Docctors in hospitatlity business

By Russtum G. Pelima
Photos by Cocoy Sexcion

GENERAL SANTOS CITY (January 13, 2008) – Blending medical profession with culinary arts and the hobby of landscaping, doctors Ana Belle La Paz Abella and Tranquilino Ruiz II are into a unique business more than they thought.

View, ambience, food, and hospitality - these have made the Sarangani Highlands Garden and Restaurant owned and managed by the two doctors, to be more than a restaurant business.

The resto which opened in September is located in Tambler, General Santos City, overlooking the city and Sarangani Bay.

"The soft music from the Gazebo, the sound of flowing water into a pond at the garden in the softness of the night - it's therapy," said Tina, one of the customers I met the night I was there.

While the name speaks of the fascinating view of Sarangani Bay from the ridge, Sarangani Highlands is a metaphor of wedding two places, so a poet would say - seeing the beauty of nature from the city.

"At first, we feel like simply putting here a rest house or a big bamboo cottage where maybe our colleagues of family medical doctors could use to convene and rest," Dr. Abella remembered.

But as the two doctors started to beautify and develop the place, their interest grew and began to expand the area, with Abella buying up to 2.3 hectares of land.

Now the limestone is mantled with green grasses that dressed up the main gazebo, the Molave Kiosk, the Raja Buayan Hall and Plaza Sarangania that seemed to decorate the whole place.

Tiny bulbs of red, blue, green and yellow light up the leaves of trees and flowers everywhere.

Shine from the moon and the stars appear to voluntarily flood the garden restaurant roof, adding to the therapy of the cold breeze coming from the bay.

The city lights seem to be passing across the waters of the bay.

On a clear day, Sarangani Highlands is a vantage point to see the historical Sumbang Point in Glan to the East and the getaway to Celebes through the sea in the West. With the sea wind gushing, Sarangani Highlands is a rock-a-by at the chest of Sarangani Bay.

Love and passion must be Ruiz and Abella's unique business. After practicing their profession in medicine - Abella for 22 and Ruiz for 25 years now - the work of hospitality is everything for them.

"I would say customer service is our business," Dr. Ruiz said. "It comes naturally. That's what we do to our patients back in the clinic and the hospital."

Ruiz owns a family clinic in Glan while serving the poblacion as a barangay kagawad. Visitors of the province would always drop by the Ruiz family memorabilia which he patiently collected and preserved over the years.

Abella, the more entrepreneur one, served as chief of hospital in Glan district hospital for nine years before putting up her own hospital in Barangay Calumpang three years ago.

"In the garden, Belle would usually pick dried leaves that fell from the plants, cleans up the trunks with her bare hands, reminds the boys of trimming and picking up cigarette butts. Her idea of cleanliness," Ruiz mused.

"Usually you can see the food business' success after three months. On the fourth month the sale could be falling, but here we are six months and up," store supervisor Zoe Cordero said.

Cordero has been in the food business for 10 years now and had practiced his culinary arts abroad.

Six uniformed waiters earn minimum wage in an eight-hour a day broken time duty, plus overtime pay when the place has to close beyond 10 o'clock in the evening. The Highlands opens at 10:00 a.m..

The restaurant has three chefs. Ruiz and Abella who had never absented themselves for customers in the evening, would entice them with their own favorite recipe before showing the list.

"It's more than selling. We enjoy just the thought of our own favorite food which we wish them to taste," Ruiz related.

Ruiz said the local government of General Santos began to be supportive of their place. After dining here several times with his family and some visitors, Mayor Jun Acharon directed City Hall to put up a mercury lamp fronting its entrance.

More often with visitors and tourists to the province are Governor Migs Dominguez and Vice Governor Steve Solon themselves who said they enjoy the view and the services at Sarangani Highlands.

"Everyone wants to be the first customer when we open our Asian spa this summer where one could just walk in from the coffee shop we are now structuring," the doctors said. (SARANGANI INFORMATION OFFICE/RGP)