A Selfless Act: CEO Uses Wedding Fund To Save Employees Work During Pandemic

Everybody wishes a grand wedding. It's a celebration of love, and couples really spend a lot for it in the Philippines because it's a union. It's when both your families, your closest friends and loved ones and well wishers come celebrate with you. It's also expected to be a feast as lunch/dinners are time for bonding for both families, it's a huge expense by any standard as it includes a lot of people. Still, it's something worth every cent because nothing beats a memorable wedding day.

The pandemic has all caught us unaware and nobody predicted the casualties to the economy. Business were hit hard, some fell on bent knees, closed, and thousands lost their livelihood. Health and beauty brand Aqua Skin's CEO Jeff Geronimo almost became a part of that statistic. He was supposed to get married to Trish on March 18, 2020 when the worldwide health crisis hit the Philippines. Both decided to postpone their wedding at a later date as it became a struggle to do so at that time. Needless to say, they also found themselves in the midst of slump. Their sales was at an all time low, they couldn't source materials for their products as ports and businesses (their suppliers) closed. It was a sure test of his leadership, as funds from the business became scarce, and later depleted. With negative figures in his account, Jeff thought more about his employees and their families. He knew they needed to still provide for their household, put food on the table while the world was healing.  

 

Jeff says "I know nobody wanted this pandemic to happen, I need to make sure that they're all well and safe. I used my own savings (money he had to finance their wedding and dream home) to help them first, then create more SKU's for Aqua Skin products to get the business running.  I wouldn't want to see them become unemployed/retrenched at the most difficult time. We had to start from scratch, I couldn't give up because I felt responsible, they and their families were counting on me."

From a small office for 5 people, they now have a big one and more employees!

 

True enough, they were able to survive that stage and started growing even more.  His employees showcased hard work, dedication and trust with the brand, him and the company. He felt it was all well worth the sacrifices they made in the past few years. He says "The pandemic taught us a lot, I owe it all to our employees. This has also made us focus more on solutions and become pro active in addressing business problems."

Today, they have been able to start building their new home, a new office and fulfill the dream wedding they've wanted all these years. His awe inspiring story is just one of many success stories in his company today, and in our books, well deserved. Someone should pat him in the back right now, cheers to more successful years!

BRIA Homes Display Top Designs at 26th NREA-DHSUD Housing Trade Exhibit

Taking some of their greatest work on display at the Glorietta Activity Center was award winning housing brand BRIA Homes. This was part of the recent 26th Housing Trade Exhibit hosted by the National Real Estate Association and the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development. This was the fruitition of efforts by the two agencies after they held an online convention with developers and stakeholders mid June and held this physical event last July 1st to 3rd in Makati City.

The online event talked much about the effects of the pandemic, inflation, laws with regards to the conditions in the industry. The physical event this July was a golden opportunity to showcase their best work to prospective home buyers and investors. Lots of people had queries and the friendly BRIA Sales Team were at the venue to answer them on the spot. BRIA took time to curate their most in demand house models, a tall tale indication of how they remain bullish in the market despite circumstances beyond their control. Making sure people get quality but value for money homes were a sure crowd pleaser and deals were made too right then and there.

The event was graced by Makati Mayor Abby Binay, Vice Mayor Monique Yazmin Lagdameo, Senior Vice President Benjamin Felix, Jr. of the Pag-IBIG Fund, NREA's Marcelino Mendoza and Glorietta GM Katipunan.

If you're looking for affordable homes in different cities nationwide, check out the BRIA website or their other channels online. If you are seriously considering a property already, they've got ways to reserve a BRIA Home on their website too so you don't have to go to their offices physically and keep yourself safe at home.

VIVAMAX: "TAHAN" When Things Take A Dark Turn

We went in the cinema of Gateway Mall for the screening of the film TAHAN, a movie which will be shown solely on streaming platform VIVAMAX. Cloe Barreto plays the role of Elise, a woman who was forced to work in the high end escort industry; she started at a very young age. To provide for herself and her Mother, she had to seek clients for pay to do all their wishes. She falls prey to different kinds of folks, some kind, some abusive, which puts her in the brink of losing hope.

