Angie Gica’s colorful and positive personality shines, helping her to overcome the challenges that she faced over the decades. (Contributed Photo)
Years ago, her clients knew her as the lady with a big neck. No malice was intended though. Sometimes, people just couldn’t recall the name of the woman who was trying to sell them real estate.
Angelina “Angie” Gica had goiter, a swelling in the neck caused by the enlargement of the thyroid gland. She developed goiter in her early 30’s, decades before she started selling real estate. But it wasn’t a big deal to Angie. She believed that since God gave her goiter, she was going to take care of them like her babies. Angie said she never felt self-conscious. “I just chose to be happy with the way I am,” she shrugged, smiling.
In 2010, however, Angie’s goiter caused complications that forced her to seek surgery. As a result of the operation, she can no longer talk beyond a whisper. So now, she is known to her clients as the lady with a small voice, the 73-year-old division manager related with a quiet laugh.
Having a small voice didn’t deter Angie from continuing to pursue her passion for sales either. Though she was well past retirement age, Angie returned to work three months after her surgery. She even makes jokes about her small voice to convince her clients to close the deal.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Angie was born during the Second World War, the youngest of seven children. Her father was a fisherman while her mother sold atchara (pickled papaya) in their hometown in Barangay Simala, Sibonga.
Angie started working at the age of 15 by catching milkfish fingerlings, collecting coconut husks, sewing nipa and harvesting corn.
As she got older, boys started courting her friends Angie grew worried. Their house was just one big room with no chairs or electricity.
Where will her suitors sit? So she learned to sew, which allowed her to save money to buy a piglet. When it grew into a hog, she sold it and used her earnings to buy a sala set and a Petromax lamp. She was ready to receive suitors, she noted then with satisfaction.
A government employee who was supervising a road maintenance project in Sibonga eventually captured Angie’s heart. She bore him five children.
But with seven in the family, her husband’s salary was no longer enough to cover their basic needs. They moved to Cebu City to find better opportunities. But in the city, they ended up staying in a house that was subject to demolition.
Tragedy struck her family when one of her children died after being hit by a car. Her husband, a hypertensive, suffered brain damage, became bed-ridden and eventually died.
Angie, who was left to raise her four children alone, had to work at all sorts of jobs to feed and send them to school. She was in her 50’s when she was recruited as a sales agent for real estate. At first, her children were not supportive of her new venture.
They complained that their mother was often out of the house but didn’t bring back any money. Her eldest even suggested that she just take in laundry because at least it will provide a steady income.
FIRST COMMISSION
But this Simala-native was tough. She persevered even though she struggled because her high school education wasn’t enough to prepare her for the work she encountered.
Her positive attitude pulled her through. Whatever task was given to her, she never said no.
She also attended all the free seminars that she came across from selling shoes to underwear to plastic-ware, it didn’t matter. She wanted to learn.
Two years passed before Angie was able to earn her first commission from a lot purchase in Primavera Hills, a subdivision in Liloan.
When she was handed a check for P30,000, Angie remembered breaking down just outside Metrobank Fuente branch.
It was the first time she ever held a huge amount of money in her hands. After wiping her tears and cashing in the check, Angie went to Robinsons and bought herself a P3,000 wristwatch—the slim, elegant and shiny kind that her friends also owned.
“Dugay na gyud ‘to nako na-ibgan pero dili lang gyud ko kapalit (I had long wanted to have that watch but I just couldn’t afford it before),” she confessed in an apologetic sort of way, as if it was wrong for her to want something so luxurious after so many years of skimping.
Then she went to the supermarket and bought food they couldn’t indulge in before such as powdered chocolate drink, fresh milk and hot dogs.
And the rest is history. Her commissions started pouring in. Now, one of her daughters and one of her granddaughters are real estate brokers.
INTERNET-SAVVY GRANDMA
Nowadays, Angie is no longer as active on the field as she used to be but she continues to attend mall exhibits.
This spry grandma with red-tinted hair is mostly found working in one of the offices of Flaminia Realty. She lets her fingers do the walking, posting properties for sale through her Facebook. She even snagged a buyer all the way from New York just from doing that.
Two years ago, Angie barely knew how to use the mouse but after attending a basic computer course, she now works on her laptop and her iPhone with ease.
Technology certainly made a big difference, she said because when she first started, she had to go house-to-house to sell real estate. Often, she’d get turned down and sometimes she’d get chased away by dogs.
But neither dogs nor physical disabilities have stopped Angie before and with the booming real estate market in Cebu, she might just keep on going.