Compostela Graduates Receive Q Excellence Awards

Some 54 newly graduates from the public elementary and high school levels of the municipality of Compostela, Cebu on Tuesday received the Q Excellence Awards given by Dr. Norberto B. Quisumbing Jr., Chairman of the Norkis Group of Companies (NGC) at the Q Park, in Compostela town, 30 kilometers away from Cebu City.

Quisumbing who led the Recognition Ceremonies in front of the awardees, their parents, visiting academe, and local government officials at 3:00 in the afternoon, was proud to see all the awardees who were grateful and excited to receive their respective awards.

Each of the 54 awardees received excellence medals, books, and P1,500 cash not only as gifts for their talents, but an initial reward for their continuing voyage in their high school and college studies in the incoming school opening.

They all came from the 15 public elementary and three secondary schools in the whole municipality of Compostela, the town which Quisumbing said, “ a place which is close to my heart”.

The awardees were selected through a screening committee composed of schools’ supervisors, principals, teacher advisers, and representatives from the NGC.

Each school has three awardees who graduated during the school year 2014-2015, and ready to enter their high school and college studies on June 2015 school opening.

They are assured that half of their tuition fees in school will be shouldered by the NGC as part of its social responsibility to the community.

Parents are thankful to Quisumbing

Their parents who are also mostly NGC plant workers in barangay Cogon of said town were so thankful to the old Quisumbing.

They are part of the thousand workers employed by the NGC’s manufacturing plants of motorcycles, multi cabs, spare parts , and other various NGC industrial products.

The services provided by the NGC to the Compostela town was started in 2004, upon their transfer to the said place from Mandaue City operations.

NGC occupies more than one hundred hectares of land in Cogon and employed hundreds of workers, which boosted a lot of Compostela’s economy.

Their policy is to employ mostly Compostela residents for their mutual survival until the coming generations.

NGC was first established in Mandaue City, and within the couple of years it became known nationwide.

Its limited space in Mandaue City has forced Quisumbing to look for another area for its expansion program the reason why it reaches in Compostela town.

Asked if he is still planning to expand to another location, Quisumbing told, “no more, I’m already contented to what we have here in Compostela town,” he said.

The Quisumbing’s Q Park

Quisumbing’s Q Park in the mountain areas of Compostela is composed of more than 400 hectares occupying four barangays namely, Bulwangan, Tubigan, Canamokan, and Magay.

All of these so called vast stoney agricultural lands are mostly uninhabited and never utilized as such for agricultural purposes, as there is no assurance for any local food plants to survive due to its poor quality of soil and mostly hilly terrains.

The area which was known as Quisumbing’s walking site before, is now an exclusive place for a religious devotion where total peace and solemnity reigns.

The different species of trees and forest plants covering the hills and slopes of the area are considerably decorating the entire place and a good attraction to both local and foreign tourists.

The local families who formerly owned the areas now popularly known as the Q Park, have considered Dr. Quisumbing as a gift from heaven to them, because he saved their livelihood and even their children’s education.

Quisumbing develops the Q Park with his own capacity as a businessman whose mission is not only to expand its investment but to help both the local government and families therein, for their life existence.

The only support given by the government is the legal documentation of all Quisumbing’s properties within the Q Park , one of the best places he love most for his whole life.

An exclusive house made of stones and pebbles was also built at one of the the Q Park’s slopes as a confinement site of his deceased wife’s ashes.

The NGC in Batangas

In an interview Quisumbing said not only in Compostela, and other parts in Cebu where the NGC exist, but even in the province of Batangas in Luzon, the NGC are also operating there.

All the privileges and benefits he gives to all his workers in areas where the NGC are operating, are also given to the Batangas workers and their children.

Quisumbing’s philanthropic attitude has help a lot in the development of families both on their livelihood and their children’s education in any location in the country.

To adopt quality as best policy

During the awarding ceremony, Quisumbing taught the awardees to practice and exercise “quality” on all aspects of their endeavors while they are still in the growing period of life and to hold this attitude even until their maturity.

“Quality is the best policy which everybody must have to maintain, because you are the answer to all employers’s quest to have not only quality workers but so do with quality products,” he said.

Quisumbing also admonished both parents of the awardees and their teachers to give more focus on encouraging the children to dream the higher positions they may opted to hold when they are already professionals.

He said, unless they become professionals and land good jobs, their life in Compostela may remain in darkness and lack of favorable opportunity due to its poor location.

“So they must have to struggle to continue their studies to become professionals in the future”, he said.

“If you have practice quality, whether you’ll be an industrial worker, educator, or business magnate as well someday, you may always at the forefront of everybody,” he said