THE BANKER: A CAREER THAT ALWAYS PAYS

By: Norberto Betita

ALDA C. ALIPAYO

One of the few privileged young woman in our high school batch of 1969 is SNNHS ‘69er ALDA C. ALIPAYO. Her parents Mr. & Mrs. Rodulfo F. Alipayo were both teachers, with Mr. Alipayo then being already the Principal of Claver National High School. As teachers and school principal, both parents were earning the highest salary in government service during those times. As a matter of fact, they were richly favored to have built a modest apartment house with a commercial space in an expensive piece of lot---an inheritance of Mrs. Alipayo from her parents---located at Borromeo Street in the center of Surigao City, which earned for the family additional income. The property is part of the commercial district and by most recent actual market value, it is already a very expensive estate.

Alda, as she is fondly called by her first name, probably because of it being short, was one of the tallest female student in our class. She’d got her body build and height from her father, so are her siblings. What made her so distinctive and singular from among the young women in our class was her deep-toned voice which would mistake her to be a recently grown young man. But she was not even boyish, but a fair young lady with white fair complexion being a city girl. She was one of those blessed few who were best provided with school gears and academic tools.

While in high school she had not dreamed of any ambitious college degree or a superior future career. Yet she prepared herself best by developing her intellectual capacity with enthusiasm, looking forward with brilliant optimism to a more challenging academic battles ahead.  She had been earlier groomed to follow the footsteps of her parent’s teaching career, such being a very inviting and highly paid work opportunity at that time. Hence, it was only during the very moment that she left the portals of her Alma Matter that she finally decided to enroll at San Carlos University in Cebu City for a course leading to a degree of Bachelor of Science in Commerce, major in Accounting. While the course may have been most common then, but it was and is even at this time, a tough and demanding degree course. However, with progressive perspective, worthier goals and firmly fixed determination to succeed, she finally graduated in 1974.

With two of her nieces she once mothered

She returned home in Surigao City with her graduation documents fixed in her achievement portfolio. She then applied at the Marinduque Mining and Industrial Corporation-Surigao Nickel Refinery (MMIC-SNP), a then thriving nickel refinery in the island of Nonoc. She was employed as accounting clerk. But the work was short-lived, because while in such employment, she applied at the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), which branch was located within the company premises of the MMIC-SNP. With her inherent competitiveness and brilliance and being a graduate from one of the best universities in Cebu City, she immediately qualified and was employed in May 1974. Such was the start of her work as a banker, a career that always pays. 

She worked for two years at the RCBC branch in Nonoc Island as Accounting/Remittance Clerk. Then in 1976 she transferred to RCBC Surigao Branch and stayed until 1982. Promotions in the provincial branches were before aloof and remote, so with her parent’s suggestion for her to help watch over her younger brother who was still in college, she decided to request for transfer to branches in Metro Manila. Fortunately, her request was granted and she was given the position of Loans Clerk at the Caloocan Branch.

Her transfer to Metro Manila turned out to be a blessing and a success, like hitting two birds with one stone---she was able to support her rather spoiled younger brother to finish college and she gained the most needed promotions. Since then and until her retirement in the year 2000, she rose from the ranks to become a Cash Supervisor, Cashier, Operations Head-Assistant Manager, Senior Assistant Manager, Head-Loans Documentation-Manager at RCBC Metro Manila, and Operations Head back to Caloocan Branch; her last and final assignment.

With brother Diego, sister-in-law Louella, and niece and grandniece and grandnephew

Nevertheless, despite her very successful career growth and development as a banker, she still found the twinge and discomfort of life’s emptiness in solitude, such as are common to single women. But being a strong woman, she tried to fill the vacuum and endeavored to overcome her share of life’s vicissitudes, convincingly believing that each person has its own particular destiny. On her part, she said, “I am not sad being single” and admits, “I guess it’s the will of God.” She had provided the best things for herself from the abundant fruits of her labors, and enjoyed with gusto the fatness of its kernel.    

In the depths of her commitments and dedication to her banking career, she seemed to have missed the opportunity to find or to have been found by a possible life time partner and to create a family of her own, which is one common desire of women. Her beauty and charm were hidden within the dark precincts of a very busy career that winds up always at night. Indeed, she strived to be as attractive and gorgeous as she should be with her appealing bank uniform and slim frame. But fate consigned her to a life of a single woman.  Consequently, she accepted the verity that like several other single women, “…marriage and parenthood are the fabric of their dreams and the deepest desires of their hearts! But for some, there is no suitable opportunity, or they are single for other reasons beyond their control” (Happiness—There’s Not a Single Barrier, Ensign, March 1988, By Mayola Miltenberger.)

In her singleness and solitude, she found strength in the knowledge that “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be” (Abraham Lincoln). Therefore she admits that she is single, but not feeble. She exercises her faith and courage to give her strength to wait for what God has in store for her. Thus, she eventually found greater joy and gladness in helping to support two of her nieces, the daughters of her younger sister who died of Leukenmia at age 38, while the children were still young. Before her sister died, it was already arranged that the children will be supported in their needs by the family until high school graduation. Her commitment was to help and assist them in their quest for college education in Manila. While in her custody, she treated and cared for her nieces as her own daughters, thus molding a mother-daughter kind of bond which now remained unshaken. She was honored as to be their second mother. The two are now on their own, the one working in Dubai and the other in Virginia, USA. To them and their children, she was an angel of mercy.  

Upon retirement, she lived in Valenzuela, Bulacan on a house she owned, enjoying the company and visits of some extended family and relatives. She was only 48 years old, physically vigorous and healthy, when she retired from being a banker, a career that always pays. To fill life’s voids as a result of a very early retirement and to cover the permanent loss of necessary income from regular employment, she engaged herself in an aquaculture business in a rented fishpond in Hagonoy, Bulacan; raising prawns, tilapia and bangus. The business was purely her way of physical exercise and maintaining an active life, which is an antidote to solitude. It was an hour trip from her residence in Valenzuela, which she frequented only during harvest season.

It was a thriving business which provided for her productive yields and satisfactory return of investment. In fact, it helped her acquire a 400 sq. m. lot with a one-storey house in Fairview, Quezon City, which she termed as her “preparation to getting old” when her knees and limbs no longer could climb the second floor.  Yet she understood that, “The secret of happiness consists not of having but of being; not of possessing but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of the heart that is at peace with itself” (David O. McKay, The Instructor, Nov. 1960, p. 422). She finally closed her aquaculture business in the later part of 2007. She was invited to partner with the owner of the fishpond, but she declined for obvious reasons.

Eventually she sold her two-storey house and lot in Valenzuela and now lives in Fairview, Quezon City with her first cousin, relishing her single life in company with and visits of some of her nieces and grandniece and grandnephew and other relatives. She believes that God will not deprive her of the blessings that are in store for her beyond this life for as long a she remains faithful to Him. Should she, from her friends and batch mates, again bump the age-old question, “Why are you still single?” she now have a ready answer: “Because I’m too strong, too smart and too fabulous to settle” (Mandy Hale). Then she wrote in gist, “nothing much, just waiting for the final flight.”