In the scheme of things, Rey Merilos Ranada was not meant to be where he is now. Born dirt poor to farmers in a remote Barangay in Buhi, De la Fe, the fourth of 12 children, he had to walk eight kilometers a day to attend classes at St. Joseph’s Academy, but had to quit to help his parents support his 11 siblings.

        He became a houseboy in nearby Iriga City, doing back-breaking manual labor at 13, waking up at dawn and going to bed late at night, not unlike Sisyphus the king of Corinth, who in Greek mythology was punished for his misdeeds by having to roll a heavy stone up on a hill; every time he was about to reach the summit, the stone escaped his grasp and rolled to the bottom. Rey was unmindful and uncomplaining of the drab and monotony of his myriad chores. His name in Spanish means king, yet working iike a slave only heightened his ambition to succeed.

Photo Caption: Rey Rañada with Manoy Eddie Garcia during the Australia Open, 11th CPRA Invitational Shooting Championship and with the rest of Philippine Shooting Team.

        After two years, he saved enough money to pursue his high school dreams and re-enrolled at St. Joseph’s Academy in 1970. He supported his studies by selling bananas, fruit and leaves, coconuts, camote and other root crops in the poblacion. Without electricity at home, Rey literally burned the midnight oil by reading fast so he could return the borrowed books on time. By dint of hard work, he finished high school with flying colors in 1974.

Photo Caption: Rey Rañada (2nd from left ) with World Champion Jethro Dionisio at Cebu Shooting Competition.

        Armed with a high school diploma, he went to Manila in search of a job so he could go to college. He stayed with the late CPA-lawyer Manuel Pascua, who was married to his cousin Shirley Contreras. He did odd jobs washing taxis, repairing air-conditioners, refrigerators as a technician’s helper; as a construction worker, until Atty. Pascua helped him land a job as janitor in a small bank. With a more stable job, he enrolled at Jose Rizal University and earned a Bachelor of Commercial Science degree, major in accounting, in 1979. A year before graduation, he met and married another Buhinon “promdi”, Fe Siguenza Agnes of sitio Bagani, Lourdes, then a student at the University of the East where she later earned a Bachelor’s degree in business administration, major in economics.

Photo Caption: KJS Prexy Rey Rañada in animated conversation with Vice Gov. Sal Fortuno.

        With a college diploma, Rey’s days as janitor at Investors Savings and Planters Bank were over. He was promoted to loans clerk and administrative assistant. In 1981 he moved to Country Development Bank as corporate secretary, then transferred to Asian Land Development Bank also as corporate secretary. He then took up law at Jose Rizal University and earned an LIB.

        Later he transferred to the Planters Development Bank now the largest private development bank in the country, where he started as documents’ assistant in the legal department and in a span of 16 years, became vice president of the acquired assets department. He went through the gamut of executive positions at various times becoming project manager of Premivera Managers and Development Corporation, management consultant of Sammier Group of Companies and the San Pedro (Laguna) Rural Bank, and had a taste of a government job when he was executive assistant to the Mayor of General Natividad, Nueva Ecija.

        Meanwhile, his wife Fe was also working in various capacities at Tambunting Pawnshop. In 1998 Rey decided to establish his own pawnshop business in Metro Manila, the RMR Pawnshop, Inc., becoming its President and CEO. He put up a branch of RMR Pawnshop in Buhi, with Western Union money transfer service for the hundreds of Buhi OFWS. Rey is also president and CEO of Image Glass and Aluminum Centre and Corporate Secretary-Stockholder of Natividad Breeding Farms of the Joson Group of Companies.

        Rey’s banking and finance expertise was honed to perfection with continuing education at seminars in the Central Bank of the Philippines (advanced banking), F.F. Cruz Construction Company, Inc. (construction management), Ateneo de Manila University (construction management); MBI (counterfeit currency detection) and many others.

        An avid sportsman, Rey is a sharpshooter with dozens of trophies in competitive practical shooting, pistol and rifle. He was a member of the Philippine shooting team when it won the world championship in 1997. At present he is an active member of the Philippine Practical Shooting Association and the International Shooting Confederation of the United States. He is past president of the Marikioa Valley Shooting Club

        Rey and Fe are blessed with four children: Ma Fe, the eldest, is working abroad as airport restaurant manager in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman; Barbara is a licensed physical therapist working in Makati City; Rey Jr. is a law student at the University of Sto. Tomas; the youngest, Hubert Rey, is only 11 and is a Grade V pupil in a private school.

        Although he now drives a Mercedes Benz and other cars with his calloused laborer’s hands and he no longer bathes in the rain but in a Jacuzzi in his new home in Buhi (he resides in St. Christine’s Village, Pasig City, the first house he built several years ago), Rey has not forgotten where he came from. He has a bleeding heart for the poor of his hometown, though he would not talk of his private philanthropies, preferring them to stay private and anonymous except for the recipients. He is still misty-eyed when he recalls how his parents, Severo Bagaporo Rañada and Belen San Antonio Merilos, who only reached Grades III and IV, respectively, encouraged him to go to school so he would not be like them, no matter how difficult it was for them just to put food on the table on a regular basis.

        Rey may have found his place under the sun, but to him the journey goes on. At 51 his thirst for learning is insatiable. He is always on the go, attending to his pawnshop and other businesses, seminars and guessing.

        When he was elected president of the prestigious Katzenjammers Fraternity, Inc. (KJS) of Buhi last year, speculations were rife that he might enter politics. But Rey is non-committal. Like the way he planned his life, he knows that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow unless you worked hard for it; and being the sharpshooter that he is, he must take aim carefully to hit the bulls-eye.