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SOMEWHERE IN NEW ZEALAND – YOU’RE BUILDING AN EXTENSION to your beloved home, bought with hard earned OFW money and your well-deserved Kiwisaver for so many years. A referral has brought you to a kabayan, who has given you his work plans, a work schedule, and of course a budget for both materials and labor, from start to finish. You’ve saved enough and you like kabayan’s plans, but you feel you can squeeze a little discount out of your contractor.
you leave your toddler everyday at the neighborhood day-care when you discover that the day-care is co-owned by a Filipino, actually from the same region you came from. You already get a subsidy for leaving your child with trained, vetted , professional and as a bonus, Pinoy-hired child carers. but that doesn’t stop you from approaching the owner, introducing yourself as a kabayan and cheekily asking for a “kabayan discount” (if one ever existed), oblivious to the potential awkwardness arising.
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you have the chance of a lifetime with the current resident visa pathway, literally a “one off” (or minsan lang) that will never come again, and just so you don’t screw it up, you sign up with a licensed immigration adviser to dot the t’s and cross the i’s, to avoid any unforseen circumstances and to take advantage of this one chance that is certainly God-given.
Your immigration adviser’s contract is standard and charges market rates, the bonus being you can converse in both English and Tagalog, and within reason you can call him/her anytime. You only start to doubt yourself when you hear others talking about much cheaper professional rates elsewhere, and also about how other kabayan are going to apply on their own, without guidance from an immigration adviser. You begin to entertain second thoughts about signing up and finally to address your unease you take the easy way out and ask for yes, a “kabayan discount” from your adviser.
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All hypothetical (“halimbawa lang”) situations kabayan, but you and I know these have been known to happen, especially in recent weeks and months. Because I’m Pinoy and the seller / service provider / contractor is also Pinoy, I’m entitled to haggle with the price, ask for a discount and bring the price down to a level I see fit.
It’s alright to survey the market and get the best value for your hard-earned dollar, and it’s likewise acceptable to ask if the quoted price from a seller / provider is “firm” or the final price and request for flexibility depending on specific factors and details that vary from deal to deal.
But to try to ask for a discount in the middle of a transaction when everything’s been signed up and in the point of no return, it’s just not the thing to do. it shows a lack of respect for agreements and a lack of respect for the skills and talents of another person, regardless of whether that person is a kabayan or not.
While we chew on that kabayan, here are a couple more reasons on why we should set limits on asking for discounts from kabayan sellers or providers (let’s just use the word contractor para madali OK?)
Training and experience. In every field of specialty, whether it be food preparation / catering or homebuilding, the contractor has gone through a lot of training, a bit of apprenticeship, and certainly a chunk of experience getting to where he / she is now.
You didn’t hear of her services via coincidence or accident. Yes you may have responded to an ad, but you also relied on word-of-mouth and verified reviews of fellow kabayan, so important in the Filipino community. The contractor’s kabayan precedes him/her, and usually this is well-deserved.
of course there may be situations when you can ask for special deals, like when you or a friend are close to the contractor, but remember the saying: “when you do something well, never do it for free?” Good or reputable kabayan contractors are merely protecting their reputations by charging at certain rates. We should remember that.
Value for money. When you go to the supermarket, you don’t, when you finish your choices, haggle with the checkout guy on every item, do you? You don’t say, “this can is a bit dented, please take a few cents off?” or “this will expire very soon, I don’t think I should be paying the labeled price”? It’s just not done.
The same rule should apply with professional services, especially with kabayan, who deserve our respect as much as everyone else. There is a good reason why our countrymen and women set their prices and rates at the levels they do. As earlier said, they went to school and paid their dues, they’ve invested in themselves, they do their research with raw materials and specialized materials, and more importantly they’ve tested the market and come up with buyer and client-friendly prices, cuz how do you make money if you’re not at least familiar with the market?
It takes a lot for us buyers/ consumers to think beyond our budget, but we should think of the above. We wouldn’t have as many tradesmen, specialist bakers (think ensaymada, leche flan etc makers), caterers and builders if all these entrepreneurs weren’t inspired enough to plan all these things just to sell the creations and perform the services that they do. It can’t be just for money. We also need to understand that quite a few of our kabayan do it because they love what they’re doing.
looking at the mirror. I don’t know what you do for a living kabayan, but I’m sure it’s quite specialized, and I’m sure you’re good at it. Just the fact that you’ve managed to convert your skill into an NZ residency, securing the future of your family, is evidence enough that you have a marketable and desirable skill for New Zealand.
Now, imagine someone, anyone asking for a quote on your skills, and without reason, ask for a “kabayan discount” on your quoted rate, and refuse to listen to your justification of your rate, arguing that there’s always room for haggling and negotiation. How would you feel?
Don’t know bout you kabayan, but I would certainly feel bad, hurt and disrespected. If you feel the same way I certainly can’t blame you, but…
that’s EXACTLY what so many of our kabayan are doing when they insist on getting lower rates, haggle or lowball their fellow kabayan. We go train, absorb valuable experience and learn all the little things that schools don’t teach to be good in what they do. All these are ignored and belittled by our very own countrymen and women whenever our skills are disrespected because of haggling or tawaran.
Because in the end kabayan, that’s the bottom line. A big part of you is the sum of your skills, abilities and talents. When you are disrespected because these aren’t given enough value, by your very own kabayan, then there is something wrong in our community.
By not making tawad (haggling) with their rates and prices, we respect and support our kabayan tradesmen and entrepreneurs. That way, we respect ourselves and our community too.
Mabuhay!
