Hi m
y name is Paulo Valentino M. Magbuhos, but many friends call me Vin. Let me tell you about my story.
In 2003, I was looking for an OJT for my thesis paper in Mapua Institute of Technology. I first landed in Kawasaki together with a friend and classmate. I had to wake up early to get to Cavite as that is where their operation is located. I was working there for a week conducting time study. On my fifth day, I was asked by the production manager to wait at his office, as he doesn’t have any task for me. Since I wasn’t doing anything, I put my arm on the table and decided to just rest my head on it because I was waiting for 15 mins.
That was also the time that the president of the company was doing his rounds. He passed by my manager’s office. I saw a person passing by on my peripheral because I wasn’t really sleeping. I just had my head on the table. After a few minutes, my friend and I were called by the HR personnel, and she told us that that will be our last day. We got axed.
I wasn’t really worried about getting terminated from my OJT before. I guess because one week before that, two friends of mine passed an interview at INFONXX (a call center, which I snow called KGB.) After a couple of days, my friend, who got terminated at our OJT, and I applied at the call center. We told ourselves that this would be good for our OJT and at the same time get a full time pay as well.
When I was interviewed for the company, I actually just enrolled in MAPUA for the new quarter, which I ended up quitting in order to concentrate on my training. I figured, and I told the HR, that I would be able to go back to Mapua and work my schedule much better if I could ensure that I get hired first and pass training, which essentially happened. I withdrew my enrollment and pursued working. I attended my 4-week training for becoming a directory assistance ope
rator. After the training ended, I was assigned to a team that works at night.
In January of 2004, my dad passed away, it was a really difficult time for my family and me. I just came home from work when that happened. I didn’t leave for the province right away because the first thing that went into my head was that, I didn’t know how to go about that process at the office, since I was new, so I went to work the following night even though it was very difficult. I went to finish my shift. I filed my bereavement also that day and waited for the approval.
That was the reason I went back to school the following quarter. Instead of being a full time student with an OJT, I ended up being a full time worker and a part-time student. I actually got to enjoy it since this was the first time I really became more self sufficient and dependent. Something I have always known even when I was younger and was in high school.
It was such a great time for me for a while, until I was down to just 7 units that I needed to finish at school. Things got different and difficult because I was getting more tired and slowly becoming bored at work. I guess because I knew that there were more things I can do, and I knew deep inside that I could do much better. I stopped applying myself and I was just coasting. In fact, I was always on voluntary time out because I was just tired from doing a shift at night, sleeping right after shift, going to school and going straight to work.
It was in 2005 when I knew that the job wasn’t for me anymore. I kept thinking that doing 411 and accepting calls anywhere between 800-1000 calls is really something that I can’t do for another year. I started feeling unmotivated. When March 2015 came, that was the time when I really said to myself, “that’s it”. I resigned.
I called my uncle who used to send me money to school, to give me tuition money one last time, which he said yes to. I went back to school to finish my thesis which was the only thing lacking during that time. Lucky enough, I was able to have my professor to agree that I pass a thesis involving English in MAPUA to complete my Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, which is odd because usually thesis papers has to do with technical to operational case studies.
Since I was really keen on submitting my report from the company I used to work for, I negotiated that my work hours or Certificate of Employment should be more than sufficient to comply with the required 180 hours of on-job-training. I was able to write a statistics-based thesis on the need of English for students in our school. I also got a 1.75 mark on it.
In May of 2006, I graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering. I actually started applying for jobs after graduation but was very picky. I didn’t
get a job until October. It was during that time. My friend, who I met at 
my previous work, and another friend from the states offered me not only to work for them, but also to become a business partner.
One of the first things that came in my mind was that when you go into business, you will not have money for a bit of time since the beginning of most businesses, the partners usually cover expenses. I also thought that I didn’t have money that time. I knew those things, but I also knew that I am very street smart and resourceful. I told my self, “If I managed to survive Mapua and the time when my family was struggling (another discourse. Lol!), then I could survive this”. I said yes. After that, we started brainstorming for the name of the company, we had our friends vote for the name of the school and they voted AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR ENGLISH PROFICIENCY!
It was in October of 2006, when we started registering the company. Everything went fast, I was an industrial partner and I needed to do all the leg-works and get my hands dirty. Also, we didn’t have a lot of money to put up the school. We only had less than Php 400,000 pesos to do everything. Get the permits, renovate, and find the lease.
We found our space on Ayala in Manila Bank building. Since we
needed to pay for rental fee and deposits to secure the space, we really didn’t have a lot of cash to burn to make things easier for us. We did not have enough money to even get people to renovate the office. In fact, we had to remove the really ancient looking tiled carpet on the floor of the office space we rented. Underneath the carpet was vinyl tile, which we opted to keep. Since we took out the carpet, there was adhesive on it. We needed to scrub of the adhesive for four
days every night just to get the floor looking nice. We were on our knees to do all that. I can still remember the smell and the fume of the adhesive as we scrubbed the floor with dishwashing liquid and cloth.
As we were doing that, we had to secure permits. It was when we were fixing our permits at Baragay San Lorenzo when we were in luck. We just happened to chance upon a law office. We
were justlooking for a place to photo copy some documents. There was one nice lady in there said she has a sister who works for Marsman Drysdale. She introduced her sister to us. (The photos of the 
green partition and the tables being used on the classroom above were from here)
I guess it was fate ending up in that office, we were able to meet someone who provided quality dividers with good terms, even though we didn’t have enough credentials to get terms on our office partitions and tables. It was in January of 2007 when we officially opened the school. We already had people who enrolled at our company despite not having an actual office yet. When we opened, we have students right away.
I guess the saying “If you build it, it will come!” is true. It did for us. It wasn’t a smooth ride all together, but everything panned out right. I met my business partners over a drink, and established relationships with our clients over drinks and taking them out for conversations. In 2012, we were able to put another office in Quezon City. (Photos are the colorful classroom above)
I guess, the reason we managed to be here after 9 and a-half years is that we built a community of people, not just a school for studying. We have established a place where people can meet, individuals can talk, classmates can have a great time, and human beings can connect through parties, activities, and lessons not just in the classroom, at the same time, in the real world.
Paulo Valentino 