Not just your ordinary breakfast roll

Not a few political analysts have professed that the barometer of the current socio-economic state of the nation is not the price of galunggong or a kilo of rice but the price and size of the pan de sal.

Sold in almost every street corner or delivered hot to your doorstep by bike-riding boys, pan de sal is our de facto national bread–affordable, always available and well entrenched into our culinary cravings. If you are Pinoy, pan de sal is delicious with any palaman (filling) or even with none at all, but it’s best with kesong puti, coco jam, Spanish sardines, margarine, condensed milk, fried egg or the previous night’s left-over adobo.

When the Don Bosco Pugad Center, a home for street children and migrant youth of the Salesians of Don Bosco and the St. John Bosco Parish, decided to embark on a simple business venture to teach livelihood skills and create employment opportunities for disadvantaged youths, it chose an entrepreneurial enterprise close to the heart of ordinary Filipinos.

A pan de sal venture requires low start-up capital, is easy to manage and maintain, and much easier to market. At the height of the hot pan de sal craze in the ‘80s, there was at least one pan de sal business in every street comer. These days though, the immediate neighborhood of the Don Bosco Parish compound in Makati had no conveniently located bakery.

But not anymore. Last month, the Pugad Pan de Sal of Don Bosco, a joint venture project of the Don Bosco Pugad Center and the Caltex Fund, Caltex Philippines’ flagship community engagement program, was launched.

"The response of the community was very heartwarming," says Pugad Director Fr. Bong Javines, sdb.

Reminiscent of the 1950s, Pugad Pan de Sal is sold during morning and afternoon masses at the Don Bosco church by uniformed delivery boys from the Pugad Center and also delivered on bikes in the nearby San Lorenzo village.

Pan de sal, as Filipinos know it, comes in a homemade brown paper bag sealed with a twist. This tradition is alive in Pugad Pan de Sal, a commitment to continue an important facet of Pinoy life even in modern times.

However, there is more to the story of the birth of Pugad Pan de Sal, according to Fr. Javines. "One time at breakfast, we were eating pan de sal and thinking and wishing that we could make our own bread for our kids and the young someday because we spend a lot buying bread and biscuits, which are not very nutritious and yet very expensive," Fr. Javines narrates. "We were thinking of something we can eat for breakfast, something the kids can bring to school for snacks or even merienda."

The idea, he says, was sounded off to a benefactor who immediately donated a commercial oven. "So we had a wish and it was granted. But while we have already an oven we didn’t know what to do with it," he shares with a laugh.

"At around this time, a parishioner came to me for the sacrament of reconciliation and offered to do something for the center," he continues. "I didn’t know what to answer so I brought her around the center to see for herself what can be done and she saw the oven. She said, ‘Father, I have a bakery and it has been my dream to do this kind of apostolate work for the young using my own bakery.’ So, she offered to train our boys in her own bakeshop."

But with an oven and several boys trained in bakery work, the center still did not have the technology and appropriate capital to produce bread. "Then another parishioner, who is affiliated with Caltex, offered to help our project get funding assistance from the Caltex Fund." And so, the Pugad Center became a beneficiary of the Caltex Fund, a scholarship program that offers formal education for disadvantaged children.

Aside from providing start-up capital, Caltex’s support has included renovation of the bakery area, training of Pugad beneficiaries as in-house bakers, supply of Caltex LPG, bikes and other delivery paraphernalia and Pugad Pan de Sal uniforms.

"It was really providential," Fr. Javines says. "More than just having bread, it turned out to be our livelihood program for our migrant youth. It’s not just producing bread but imparting skills to our migrant youth who come from the different provinces." Launched in 1988 during the death centenary celebration of Don Bosco, the Pugad Center currently houses 90 former street children aged eight to 16 and migrant youth from the different provinces aged 17 to 22.

The name Pugad (bird’s nest) speaks for itself. "Just like a nest, it is a place for nurture, for healing and training until one day all these ‘birds’ will fly," Fr. Javines relates. "It is really empowering them to soar high."

But of course, as Fr. Javines puts it, the arrangement is not permanent. During their stay at the center, it is impressed upon the boys that life is not in the center and it is what they make out of life after they leave the center that will matter most. While they are at the center, the boys are given basic education and values formation training as well as instruction on practical courses such as automotive and electrical technology, practical electronics, crafts making and now even culinary arts and food preservation.

Fr. Javines explains that the children stay at the center for six months, after which the center helps to re-integrate them to their families and eventually to society.

Marian Catedral, corporate affairs manager of Caltex (Philippines) Inc. and herself a parishioner of the Don Bosco community, says that when the idea of helping the Pugad Center was proposed to Caltex, it was immediately approved because they saw the value of what they do as well as the long-term sustainability of the project.

"They were addressing the needs that we also want to address like helping disadvantaged children, teaching them formal and non-formal education courses and supporting a livelihood program that can sustain their operations," Catedral says. "This project also is one way of teaching the children that you will have blessings in life if you will work hard for it."

"We believe that helping disadvantaged children is not only a worthy cause but a good long-term investment in the future of the Philippines," affirms Caltex country chairman Timothy Leveille.

The plan, according to Fr. Javines, is to grow the business into a full-scale commercial bakery offering not just pan de sal but all types of bread. It also hopes to expand its territory and be able market to neighboring villages and possibly supply commercial establishments. "Our plan is really to let it mature into a commercial bakery. And if the children will be the one to run and grow this business, it will be a hands-on learning experience not only in baking bread but also in marketing and entrepreneurship."