ETERNAL Gardens, one of the country’s leading memorial-park operators, celebrated its top sales producers even as its guest speaker, Santa Rosa Mayor Danilo Fernandez, extolled change as a vital key to progress and development during the Annual Awards Night of Eternal Gardens in honor of its most outstanding sales producers for 2017.
Keynoting the event held on Wednesday night at Citystate Tower Hotel in Ermita, Manila, Fernandez likened the memorial-care company to Santa Rosa, saying both the company and the city have embraced change and innovation in order to bring about improvement.
“Eternal Gardens maximizes the use of land space to provide products other than the traditional memorial lot. Now, there are apartment-style structures, crematories and chapels. This is the change needed to go on with continuous improvement,” Fernandez said.
In the same way, the mayor said, Santa Rosa City has transformed itself from a municipality to a modern city, from an agricultural zone to an industrial zone, to bring about improvement in the lives of its people.
In an interview, Numeriano Rodrin, Eternal Gardens president and COO, said the company has plans to expand its mortuary chapel business and its branches nationwide to adapt to the memorial needs of the Filipinos.
“For this year, we will be focusing on expansion, not only in the model park development but also diversifying our direction or project to mortuary-chapel construction,” Rodrin told the BusinessMirror.
“Aside from that, we are expanding our existing parks by acquiring additional 2- or 3-hectare properties. Right now, we have ongoing expansion developments in Dagupan, Naga and Cabanatuan,” he said.
Currently, Eternal Gardens has 10 memorial parks: in Baesa, Caloocan City; the cities of Biñan and Santa Rosa, both in Laguna; Dagupan; Lipa; two in Batangas; Naga; Cabanatuan; and Cagayan de Oro.
In his own message to the Eternal Gardens sales force, D. Edgard A. Cabangon, Eternal Gardens chairman and CEO, praised the awardees for their outstanding sales performance in 2017.
“We commend and admire you for your great role in the continuing success of Eternal Gardens,” he said.
He also disclosed that the pilot mortuary chapel opened by Eternal Gardens in Cagayan de Oro last year has brought in good results for the company, and there are plans to open more mortuary chapels in other places within the year.
Eternal Gardens Board Director T. Anthony C. Cabangon said that, despite possible challenges that the company may meet in the future, the sales force of the company should always strive for growth every year to make it stronger than ever.
Cabangon said that, in the face of challenges that are ever present, “we have to excel yearly, we have to grow every year from strength to strength to continue our legacy of excellence.”
Eternal Gardens was founded by Ambassador Antonio L. Cabangon Chua in 1976 and is part of the Eternal Group that includes Eternal Crematory Corp., Eternal Chapels Mortuary and Chapel Services and Eternal Plans Inc.
To further improve the sales growth of the company, Eternal Gardens also sees an increase of 10 percent in its active sales force this year or around 30 to 40 people total for all branches nationwide. Its active sales force as of 2017 was explained to be between 300 to 400 sales agents.