TRY AND TRY AGAIN
Ramil King Pacheco lives by the saying “try and try until you succeed.” It has been his personal motto. True enough, out of the seven businesses he ventured in, only one succeeded.
“My first business was a burger stand, it failed. Then we tried catering, jewelry selling, pharmacy, then back to food, and then back to pharmacy,” he intimated.
Erich Pharmacy now has four branches in Rizal and three in Cebu. He is the proud owner of Stone and Concrete Restoration in Cebu and Kindell Jewelry. He also teaches financial literacy on the side.
“Maybe some of the businesses failed because of lack of passion. I wasn’t giving my 100 percent to every business I tried, until I met my wife and she helped me get back on my feet again. She runs our pharmacy business and I run our construction business. I also teach financial literacy to people, like how to invest, how to get the proper insurance. We also encourage OFWs to do proper investing,” says Ramil.
But the drive to try and try again came from Ramil’s experience. He started working as an apprentice when he was 12 years old until he mastered the craft of jewelry making from his father. He wasn’t able to finish high school because, at a young age, he needed to help in providing food for his family. But he wanted to finish high school and be successful in the field he would choose, so he decided to work while studying.
“My option then was to enrol in a regular school and find out how I could balance it with my work, but a friend suggested MAE’s night school to me. At first, I was hesitant because Miriam College is known as a girl’s school, but since it would make it easier for me to work while studying, I decided to push for it. I envied my classmates then, as they were already high school graduates, while I, at 17, haven’t even started freshman year. Eventually, I was able to graduate when I was 21,” says the 32-year-old Ramil.
After high school, Ramil took up Entrepreneurial Management at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. He decided to stop after his freshman year and try his luck in business. Now, with his businesses booming and opportunities knocking at his door, he wanted to give back to Miriam for giving him the chance to try again.
“I want to put up a foundation that will help sponsor students who wanted to study at MAE. MAE changed me. This is where I met my wife, where my faith grew, and it is the foundation of everything I have right now. I want people to know that they should not be afraid of failure because it is part of the process of success,” ends Ramil.