They say employees are the heart of every company; they have the potential to provide the lifeblood to the whole organization; to make it grow and flourish. To keep the business heart healthy, ZMP CCTV took a step forward and held its first team building on a 4-day-trip at Las Rocas in Jomalig Island, an island in the municipality of Quezon Province. The company aims to build employees relationship and lead a more open collaborative -fun culture working environment.

Just before sunrise on the 25th of October we set off the road for a four-hour-drive going to Real Quezon. A pleasant feeling of excitement and an expectation of something “fun” arose while we were all seated at the van. We alight the van past 9am and got to be on-board on the boat right away, but we still had to wait another 2 hours for someone to load all the cargos before we left. Past 11am when our boat sailed going to Jomalig. We stayed on the top load of the boat where we can get sleep for another 5 hour ride.

They served meals during the trip, some of us who were hungry got to fill their stomach but most of us slept and rest over the food. After hours of travel and intermittent sleep we arrived in Moros port, Jomalig but the long journey was not yet over as we still need to face another 1hour habal-habal ride for us to get to Las Rocas Resort.

Almost the end of day when our team finally arrived at Las Rocas, we couldn’t believe our eyes to the scenery that welcomes us; beautiful landscape, golden sand beach and the sunset that glows dipped below the horizon. We were all in awe, making us fall in love in the place on our very first day.
The long hours of travel made us all tired and hungry. We rested for a while and enjoyed our first dinner prepared by Ate Joselle and Ate Inday.

*When we reached the jump off point and arrived at the resort, we took our first picture to mark our first day in the island.

*The sunset that welcomed us on our first day

2nd day- Get engaged and build that team!

We started our day early—7am call time. Everyone gathered at the food area and shared scrumptious breakfast ate Joselle and ate Inday prepared for us. After enjoying the food and making ourselves full, we prepared for the Team building games; we changed our clothes and get all the materials ready for the race.

The groups were determined by playing rock-paper-scissors; we tagged winners as “RED TEAM” comprises Jerome, Loreta and Jean while the other group tagged as “BLUE TEAM” comprises Alex, Xylona and Joy. The game started by officially introducing each team in cheer chant. The 1st set of the game is a racing game, whoever finish the race first will be declared as a winner.

The race has five stations, first station is the pipe relay. Pipe Relay forces the team to communicate and work together to move a ball-bearing through several sections of PVC conduit. The group can accomplish this by having one team member at the front of the pipe move to the back after the ball has rolled through their section of conduit. Whoever reached the finish line can immediately proceed to the next station.

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*Blue team vs. red TeamCaption: First station-Pipe Relay

The 2nd station is the stepping stone relay race. The stepping stone relay race teaches the teams coordination in which they have to bring the group to the next station using the two pieces of cartolina. Team members can only step on a piece of paper. As the team moves along the last member in line pick up the last piece of paper and passes it to the front where it was laid down and everyone steps forward until they reach the third station.

The 3rd Station is the fill the bucket station: fill the bucket station tests the teams’ endurance, patience and perseverance. In which each team members run to the ocean and get themselves wet and then runs to where the bucket is and squeezes clothes, shoes, hair or anything that can fill the container with water. The team proceeds to the next station once the bucket is full.

4th and 5th station where we have to carry one member going to the 5th station and lock hands with all the team members going to the finish line to get the red/blue handkerchief and bring it to starting point to tie it to the pipe and prop it up. The first team to finish the race declares the winner.

*The Red team won the race. Singing their cheer chant loud and proud!

2nd Set of games: point system

This time we divided the groups per department; sales, admin and tech. Each team comprising two members, Joy and Jean represents the sales department, Loreta and Xylona for the Admin department and for the technical department are Alex and Jerome. It will give corresponding points to each team per game: 1st place will get 25 points, 2nd place-20 point., and 3rd place-15 points, respectively. At the end of the game, we tally all points; we declare the team who got the number of points the winner.

First Game – Bread eating game. Each team had a representative that sits on a chair with a hanging bread, strings attached to their toes, hands not touching the bread nor the string. Players have to finish 1 slice of bread as fast as they can to get the highest points.

The first to finish the bread was Alex from tech department therefore their team got 25 points. Followed by Xylona that earned their team 20 points and the last person to finish was Joy, their team received 15 points.

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2nd Game: minefield game. The goal is for each blindfolded person to get from one side of the field to the other avoiding the mines. They accomplished this by carefully listening to their partners’ verbal guidance. Trust and communication is the key to a success of this game.

Jean, Alex and Xylona were the team representatives to be blindfolded and MJ, Jerome and Loreta were on the other side giving instructions. The sales dept., advanced on this game and took the 25 points followed by the admin department- 20 points and tech department 15 points.

3rd game: “Catch the egg” game. All team begun by standing about one meter apart from each other. The teammates’ job is to catch the raw egg without breaking it. After each successful catch the players must take one step backward so that the tosses becomes longer. The last team who have the unbroken egg won the game.

On the first one to three meters everyone caught the egg effortlessly making the game more exciting as it progress. But not so long, on a 4 meter distance everyone was very careful in throwing the egg. Unfortunately, the admin team broke their egg and knocked off earning the lowest point (15pts). The game continued between sales and tech dept., the 5 meter distance was a success for both teams making them step backward for another meter. The 6 meter distance concludes the game as the sales team did not catch their egg making them earn 20 points and 25 points for the tech team, respectively.