Her relationships are all complicated, but it pays the bill. Although in a rut, she does several encounters to feel she's the dominant one, being served as she doesn't have that on normal days. She also got into vices, so she could forget about what’s happening. She also gets involved with a guy (a former high school fling) played by JC Santos (also multi awarded actor). He represents her way out, her wishing to change ways, but all fails as she gets sold and forced by her Mom; depicted by 2016 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Ms. Jaclyn Jose. The film also stars Mercedes Cabral, Karl Medina, EJ Salamante, AJ Oteyza and Jet Delgado. Quinn Carillo wrote this film, but also stars in it as the protagonist's best friend. 

 

Talented writer and actress Quinn Carillo who slayed the script!

Cloe Barreto plays Elise

 

AJ Oteyza, Quinn Carillo plays interesting characters

JC Santos plays Cloe's high school sweetheart. What will become of him when things go south?

Not to patronize her, but Quinn really put the needed shocking twists in the script of this film. Although it delved on content appealing to men, Director Bobby Bonifacio, Jr. made risky creative interpretation to make Quinn's script come alive. It felt like a long dream sequence, one that takes all the things she probably feared the most to happen on screen. If you think about it, this movie is matriarchal in nature, on how their relationships and dynamics work... until things take a dark, dark turn.

All in all, this is a showcase of talented actors. Cloe Barreto has really leveled up her acting chops straight from her other projects like "Silab". Aside from that, JC Santos presents a different persona who still has to tell their story. They were high school sweethearts who lost touch. This may also open up a lot of possibilities, a prequel, another installment, which can be possible since the story asks for it. As expected, Madame Jaclyn Jose proved why she's world class. She's very generous, and let Cloe shine when she needs to in the film. I'd be really surprised if this didn't snatch an award from different festivals which they plan to do soon. Here's some videos I made of the presscon which happened after the screening:

You can watch this movie solely on the VIVAMAX app, you can download it off web.vivamax.net, Google Play or the App Store. Payment is a monthly subscription which you can do on the website, or various digital wallets. It can also be accessed in countries like UAE (Dubai), Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar or elsewhere in Europe where available. You can also download it on East and Southeast Asian countries, New Zealand, Australia, the US and Canada. Having this be accessed worldwide, it's already doing the deed of introducing Filipino films worldwide. Congratulations to the cast and production of TAHAN and I'm glad plans for another film from the same production will be in the works soon.

 This film is sick, and I LOVE IT!

Well Known PC Builders Join NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Launch

If you want something done, you've got to build it. And with the eve of Desktop Computers being built not just for work, but gaming and content creation, the need for more powerful graphics cards are becoming a reality. A few days ago, several PC builders in the country joined NVIDIA in launching GeForce RTX PC's and GeForce Esport PC's. If there's anyone that knows how to do it right, it's these people.

Jerome Matti NVIDIA Consumer Business Lead says "These days, almost everyone is a gamer and creator. People also stream, view on various platforms, and we are experiencing VR growth, plus a lot of creators that need RTX platform, DLSS that provide real good gaming quality. There are also good drivers for creators so you can have quiet but powerful machines all around. People still need high refresh rates, fast reactions during games, better broadcast capability and we have the best of that NVIDIA."

Arnold Padilla the NVIDIA iCafe and E-Sports and System Builds adds "Game revenues are at an all time high. We have RTX for gamers and creators for Ray Tracing, DLSS, Reflex and AI. To maintain solid frame rates, lesser latency, for over 250 games that support NVIDIA, we need to step up from GTX to RTX. We are introducing 2 categories today, the GEFORCE RTX PC's for Gaming Enthusiasts, plus the GEFORCE ESPORTS PC"s."

The goal is to get all users have the best experience with their PC's especially those with special requirements for creating videos, 3D graphics, all tailored to their needs. Gamers also need a powerful machine that can handle every kind of game out there, and not cause and hassle when it comes to winning those third person shooting games, important tournaments when it matters most.

PC distributors will continue to be a big part of the solution so they could recommend the best one for the budget and requirements people need at home, the office, or even outdoors. NVIDIA GeForce as they've got official stores there. If you need the GeForce RTX 30 Series, GeForce RTX 2060, GeForce RTX 3060 or their other products, it's available in Lazada, or Shopee here https://shope.ee/4pcV1yJtQGhttps://shope.ee/4pcV1yJtQGhttps://shope.ee/4pcV1yJtQG