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Soccoro Ramos

Soccoro Ramos started National Bookstore in 1942 with her husband. During the Japanese occupation she sold slippers instead of censored books. After the war she traded whiskey for dollars and rebuilt the bookstore. National Bookstore grew to have over 200 stores nationwide and 3000 employees.

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Pia Angel Devara
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11 views

Soccoro Ramos

Soccoro Ramos started National Bookstore in 1942 with her husband. During the Japanese occupation she sold slippers instead of censored books. After the war she traded whiskey for dollars and rebuilt the bookstore. National Bookstore grew to have over 200 stores nationwide and 3000 employees.

Uploaded by

Pia Angel Devara
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1940 Soccoro Ramos got married to Jose Ramos.

2 years after they got married, she and her husband decided to put up their bookstore since she already
had experience working in one. Their starting capital at that time was 211 pesos.

Soccorro didn’t know what to call their store, but then she recalled how she used to always see the
word national on the cash register back when she was a salesgirl in a bookstore. And ironically, that’s
how she came up with the name “National Bookstore”

But then the Japanese colonized the Philippines.

During this time, running a bookstore was one of the most difficult things to do since the Japanese were
very strict when it comes to censorship.

Every single book needs to be reviewed by the Japanese. And pages that mentioned democracy and
freedom were ripped from the book.

Soccoro Ramos realized that there was no point in selling books at that time because they would all go to
waste due to censorship. So, she decided to keep these books for the meantime.

Instead of books, she sells other things. During that time, Japanese soldiers needed slippers because
they were tired of wearing their combat boots the whole day. And that is where Soccoro Ramos found a
business opportunity. She went to divisoria to buy six pairs of slippers. And at the end of the day, all of
them were sold out. So, she went back to divisoria and bought more slippers because her mindset is
that, whatever is in demand, she’s gonna order it.

So, it was a very good business idea, and imagine Japanese soldiers were all lined up outside their store
just to buy slippers.

Fast forward, to the war was ending between the Japanese and Americans, and it was clear that the US
forces were winning to take the Philippines against the Japanese. At that point, a Japanese wholesaler
asked her if she wanted to buy whiskey, like a lot of whiskey.

And so, Soccoro figured out that if Americans arrived, the Japanese cash she owned would be worthless.
She thought that there would be a greater chance of generating more profit if she bought the whiskey.

They closed the transaction, and the wholesaler showed her the bodega of whiskey. There was a lot of
whiskey in there.

When the war was ending, there were fires everywhere. And unfortunately, the National Bookstore
burned down. But thankfully, the bodega of whiskey was not affected by the fire.

When the Americans arrived, they bought so much whiskey and paid her in US dollars.

So now, they have the cash to build their burned-down national bookstore. Things were going well and
they could sell books again since the Japanese were already out.

After 3yrs of rebuilding the bookstore, a typhoon came, and their roof got blown away, so all the books
they had got wet. So, they started again from scratch and rebuilt their store.

In the 1950s, Ramos thought of producing greeting cards using Philippine tourist destinations. It was a
nice idea to earn more at the same time, showcasing what we have as Filipinos.

Later on, the National Bookstore acquired the Philippine franchise for Hallmark cards which is the largest
greeting card manufacturer in the United States.

After five years, they were able to buy a piece of land and constructed a nine-story building, which is the
Albecer Building that was named after their three children, Alfredo, Benjamin, and Cecilia. Little did they
know, that it was just the first of many that they would build.

Now, National Bookstore has 200+ stores nationwide and more than 3,000 employees.

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