AAA CEMEXME v 13 for press.pmd - Cemex Philippines

Out Out of of his his Habitat
Habitat
One look at Rogelio
(Rolly) Boje tells you that this
man has spent a lot of time
under the sun. His skin is no
longer bronze, but a deep
chocolate brown, and his 43year-old
face has been made
to look more mature by the
deep wrinkles that rest near
his eyes and mouth. His lean
frame looks like it has been
hardened by heat and dust,
but his eyes reveal a certain
softness and wisdom.
This native of General
Santos (“Gen San”) City in
South Cotabato, Mindanao
got a lot of sun exposure as a
“cowboy”—a helper in a
construction site, and not a
horseback rider who steers
horses in a ranch. As he
would later on discover, there
was a rhythm to the industry
and there would be weeks
when projects were hard to
come by. On these occasions,
Mang Rolly would sell fish or
balut, and his wife Vising
would operate a small sarisari
store near their home.
April was usually the slowest
month for construction in
Gen San, he says, because the
weather would simply be too
hot for anyone to be
outdoors for long periods of
time.
It wouldn’t be long
before Mang Rolly got his
big break. In 1989, he met a
man named Bob Williams,
who was an international
partner of a non-profit
organization called Habitat
for Humanity (Habitat). As it
turned out, Habitat was
helping poor families get
decent, affordable homes of
their own, and Bob was in
the Philippines to announce
the opening of Habitat
project sites in the country.
When Mang Rolly met Bob,
the latter invited him to be
part of the Habitat community
by being both a
homepartner and construction
worker there.
It wasn’t easy getting a
slot to be one of Habitat for
Humanity’s beneficiary
families, Mang Rolly shared
with us. Because the
organization’s mission was to
provide decent housing for
the “lowest 30 percent of
society”, each applicant had
to undergo stringent credit
checks before finally being
approved. “Bago ka maging
miyembro, dadaan ka muna ng
A break from the hot sun. Mang Rolly strikes a
pose with his wife Vising, eldest son Rodel, and
daughters Rovelyn and Rowena.
katakut-takot na screening…
Nung nakita nila na ako’y
walang-wala talaga, nakita nila
na qualified ako maging Habitat
homepartner. (Before you
become a member, you will
have to go through a lot of
screening… When they saw
that I really had nothing,
then they saw that I was
qualified to be a Habitat
homepartner.) Mang Rolly’s
unit was completed in
September of that same year,
and he has since joined
Habitat’s team of home
builders.
Master Master Mason
Mason
Masonry isn’t an easy
field to practice, as we soon
discovered, but it took Mang
Rolly just a few months to
“graduate” from being
“cowboy” to mason to
foreman—his current
position in Habitat’s construction
projects. “Mahirap
maging isang mason,” he shares.
“Lahat ng trabaho na makikita
niyo dito sa isang bahay… `yung
pag-asintado ng hollow
blocks… plastering…
concrete pouring… mason
lahat ang gumagawa niyan (It’s
hard to be a mason… All the
work that goes into building
a house… from filling hollow
blocks… plastering…
concrete pouring… it’s the
mason who does all that).”
Each house—particularly
in Habitat project
sites—Mang Rolly explains,
requires four masons and
one helper. Masons do
everything from concrete
pouring to plastering, and
sometimes even carpentry
and welding; while helpers
assist in mixing cement,
transporting supplies and
construction materials, and
performing other simple
tasks. Everyone involved in
Habitat projects, Mang Rolly
says, should be a multi-tasker.
“Walang pinipiling trabaho
dito… all-around ang ginagawa
namin dito sa Habitat (We do
everything here… everyone
works all-around here at
Habitat),” he explains.
So what exactly does it
take to be a good mason? We
expected a long answer that
described all the skills and
qualities that were required
of masons, but Mang Rolly
gave us a surprisingly simple
answer: “Mabait… at saka
mapagkakatiwalaan (Kind…
and trustworthy).”
According to him, it is
relatively easy to train
someone in masonry, as long
as he is a team player and
willing to learn. But he also
has to be trustworthy
because the foreman can’t
always be around to supervise
each mason’s work and
to check how masons handle
the materials that are being
assigned to them. But, of
course, there are skills that
masons must learn in order
to be good in their craft:
filling (the process of
layering hollow blocks to
form a wall according to the
dimensions specified in the
floor plan), finishing (or
plastering), and roping. The
last one, Mang Rolly says, is
not required of other
masons in other construction
sites, as it involves primarily
carpentry and welding; but in
Habitat, where anything goes,
masons do roping as well.
It takes roughly two
months for a helper to be
trained in masonry work, and
Mang Rolly uses a hands-on
approach in training his men.
“Dumaan… ako diyan,” he
recounts. “Mula sa (pagiging
helper), na-train ako na maging
isang mason… hanggang (naging)
foreman na ngayon… Kung ano
‘yung nadaanan ko (bilang isang
mason), ‘yon din ang tinuturo ko
sa mga tao ngayon (I went
through everything in
masonry… From being a
helper, I was trained to be a
mason… and now I’m a
foreman… So whatever I’ve
gone through as a mason, I
pass on to the people now.).”
His current method is to
assign each helper in the
Habitat unit to one mason.