By Estanislao Abano, Jr.
Note: As our way of honoring the memory and expressing our gratitude for his long years of faithful service to the Tabuk Farmers’ Multi-purpose Cooperative, we rerun the story of the late CEO Emilio Dulnuan who passed away from a lingering illness on May 5, 2021. This article was first published in the Tabuk Life magazine of the Tabuk City LGU in 2015.
Without meaning to, Tabuk Farmer’ Multi-purpose Cooperative (TAFAMULCO) CEO Emilio Dulnuan makes a lot of people laugh with his manner of doing things including the way he speaks. Just ask anybody who has worked with him in the TAFAMULCO and he might have an anecdote or two which could tickle you to the bone.
I have one such anecdote. One morning when a typhoon had already made a land fall in Cagayan and was expected to pass Kalinga, I received a call from an employee of the TAFAMULCO asking if the governor had issued a memorandum suspending work in government and private offices due to the approaching storm. I said that there is none but that there was no necessity because of the imminent arrival of the typhoon. The caller angrily told me they needed an official announcement because Emilio had called them to report to work and the only way to get him off their backs is to tell him that authorities have declared there is no work during the day.
When I asked the employee what happened later, he said that not one of the employees reported during the storm with Emilio not taking it against them. He went on to relate that Emilio does not respect information that such and such is a non-working day unless he could see an official issuance or declaration to that effect. The employee confirmed that one time when a Muslim special day was declared a non-working holiday, Emilio had asked the employees “Apay Muslim kayo?” (Are you Muslims?)
“That’s the very reason we now post on the wall the advisory of Malacañang on the holidays during the year,” the employee said.
Another subject of numerous anecdotes is Emilio’s low regards for the external. He does not seem to care about the way he appears. He usually goes to the office in T-shirts, ordinary pants and wearing slippers. That’s the very reason that a lot of times, members who do not know him would be asking where the manager was when he is around or when they mistake him to be the collector or janitor. According to some employees, when he and Driver Ferdinand Uboan travel, there are some people who mistake him to be the driver and Ferdinand the manager. Emilio does not make any adjustments in his apparel when attending national cooperative events so that there is this story that during one session in a cooperative summit, the strap of one of his Duralite slippers snapped. I still have to ask his companions the entire story.
Anyway, according to Rev. Regino Ramos, manager of the Ambigatton Multi-purpose Cooperative (AMPC) but who used to work in the TAFAMULCO as manager of its agribusiness and later as director, they tried to make Emilio dress appropriately for his position by imposing a uniform but this too did not work. He related that Emilio would wear the barong with top buttons unbuttoned and worse, he would still come to the office in his slippers. Rev. Ramos said that that was as far as they could go in correcting the contempt of Emilio for dressing as called for by his position because nobody could talk about the matter to his face.
A source said that one other unique trait of Emilio is he treats the money of the cooperative like he treats his own money: in utmost thriftiness or stinginess. Because of this, officers and employees of the cooperative do not welcome traveling with Emilio because of the near starvation diet during the trip. The source said that at one time, a group from the cooperative ate in a restaurant. After he was through eating, Emilio right away went to pay the bill thus, some of those in the entourage had to forego their intentions of ordering more food.
The source told me that at one time while he was regaling some people with stories of how Emilio counts every centavo of the money of the cooperative, a lawyer in the neighborhood expressed the desire to join the TAFAMULCO because, according to him, with a manager like Emilio, his money would be safe.
Yes, regardless of his failing to satisfy the expectations of some people of how someone in his position should look, the real story of Emilio is as a manager worth his salt. When I asked the employee cited above as having called me about the official suspension of work in the face of the coming storm if there ever was a time when some members wanted Emilio booted out as manager, he said that none that he knows of although one could not discount the possibility that there might be some members who harbor that sentiment but do not have the courage to express it. Rev. Ramos expressed agreement saying that there’s nothing he could say against Emilio as chief executive officer (CEO) except his inability to dress up like the top banana of the cooperative.
Well, this means that the members and officers of the cooperative are contented with Emilio’s performance as the manager of the TAFAMULCO. And that counts for a lot because in the entire 30 years life of the cooperative, it has known no other manager but Emilio.
Sometime in 1985 after he graduated with the degree in Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the then Kalinga Community College, now Kalinga-Apayao State College, he helped his late uncle Rev. Martin Dulnuan to prepare the proposal to the philanthropic organization Asian-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI) to give seed money to a farmers’ association to be organized in the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) in Tabuk. His uncle who was then pastor of the Tabuk UCCP had learned about the existence of the AAFLI earlier and felt that organizing the farmers’ organization would benefit his farmer parishioners.**To be continued
