Ernest Escaler's payback

Something Like Life
May 23, 2008

WHETHER it was just dumb luck or the result of some divine intervention, my friends and I found ourselves touring Ernest L. Escaler’s farm in Silang, Cavite, one Saturday afternoon in April. Unbeknown to us then, his name would hit the headlines again a few days after, for a six-year-old case that implicated him with some characters in the shady landscape of politics.

I first knew of Escaler as an investment banker and businessman behind Gourmet’s Café, which in the ’90s introduced the concept of fresh salad ingredients and savory pasta dishes to a wider audience. Gourmet’s branch in Greenbelt was the one I particularly patronized, regularly ordering its delectable olive crostinis to take home as my midnight snack while watching late-night TV.

I also knew he was a big benefactor of the various religious communities in Tagaytay, and a Marian devotee who regularly makes pilgrimages to Lourdes.

I heard him inquire who we were from Missus, my svelte ex-boss whose rather portly husband we were joking around with as we were leaving the Gourmet deli. (Mister was explaining how he had sprained his toe on his wife’s dumbbell, which was why he was hobbling around the deli on a cane...tsk, tsk). Escaler graciously invited us to see his farm and a place he called “The Sanctuary,” and although we initially hesitated (we needed to return ASAP to a seminar we had been playing hooky from), we eventually agreed to the tour after Missus told us how beautiful the place was. True enough, touring the farm and The Sanctuary was one of the best afternoons we had spent in a while.

It would be another month before my friends and I made our way back to Silang, this time for a sit-down interview with Escaler, who had agreed to talk about his company, Gourmet Farms Inc., which makes all those yummy pasta sauces, dips and dressings under the Kitchen Exclusives brand, my favorite Gourmet’s premium coffee blend, and sells fresh salad greens vacuum-packed and triple-washed. I also wanted to find out why he had built The Sanctuary.

(Businessman Ernest L. Escaler is happy to see his pet ducks.)
(Okay, truth to tell, I really wanted to see if he would give his side of the Mark Jimenez-Nani Perez-Coutts Bank account story. But other than calling himself “collateral damage,” and jokingly answering my question about his present state of mind — “harassed!” — Escaler declined to go on record on what had actually transpired between him and those two, and the real reason behind the $2-million deposit in the now-infamous bank account.)

Mildly put, The Sanctuary is breathtaking. It is a small patch of land within Escaler’s lush 8-hectare estate, where people can commune with nature and with their God. “I always wanted to put up a retreat place but never thought what kind it would be. Having been trained in the Jesuit education, we’re used to going on retreats.”

Every January 23, his birthday, Escaler explains, he would go on a retreat with the Pink Sisters in their convent in Tagaytay. “I spend the day there in silence, just reading the Bible. Then I said, ‘Hmmm, I think I should make a place available so people can be silent and get out of the noise in this world,’ because how else can you hear what God has in mind for you unless you’re absolutely quiet?” Before his next birthday rolled around in 2007, The Sanctuary had been completed.

It is a calming place where one can contemplate and take stock of one’s life amid the quiet rustling of leaves and gentle breezes from the adjacent farm, while watching ducks paddle around their pond.

The main feature of The Sanctuary is a gorgeous white chapel which remarkably looks like the upper half of a lighthouse. I thought it was a good metaphor for God’s Word lighting the way for people who seek His guidance and love.

The chapel houses many of Escaler’s antique collection of Filipino and Balinese craftsmanship. We marveled at the Balinese windows that framed the space behind the altar, as well as the bust carving of Jesus Christ crowned with thorns. “These are my collections over the last 22 years....Eventually, I said, when I build my dream house, these are what I would like to use. So they’ve been sitting there in the warehouse for the last 10 years.”

But more than the architecture and design, it is the spiritual healing that is said to take place in The Sanctuary that makes it worthwhile to visit.

“There was this guy, he got married, went on honeymoon with his wife, when they came back, his wife went to the doctor for a checkup to see if she was pregnant. She was diagnosed with stage-four cancer. Before the year was over, she died. So you can imagine how traumatized the guy was,” Escaler narrates.

To escape from his pain, every Christmas the man would go out of the country and didn’t want to be with family. One of his friends finally told him about The Sanctuary and he asked permission to stay there for Christmas. The man was told he would be left all alone for the Christmas holiday because the staff had to go on a break. “He was totally alone, in the dark. He just spent the whole Christmas Eve crying daw and after that, he said it was the best Christmas of his life! So what do you call that? Is that healing?”

