To eternity and beyond

WHEN Orly Francisco decided to venture into the mortuary business, he admitted that it was the most daring thing he had done in his life.

Francisco named his venture Aeternitas, after the divine personification of eternity in ancient Roman religion.

Never in his dreams did Francisco imagine himself getting into the death care industry.

Francisco — the fifth in a brood of eight — started earning a living when he was seven years old by helping his mother sell candies outside their house.

«I was only in first grade when I started selling candies. Since then, I haven't asked my parents to give me an allowance. In my second grade, I was the one giving money to my mom,» he recalled.

«I went to double zero in the 1960s when I was a young boy. We had nothing. I took after my mother who knew how to run a business. My father was a visual artist.»

From selling candies, Francisco became a cigarette vendor, then he put up a grocery and later, a taxi business.

«You don't need only 70 percent to manage and run your business,» Francisco shared. «It has to be 100 percent.

»I only needed P50,000 to make my business grow. I really knew how to start a business and make it grow. When something is wrong, I readily make it right.

«You do not stop trying to achieve your dreams even if there are challenges. You can't avoid the challenges. There are other people to stop you. You will experience red tape along the way.»

He was only 17 years old when he made his first million.

Since then, there was no more looking back to his deprived life.

But Francisco is aware that his ventures will not consistently succeed.

«That will not happen,» he said. «You will still have failures. But you need to count how many times you rose above those failures to be successful again.»

My business in 1978 was money exchange and money remittance, Kabayan, in Saudi Arabia," Francisco shared. «Up to now, the business is still there. My son is the one running it.»

Francisco got to only as far as second year in college when he took up Commerce at the Far Eastern University.

«I was already the family breadwinner, so I needed to work,» Francisco disclosed.

Sometime in the year 2000, Francisco joined a pilgrimage to the Holy Land