker, the serenity that the waterfalls offers, the trees that rise from the walls of the mountain, and the rejuvenating pools that are sprinkled with stones piled to look like people to ward off the spirits.

For those who cannot rough it, Mambukal’s vantage area for bat watching allows visitors to be mesmerized by the normally nocturnal flying mammals the way a certain ancient vampiric count with the same disposition placed ladies under his spell.

Restoration can be found in the resort spa and the dipping pools that draw water from the volcano’s hot springs. But heed the warning of the closed off section that cautions visitors of sulphurous boiling mud -- it has been known to burn the intrepid.

Drive out of the resort at sundown to be blessed with evening grace in a horizon that is bathed by the sun’s last rays. Be humbled and inspired.

Like a lady who knows her worth, Negros Occidental does not draw attention to itself. Only those who pursue it would realize that the sunrise of bursting colors that greet them when they hit Negros airspace, and the sun-kissed fields of sugarcane that wave to them on the highway are but the beginning of a journey into beauty.