Joery Falloria: Surviving Typhoon Yolanda and Life's Excruciating Challenges (...unsung hero of Philippine Airlines)
Posted on Thursday 10 March 2016
Joery
Falloria: Surviving Typhoon Yolanda
And
Life’s Excruciating Challenges
(…unsung
hero of Philippine Airlines)
By Apolinario Villalobos
Just like most of Philippine Airline
marketing and airport personnel, Joery started his career at the lowest rung of
the airline’s corporate ladder which is his case was as a porter. Although, the
trainings involved courses on cargo handling, passenger check in, basic
domestic ticketing, and customer handling, the employee of “long ago” cannot
say no, if he was assigned at the airport to haul carry checked-in baggage and
cargoes on tow carts from the terminal to the aircraft. This was what Joery
experienced when he joined the airline.
The kind of exposure that an employee gets
has been actually designed to toughen and prepare him for more responsibilities
ahead as he advances in his career. It makes the employee some kind of a
well-rounded guy – an airline man who can later handle responsibilities as
manager. Joery has marshaled incoming aircrafts to guide them to their slot in
the tarmac, computed weights to be loaded for safe flight, which included those of cargoes, checked-in
and carry-on baggage, as well as passengers that also include the crew and
paying ones.
Along the way, he was also trained to
handle PAL customers, be they walk-ins who would like to make inquiries or
purchase tickets. To cap this particular training, he was also fed with knowledge
on values and attitudes to maintain the high quality of service standards that
his person should exude. It was a long journey for Joery from the airport ramp
as loader to his present managerial position as Head of the Tacloban Station.
It was a journey beset with financial difficulty and emotional pressure. But he
made it….on August 15, 2015, he was designated as Officer-In-Charge of Tacloban
Station, a managerial position.
It was while navigating his challenging
career path that he met Pomela Corni Tan who eventually became his wife, and
who gave him two offspring, Anthony who is now a registered Nurse working with
the Davao Doctors’ Hospital, and Mary Rose, on her second year of Veterinary
Medicine course at the VISCA in Baybay City.
The typhoon Yolanda devastated Tacloban to
the maximum, and recovery was even more challenging, as Joery and his local PAL
team, worked hard to rise from such disheartening situation. To make PAL
operational again, he had to coordinate with concerned government agencies and
the head office in Manila for replacement of lost equipment and office
supplies, as well as, reconstruct destroyed records. The story of recovery that
was woven around the effort of the PAL Team, with Joery at the helm, was just
one of the many that inspired many people around the world.
With Tacloban City propped back to normalcy,
Joery resumes his overall administration of the whole Tacloban station that
includes routine calls on travel agents, issuance of tickets and airport
operation. His free time is spent on spiritual-related activities of the Our
Lady of Lourdes Parish, being a Lay Minister. He is also an active officer of
their homeowners’ association.
Over a simple lunch at the canteen of SSS
near the PAL Administrative Offices in PNB building, he confided that he feels
blessed for working with the airline. And, as the company is in its recovery
stage, he has committed himself to do his best as part of the team. In a way,
Joery has survived the various changes at the top management of the
airline…just like the survival that he experienced when typhoon Yolanda
devastated their city.
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