He tells us other instances of healing, and I can understand why the place has such an effect on people. After spending an afternoon there, I didn’t want to leave and just wanted to continue being enveloped in its tranquillity. We came away from the experience feeling light, relaxed and happy.

Aside from the spiritual "detox", The Sanctuary also offers three-day physical detox treatments supervised by Escaler himself. Clients are fed special concoctions of fruits and vegetables, followed by doses of Epsom salts given at intervals, and, finally, a citrus-olive oil drink. So as not to offend our, ahem, readers’ sensibilities, we shall omit the grislier details of the procedure. It was quite surreal, though, to talk about the many dimensions of poo with someone we hardly knew, this after we had just finished lunch.

“ Unlike the pricier (sometimes costing as much as P20,000 a pop) and bland, almost distasteful detox treatments offered at some high-end spas, the treatment at The Sanctuary not only costs a mere P5,000 but also “may lasa. We use salt and pepper, all the bad stuff,” Escaler jests. The detox is preferably conducted in groups of five to six persons.

Because of the serene and picture-perfect surroundings, The Sanctuary also makes for a stunning venue for weddings, commitment ceremonies, or wedding anniversaries, although he says that, technically, one can’t hold real church weddings in the chapel as it is not a parish. “We advice you get secretly married in your parish, sign your papers, then we can have a re-enactment here. You don’t have to tell your guests it’s a re-enactment. Pero walang pirma-pirma.” Escaler says the weddings help subsidize the cost of hosting nuns and priests who frequent the place for their own spiritual needs.

It’s really a place I felt, for all the success in my life, it’s a thanksgiving for all the benefits...I call it my payback to God. That’s why we don’t like to advertise, it’s not a commercial thing. And so He calls who He wants to talk to. That’s my inspiration. It’s a place where people can find refuge, that’s why I call it The Sanctuary...away from the world into a communication with God.”

(My column, Something Like Life, is published every Friday, in the Life section of the BusinessMirror.)

Does anyone see a pattern here?

IN an attempt to boost her sagging popularity and credibility among the public, the Presidentita and her henchmen are trying to take on issues that would seemingly reinvent her as a heroine and savior of the country.

First she goes to the Department of Justice five times in a row just to see how cases against so-called rice hoarders/smugglers are coming along.

Second, she has her incompetents at the Ombudsman's office regurgitate a six-year-old corruption case against her former justice secretary Hernani Perez, his ailing wife, Rosario, and businessman Ernest Escaler.

Third, she has pushed her GSIS juggernaut Winston Garcia to take on the Lopezes so government can take over Meralco.

Fourth, she now wants telecommunications companies not to charge for text messages.

What's next? Will she now tell the banks not to charge fees for using their ATMs?

All these are desperate measures to shore up confidence in her flagging presidency. If the presidentita thinks that by coming to our defense in populist issues like these will make us like her better, she is sadly mistaken. As usual, her idiot brigade in Malacañang, who sit in their airconditioned offices all day, and who travel in style by land, sea, or air, anywhere they go, are so out of touch with reality. They don't know us really and what we think, and so they keep feeding their Madam the wrong ideas and concepts to help reinvent her image, which has been drubbed in the mud ever since the Hello Garci, the ZTE-NBN scandal, etc.

The Presidentita's makeover program will all be for naught, because she lacks the values that will make all of these desperate measures credible...honesty and humility. No one believes her because she has never been sincere in her intentions and motives.

I wonder, when she was thinking of grabbing Malacañang from Erap...did she actually want to do it because she wanted to change the country and improve our lives? Or did she just want to become President? Period.

Maybe it's about time the Presidentita thinks of the legacy she wants to leave behind. Because the way things have been going lately, I don't think History is going to be kind to her.

* * * *
NOW here comes the JDV threatening to spill the beans on what really transpired in the ZTE-NBN shenanigan. Isa ka pa! Here's another political opportunist trying to take advantage of an issue that he should have spoken on before, when the Senate hearings were at its peak. Why come out just now? Why not before when his own son had stuck his neck out and testified about the deal?

Kasi nawala na sa limelight so gusto na namang pumorma! Kesho the information he has may lead to the "fall of the government," etc. etc. Pwede ba?! This JDV and Manay Gina make me sick!

Gourmet Farms expands to Cebu

SILANG, CAVITE—Gourmet Farms Inc. (GFI), the largest local supplier of freshly roasted coffee to premier hotels and restaurants in the country, is unfazed by the rising inflation and strengthening peso. Its officials are projecting a 23-percent growth in the company this year, with a multimillion-peso expansion plan in place for the Visayas, starting in Cebu.

