John Day Says:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

 

 

He Chris Bech says, “ I do not deserve this”, (concerning his answer to the praise the Rotary Club has bestowed upon him)    but let me offer just a few of our experiences we had with Chris Bech and his wife Theresa, Fajilan Bech, to offer evidence of why he does.

When we first met Chris Bech and his wife Theresa, in April of 2006, when we bought our land, it was during his 50th birthday- he had invited many people, both foreigners and Filipinos, to come- I believe the total count thru-out the day and nite reached around 500- these were people from all walks of life, including many who were holding high positions in the  Philippine social structure- Doctors, Lawyers, Judges, Congressmen, owners of successful establishments- to name a few-          now remember, we had only known Chris Bech for a day so far, at this point-     sometime in the middle of the excitement and in his busyness of the party, he said to me, “come with me for a ride”-  so I jumped in the car and we went back to his house just a few minutes’ drive down the road, where all his employee’s ( I do not remember the count) were having a party of their own- same food and drink as us.

 

They had all been invited, but probably felt more comfortable celebrating amongst each other, I figured, rather than coming down to where the multitudes of people were. The point is: he left the main body of people who most of us would consider to be the “elite” of society, to come back to the people who were his helpers- just to make sure they were ok, enjoying the food, had enough food and drink, and were ok. And this was my first introduction to seeing his character- how he was concerned that even they, the “little guys”, who did not feel comfortable to join the main party, were taken care of with a feast of their own- He treated them with the same respect as he treated all the other guests. This touched me. And, he went back more than once to check on them thru out the night

 

After buying 1000 sq. meters of land from Chris and Theresa during that time, (20 m wide by 50 long) we returned to Hawaii, and stayed in touch as they oversaw our home being built- When we returned in Jan 07, turned out our deep well went brackish (salt water got in)- wasn’t too bad, and we lived with it for a couple of weeks, no big deal as we were totally in awe with our new home that had been finished just before our arrival, then returned to Hawaii.

 

When Chris Bech wrote me some weeks later, he said he had the boys move 30 meters back from our existing property line, away from the ocean, dig a new well, and reported the water was fresh- then he said,” Oh, by the way, we gave you that extra land, at no charge, of course- hope you don’t mind”. What he had done was extended our land back by 30 meters (and 20 wide- that’s 600 sq. meters of land extra.) then put a fence around it, enlarging our lot from 1000 sq. meters, to 1600 sq. meters- I said, “why did you do this? That extra land was enough to be a small lot you could’ve sold to someone else?”  “Because we like you guys”, he said.

 

A few years later- They had sold the Bobon Beach Resort to a buyer, an American from Florida with a Filipina Wife, who had a fantastic vision- so we bought into his vision- we invested $17,000- we would begin to receive dividends quarterly of the profits, which we thought was great, to generate a little income for our future.

 

Turned out the buyer defaulted when it was time to pay Chris in full according to the contract, so all of us who “invested” lost our money. Turned out when checking on him, he(the buyer) had protected himself so could not be sued. Our money was gone- had it been any other seller, we would never see that money again, but since Chris/Theresa were the sellers, and our friends, they took care of our loss- they re-imbursed us!

 

Actually, they gave us a choice- the $17,000 or 1.7 hectares of farm land nearby our beach front property. After discussing it, we decided we’d like the land instead of the money, so we took the land- but in the middle of doing all the paper work, Theresa who did not want to deal with subdividing and giving us 1.7 hectares out of a total of 3.4 hectares which she owned, simply said, “we’ve decided to just give you the entire partial of 3.4 hectares”!!  So, once again, they gave us so much more land than what we paid for.  Of course, you can imagine our excitement and gratitude. All we could say was, “wow”!

 

Presently, even though Chris Bech and wife Theresa live in a different island group, pursuing other real estate developments, we are in touch with them almost daily and they still continue to oversee our home, and our village,  and thru their management, insuring our area has security, and even insuring that our homes, and yards are maintained during our absence.

 

These are just a few of the ways Chris Bech and wifeTheresa have taken care, of us, of which we are grateful, and count it a privilege to have met, and more- ………………………………………………………………………………………   to have become their friends……….. (To be continued)

John/Ellie Gorospe Day