4th game: The horseshoe game. Because we were new to this game, we bend the rules a little. Each member got the chance to pitch and earn corresponding points. Any horseshoe that enters the stake scores one point. Any horseshoe that leans the steel stake gets two points. Any horseshoe that surrounds the steel stake (ringer) scores 3 points.

For the last game Tech team made 4 points and received the 25 points. Sales team got 2 points. and received 20pts and Admin team got 1 point. And earned the 15pts.

The overall ranking:

After the team building games we got to do anything we want, so we went snorkeling and watch the sunset.

*I swear the sunset in Las Rocas is one of the best sunsets I’ve watched by far.

After we enjoyed our festive dinner, we arranged a bonfire where we shared our feelings, thoughts and things we learned from the team building games. They asked us to sit circling the fire, to close our eyes, feel the sound of the waves of the ocean, to feel the air and think how we wanted to celebrate our Christmas.

All of us felt so dreamy wanting to celebrate our Christmas with our family buying gifts, going on a trip and making our family happy. We felt the warmth of our hearts while each of us shared our dream Christmas. The strong desire of giving our family the best Christmas illuminated, it radiates from the inside-out of every person present around us. The next question is, what we will do to reach those dreams?

Everyone realized that in able for us to achieve it, we have to work for it. Suddenly, we are all recharged wanting to go back to work, work hard and make it happen. I guess sometimes we need a little break, to relax and think why we do what we do and everything will make sense.

The team building taught us to trust each other more, be patient, be determined in finishing the task given to us, work with each other strengths and to always keep going no matter the adversities. We had fun, gained extra ordinary experience and built long lasting memories.

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3rd day—Let loose, try something new and explore the island.

Kuya Orly helped us arranged the trip around the island. He looked for 7 habalhabal drivers to take us to different destinations in Jomalig. We started 9am and back almost sun down. Our first stop was at “puno ng walang poreber” I asked kuya Randy my habalhabal driver why it was called that name he said one tourist came by and used that place for a film and named it “puno ng walang forever” since then every time tourists came they look for it and take pictures with it. Our team didn’t want to lose the chance of getting our picture taken at one of the famous destinations in the island so everyone was so game and strike a pose to a lonely but beautiful tree.

Our next destination is at Lingayen Cove or Little Batanes. This beach will give you a glimpse of Batanes; huge waves, a strong fresh air and big boulders of rocks. The long stretch of a golden to a white sand beach and a blue sea is just remarkable. Really took our breath away.

Jomalig has lots of beautiful places to offer and as much as we want to stay and savor the fresh air at the top, we have to keep going to experience more of Jomalig. Our third destination was at the Panama white beach resort. It features a wide white beach sand; the sand was so fine, it’s almost like powder and the water is turquoise like the one in Boracay thus this place is also called Little Boracay. The entire place is unspoiled and raw. You cannot swim not looking at the clear water. Some of us rested at the hammock while other enjoyed swimming and snorkeling.

The last but not the least was exploring the largest sandbar in the island. Stretching about 400 meters of golden sands from the shore, facing the edge of Pacific Ocean, the easternmost side of Jomalig is what they call Kanaway Island. We enjoyed singing while walking going to the natural ripple of rock formations which captivated our hearts. We thought this was the best spot to get our pictures taken, our team was so game about it and we immediately thought of creative poses for the camera.

We enjoyed everything we saw around the island but it was time for us to go back because the “lechon” was waiting for us. Our generous bosses made sure that their employees had a feast on our supposedly last day they prepared a delicious dinner for us.

Yes, you heard it right! We supposed to go back in Manila on our 4th day but unfortunately typhoon Rosita came in thus making all of us stranded for another 4 days. We make our days productive somehow. On our 5th day our boss Ms. Zeny thought of the first beach clean-up drive in Las Rocas, we need to collect as much garbage as we can to win cash.

First place goes to Ms. Lolet and Alex they received P1000, 2nd place goes to Jerome and Xylona they received P500 and 3rd place was Joy and Jean they received P250. I guess we all now believe in the saying “May perasabasura”

6th day: We got to tour at our neighbors resort and learned about the good and bad investment. We spent the whole day playing board games, card games, badminton, and one of our childhood games “ice-water” it was a lot of fun feeling stress-free with the people you work with every day, getting bonded and closer as we spent time together.

7th day -the last day or not? We rode on our habal-habal to the port, all set to leave Jomalig. We were all on the boat waiting for it to leave until the last minute Ms. Joy said the magic word “Baliktayo” and everyone stayed another day, except Alex who was very excited to go back to manila.

We went to the teal-turquois clear water with fine golden sand in Salibungot beach. We enjoyed swimming not bothered of the tan lines we may get from the scorching heat of the sun. We can’t resist the pristine water, it is just stunning that you want to enjoy it.

At night we went star gazing. I haven’t seen numerous stars in my life until our trip in Jomalig. It was so serene staring at the sky on a starry night, making wishes on a shooting star hoping that someday our wishes will come true. Something we don’t get to experience in a busy city of Manila. This experience is one for the books!

Our stay in Las Rocas Resort in Jomalig has ended. We need to go back to Manila to continue working—working for our dreams. We are grateful for this experience.

Las Rocas is a very nice place to stay with, making you feel “extra” with its comfortable nipa huts, clean comfort rooms, beautiful landscape, a magnificent sunset, a starry night and friendly staff (Kuya Orly and Ate Josel are some of them) you would wish to stay longer.

Jomalig is an alluring place that left us all speechless. It made a big impact in our hearts; it made us feel recharged and ready to face the challenges that await us in the city. We have to say goodbye for now but the memories we created will forever be in our hearts.

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