(GOURMET Farms Inc. chairman and president Ernest Escaler is all smiles as his company continues its growth and expansion despite higher inflation and an unstable peso; (inset) an array of products from his farms.)

In an interview with select reporters, Ernest Escaler, chairman and president of GFI, said: “No [we’re not affected by higher inflation, higher peso rate], because we’re practically domestic. We’re not dependent on anything imported. That’s the whole concept of Gourmet Farms, [which] is to provide world-class products from a purely domestic source. So from Day One, the whole concept of Gourmet Farms is that we can prepare gourmet products without having to resort to imported materials. So the higher the dollar is, the higher prices rise, we become more competitive.”

Aside from its seven types of premium ground coffee blends, including pure arabica and barako (Excelsa), GFI also has three other product lines: six different herbal teas using indigenous herbs and vegetables such as ginger, sambong, banaba, ampalaya, pito-pito and lagundi; 13 kinds of pasta sauces, dips and salad dressings under its Kitchen Exclusives line; and 14 varieties of organically grown lettuce and culinary herbs and spices.

In 2007 the company posted P90 million in sales from its three main lines: roasted coffee and herbal teas (P45 million), dips and dressings (P20 million), and fresh produce (P25 million). This year GFI projects sales hitting P111 million from its gourmet coffee and teas (P60 million), bottled products under Kitchen Exclusives (P23 million), and fresh produce (P28 million).

(Rows of lovely lettuce at Gourmet Farms.)

According to Ronaldo Rizal Pablo, sales and marketing manager for GFI, “The majority of our coffee sales in 2008 will come from Cebu and the Visayas.” In the second quarter of the year, GFI already opened its office in Cebu and has begun making its way into the local supermarkets, such as the Gaisano chain.

About 50 percent of the annual company turnover comes from the sales of its produce and bottled products in premier supermarkets, said Pablo, while the rest comes from food services, which include major fast-food chains, premier restaurants and hotels, which the company supplies with customized coffee blends.

Escaler also disclosed that the company recently signed an agreement with the L’Opera Group of Italian restaurants, “which asked us to supply all their coffee requirements.”

He sees this as proof that there is a market for premium coffee blends created in the Philippines. “The Italians are the world’s coffee connoisseurs. Why should they pay P1,200 per kilo for an Italian coffee, when they can pay P700 per kilo for Philippine superior coffee?”

Escaler also encouraged more local restaurants to offer Philippine-produced coffee, rather than the foreign brands now flooding the market, to help boost farmers’ incomes. “You buy the Lavazza and Illy at P1,200 per kilo, you’re supporting the farmers in Colombia, in Brazil. You buy our coffee, you’re supporting our local economy. Pero itatapat ko, our premium coffee with Lavazza or Illy, we are better than them! Don’t forget they were roasted a year ago, eight months ago. Our coffee was roasted just days ago.”

While it doesn’t grow coffee on its own farm, the company sources 100 percent of its coffee beans from farmers in Benguet and Batangas. GFI also owns the largest coffee roaster in the Philippines, with the capacity to roast 60 tons of beans every day on an eight-hour shift, five times a week. Other coffee companies and food-service companies tap GFI to roast their beans.

(Len Reyes, GFI trading manager, shows off the largest coffee roaster in the country.)

While officials declined to reveal the company’s budget for capital expenditures this year, they said much of it will go into its expansion to Cebu and “developing new products.”

According to its web site, Gourmet Farms was incorporated in December 1987 as a wholly owned subsidiary of ECI Trading Corp. (ECITC), then a Philippine Board of Investments-registered exporter of Philippine green coffee beans. ECITC is the flagship of Ernest Escaler Group of Companies, and was once one of the top 1,000 corporations in the country.

In the 19th century, the Philippines was one of four top coffee-producing countries in the world. A blight in the 1890s wiped out local coffee crops, giving way to South American countries to enter and eventually dominate the world market. At its peak in 1986, Philippine coffee exports reached $186 million. The scrapping of world coffee quotas and the Philippines’ lifting of quantitative restrictions on foreign coffee in 2004 have led to low coffee prices in the country, thus discouraging local farmers from planting the crop.

According to the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, ground coffee imports amounted to $63,283 (FOB) in 2006, while exports of the same amounted only to $37,676. Local coffee production dipped 1 percent to 104,000 metric in 2006.

(My text and photos were published in the BusinessMirror on May 22, 2008.)