17 March 2016 – The Philippine Consulate General in Guam, in partnership with the Guam Women’s Chambers of Commerce, celebrated International Women’s Day and National Women’s Month, with a breakfast forum on March 11 at the The View, Pacific Star Resort and Spa in Tumon, Guam.
With the theme “Developing our Communities with Women Entrepreneurs”, the breakfast forum featured a panel of five women entrepreneurs invited by the Guam Women’s Chamber of Commerce to share their stories of survival and success in business to encourage and inspire other women to learn from their accomplishments and make them aware of entrepreneurship and business start-ups as a challenging and rewarding alternative life path.
The panel discussion, which was moderated by Ms. Denise Mendiola, featured Ms. Chelsa Chester, licensed aesthetician and owner of Island Skin Spa; Ms. Siska Hutapea, founder and owner of Cornerstone Valuation Guam, Inc.; Ms. Doyon Ahn Morato, owner and creative director of Zories Only and D-designs; Ms. Lea Siruelo, owner of Tropical Living Furniture; and Ms. Antoinette “Toni” Sanford, president and co-founder of the Sanford Technology Group.
The featured keynote speaker for the event was Ms. Raquel T. Choa, the entrepreneur and founder behind Ralfe Gourmet, The Chocolate Chamber, and Casa de Cacao. She discussed her affair with chocolates and inspired the audience with her life story and how she became the Chocolate Queen of the Philippines. As she always does, Ms. Choa amplified her push to elevate the production of premium chocolate in the Philippines using locally-grown cacao.
She also said that the poverty and early hardships she struggled with in her early life trained her to harness all her senses and faculties to become a successful and renowned tablea-maker. She emphasized to her audience that she is not a chocolatier who is narrowly focused on making fancy chocolate confections, but rather a tablea maker who plants, harvests, selects, roasts, and grinds her own cacao beans to use in the fine chocolate products that she sells to a very discriminating market.
At the end of her speech, she demonstrated techniques in making her tablea concoctions before the audience and later on let them sample the traditional chocolate drink known in the Visayas as sikwate. Other chocolate products from The Chocolate Chamber were also made available for tasting.
The breakfast forum, which was followed by an open forum, was moderated by Ms. Denise Mendiola of the Guam Women’s Chamber of Commerce. Senator Tina Rose Muña Barnes also presented a Senate Resolution to all women present on the occasion relative to the commemoration of International Women’s Day and National Women’s Month. The resolution acknowledges the extraordinary legacy of equality and progress built by courageous women and commending the great women whose achievements and contributions paved the way for progress and success on the island.
Almost one hundred women guests attended the event including Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam Delegate to the US Congress; Speaker Judith Won Pat, Ed.D., Senator Mary Torres and Senator Tina Muña Barnes of the 33rd Guam Legislature; former First Lady Joann Camacho; Mayor Joana Margaret Blas of Asan-Maina; Ms. Nita Baldovino, President of the Filipino Community of Guam and other leaders and members of the Filipino organizations on Guam; spouses of Senators; female officers from the U.S. military; businesswomen headed by Ms. Lou Leon Guerrero, President of Bank of Guam; other officials from the Government of Guam; leaders of different women associations on Guam; academe; and the media. END
