Had Cirilo "Ching" Chua stayed put in the banking sector after graduating from Ateneo de Davao with a business administration degree, he would have early risen to an executive position in the banking business. But he preferred to work in a rancid bodega-office of a copra dealer.
On the side, his love for plants and orchids kept him busy in between copra season. In 1982, he had stacked a collection of orchids and ornamentals in his backyard garden with special preference to our endemic Waling-waling and later diversified to bromeliads and exotic plants.
Copra dealing was still a part of Ching's preoccupation until now even as he found a wider area for his plants. But his Waling-waling plants occupy a special garden atop his residence in Mintal.
Ching's membership in Floriculture Industry if Davao, Inc. (FIDI) an association of stakeholders and "would-be" stakeholders in the industry gave him more space to move and "spread" his wings.
A fast-learner, Ching's mentors were the elder stakeholders in the floriculture industry like Charita Puentespina and Sally Leuenberger, who had set a direction for the development of the industry through exposures in seminars, exhibitions and garden shows, both local, national and international.
Even before his FIDI years, he was already an avid student of orchid culture, ornamentals and bromeliad culture. He would tag along with his like-minded group, which served as his motivations that improved his skills both as grower and trader.
And these paid off, for in so short a time his Waling-waling from the rooftops gave Ching sure winning speciments in orchid (Waling-waling) contests.
These greenhorn entrepreneur in the orchid business dared the odds and joined a Davao contingent to Singapore in 1989.
Ching's Waling-waling was a stand out in Singapore. Right then and there the plant was bought by Yusof Alsagoff, a Singaporean plant breeder for an equivalent of P45,000. Since then, Ching's lucky chain has never been broken even as he diversified to bromeliads and other ornamentals where he also excelled.
Ching Chua is now the undisputed "King of Waling-waling" and is the man to watch in bromeliads where he excelled in that category in the 1st Bromeliad National Congress and the contest in Cagayan de Oro shortly before Davao's Kadayawan in 2002.
And Ching's lucky streak seem not to stop here. In 1998 he attended a crash-course seminar in landscaping at the University of the Philippines Mindanao under Professor Bautista, a professor and architect. He also attended a seminar on landscaping of the famous Mrs. Shirly Sanders. From then on, he started his landscape business. His clients are residential lot owners of Ladislawa Village, Davao Insular Village, Woodrigde Subdivisions in Davao City. In August 20, 2005, he won first prize in Landscape Kadayawan 2005 in Davao City.