ETERNAL GARDENS @ 43: REACHING OUT FOR GREATER SUCCESS WITH ETERNALITE SPIRIT

IN celebrating its 43rd Anniversary, Eternal Gardens looks back at the uphill climb to success and moves forward to more challenges and opportunities for its continued growth in the years to come.

With the theme “Eternalite Ako,” officers and employees of Eternal Gardens Memorial Park Corporation (EGMPC), came together for a simple celebration at Manila Grand Opera Hotel on ­August 8, 2019.

Headed by its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. D. Edgard A. Cabangon, some 300 members of the EGMPC family proudly affirmed their dedication and enthusiasm to continue traversing the triumphant journey that the organi­zation has been crossing for 43 years now.

Mr. Cabangon highlighted that the organization owed its success to his father and EGMPC’s founder, Amb. Antonio Cabangon Chua, who planted the seed of perseverance and determination to the core of the company.

The EGMPC Chairman and CEO stressed that the foundation of the company is built on trust on each other’s capability and competence, adhering to excellence in providing memorial care products and services and passion and drive to be the best in the industry.

“It may not always be a smooth road ahead of us. But what matters most is that we go through that road together and always being true to our commitment to this organization. Just like what my father and our founder instilled in us,” Mr. Cabangon said.

As an incentive, Eternal  Gardens faithfully holds the tradition of conferring awards yearly on members of the sales force who turn in excellent salesperformance. Service awards are also handed  out to Eternalites who have rendered many years of exemplary service to the company.

A total of 67 loyal employees from the head office and branches of Eternal Gardens are being honored this year for their many years of dedicated service to the company. Two of them, Broderick Jaug and Jose Aguilar, have been Eternalites for 35 years, while five service awardees are being recognized for their 30 years of service, namely Almer Escaño, Jose Robosa, Benito Ramirez, Edwin Soriano, and Imelda Menguita.

HISTORY

The first Eternal Gardens park opened in a working class community in Baesa, Caloocan on August 11, 1976.  There was opposition from the public but the organizers were undaunted and took efforts to explain its be­nefits, until the park was accepted as a pleasing novelty to welcome.

“My dream was to bring first-class memorial parks and services to our people to ease the pain and grief of losing a loved one. That was the vision that strengthened us, the pioneering leaders of Eternal Gardens, to persist and persevere,” Amb. ­Cabangon Chua once told Eternalites.

The humble first park in Baesa, Caloocan has grown into a stable and lucrative network of 10 memorial parks in key places nationwide. The Baesa park was followed by a second in Dagupan in 1983; Biñan, 1984; Barangay Balagtas, 1986, and later Barangay Concepcion, 2013, both in Batangas City; Lipa, its third in the Southern Tagalog province, 1992; Naga City, 2000; Cabanatuan City, 2004; City of Santa Rosa in Laguna, 2008; Greenhills Park in Cagayan de Oro, 2014.

Late last year, in October 2018, the company broke ground for its 11th park, Eternal Gardens Cabuyao in that city in Laguna. Just last June 18, it unveiled and held the blessing of the company’s corporate icon, the Transfiguration of Jesus, and an image of San Vicente Ferrer, patron saint of Barangay Mamatid  where the park is located.

Eternal Gardens diversified as it allowed Eternal Crematory Corporation, its sister company, to establish cremation facilities at the Eternal Gardens Baesa site on March 10, 1996. This was followed by another crematory at Eternal Gardens Biñan  in Laguna province, making Eternal Crematory the first corporation to give cremation services south of Metro Manila.

Owing to the gro­w­ing popularity of cremation as an alternative to ground burial, Eternal Crematory also opened cremation facilities at Eternal Gardens branches in the cities of Dagupan and Batangas.

All four crematory facilities – in Baesa, Biñan, Dagupan and Batangas – are well-received by the communities where they are located, and in Baesa, the company has extended the columbarium, a structure for storing ash remains contained in urns, in order to accommodate the growing demand for cremation facilities.

Finally, in 2017, Eternal Gardens formally ventured into the mortuary business when it opened Eternal Chapels Mortuary and Chapel Services at Eternal Gardens Greenhills in Cagayan de Oro City.

Following the good results brought in by the pilot mortuary chapel in Cagayan de Oro, the company opened a second branch of Eternal Chapels and Mortuary Services at Eternal Gardens in Barangay Balatas, Naga City in February this year.

Eternal Gardens also pursues expansion in its existing parks by way of developing sections that can accommodate more burial lots. At Eternal Gardens Batangas and Santa Rosa, adjacent parcels of land were acquired to increase the area of existing parks. Developments are also ongoing in Dagupan, Naga and Cabanatuan.

To support these expansion moves, Eternal Gardens has also firmed up its partnership with sister-company Eternal Plans, a leading provi­der of preneed ­products. Eternal Plans was founded by Ambassador ­Caba­ngon Chua in 1981 to complement the memorial lot and services business of Eternal Gardens.

With its life plan coverage, it will make it easier for more families to acquire memorial lots and services ahead of need for a worry-free end of life’s journey.

Besides its big-ticket memorial products, Eternal Gardens also offers beautiful local and imported urns to hold cremated remains. These are made of wood, marble, bronze, steel and glass that come in different sizes. These can be placed in exquisite crypts in the park that can hold up to three urns each.

These varied offerings make Eternal Gardens a total provider of the Filipino family’s memorialization needs.