EX-OFW NURSE NOW BANGUS QUEEN HARVESTING 20 TONS A DAY
YOU WOULD PROBABLY hardly believe that a lady nurse who went to work abroad to get away from the boring life she led in a fishing village has gone back to the village she disliked after 20 years. Now, 16 years later, she has become a big-time bangus producer, harvesting an average of 20 tons every day. The lady who might as well be called the “Bangus Queen” of Anda, Pangasinan is the former Nominisa Rarang, now married to Feliciano Garcia, a chef whom she met in Libya.
In 2000, the couple, with their children in tow, returned to Philippines to start a new chapter in their lives. Feliciano, who is good in business, engaged in a buy-and-sell business based in Capas, Tarlac. In the meanwhile, Nominisa was invited by her brother to invest in fish cages for growing bangus in Anda. And that was what she did.
Nominisa and her brother placed their fish cages near Nara Island, which the Rarang clan owned. She started with three fish cages
It was profitable because feeds at that time cost only R12 per kilo and one cage consumed just about two tons of feed in a culture period of five months. Her cages increased continually. By 2009, she had already 60 cages of her own. But fish farming has its own risks. And her fish cages were wiped out in one swing of Typhoon Emong.
Nominisa took the tragedy matter-of-factly. She did not give up, though she had to start all over again. By that time, a big feed company that thought she might not be able to pay her obligations withdrew her R2 million credit line.
Fortunately, another big feed company took over and gave