Whatever is good is God's and whatever is God's is good.

I was born in Bambang, Sta. Cruz, Manila on July 19, 1953 as Edgardo de Luna as shown in my Birth Certificate. At the age of five months, my parents brought to me to Catanauan, Quezon and gave me to my uncle for adoption. My adopted parents registered my name at the Municipal Registrar as Juan de Luna and later, I was baptized as Juanito de Luna.

After graduating from High School, my adopted father sent me to Pasay City and endorsed me to his younger brothers and sisters who helped me in my college education at the University of Sto. Tomas and there, they changed my name to Juanito Luna, deleting the “de” and started calling me “June” as the junior or small Juan Luna, the hero-painter, which my Spanish teacher would also fondly call me.

I studied but did not graduate from college lacking six units in Taxation to complete my course in BS Entrepreneurship at UST. I failed in English 101 and I almost stopped studying, but I decided to repeat the subject by consoling myself that “good English is understood English” and I lalso tried convincing myself that English is not God’s language anyway. I barely passed the subject the second time around.  I may have failed in Egilish 101 but I am much happier now becuase I am taking Spirituality 101 and God, the Father is my Classmate, Friend, Tutor, Teacher and Guide roll into One. 

Short of what others perceived to be as a very important piece of paper they call Diploma, I was still able to work with two giant multinationals drug companies together with my wife, Ellen. Gaining and armed with a combined 18 years of experience in the industry but without much money, Ellen and I were so blessed to be appointed by God as trustees and stewards of Prosel, His amazing business, engaged in promoting and selling drugs and medicines. Prosel has been providing livelihood to more than 180 employees and serving the medical needs of Filipinos especially the dying and suffering patients for more than twenty six years now.

The rest is history. You had a glimpse of the good part of my story. If you want to learn more about the better part of it, you can visit the page in this site which features my Curriculum Vitae and all spiritual topics and services which I have been sharing and rendering to the community free of charge for the last nine years now.

However, if you will be interested to know more about me, my life, its weaknesses and challenges, defeats and victories and changes and transformation, my autobiography entitled Triunephant – The Triumph of the Three Names is also featured in this website.  Check if you and your children, relatives, friends and co-workers will benefit from and be inspired by my story. If you think they will, then, share it with them.  I will also publish a hard copy of this in a book and all the topics in booklet format and make them available in selected bookstores nationwide later.

Have fun, enjoy reading, learn from all the topics in this Website and God bless us all.

               Philippine Daily Inquirer
               September 14, 2008

His journey to success started
when he left the wrong path. . . . .

What made our start up business challenging as when six men tied us, ransacked our house and took everything, all our savings and collections for the week. This happens four days after I rendered my irrevocable resignation from the company I used to work with.

From five people doing business in a garage in Cebu City,  Prosel Pharmaceuticals  and Distributors grew to 142 strong sales force and administrative staff operating nationwide in 25 years.  After working as a medical representative for more than 10 yrs, Juanito “ June “ Luna gained as much as knowledge and experience about the pharmaceutical industry that gave him the courage to stop being an employee. In June 1983, he and his wife Ellen and mother in law Ludina R. Viniegas started Metropharm now Prosel in Cebu City.

Prosel makes generic drugs like antibiotics, anti-asthma, paracetamol, analgesic, and altipyretics.  It all started with human biological products or vaccines. As years went by and demand for medicines came. We decided to expand our product line to cater to the needs of other doctor’s specialties. It was doctor’s advanced payment s for their orders that served as a capital during our early days of our business.

He shuttled from Cebu City to Manila to process the orders, from doctors to suppliers, Ellen run the office together with Gina ( sister in law ) and Tata their helper, took charge of deliveries and collection of payments.

When they started the business, it was difficult and very risky because of economic and political crisis from 1983 until Ninoy Aquino’s assassination in 1986. Most companies were closing down and only few dared put up new businesses.

ODD JOBS
June was born in Sta. Cruz, Manila. His family could not afford to raise him, enough reason to give him up for adoption at the age of five months. He spent his younger years in Catanauan, Quezon. Serving in the church as a priest assistant helped him spiritually.

He did a lot of odd jobs as he grew up, selling pan de sal early in the morning, ice drop in mid-morning, , “tinuto” or “ginataang dahon ng gabi” at lunchtime and banana cue in mid-afternoon. He also changed flat tires at the bus station.

In Pasay during his college days, he engaged in getting “jueteng” (an illegal numbers game) bets and selling horse race and jai alai tickets, among others. He did any kind of job that would earn him money to help himself in school.

VICES AND MALPRACTICES
I may have succumbed to some malpractices in life, in work and in business against my will because I thought I could protect my family, the employees and the business itself by doing these,” he says. He said he also engaged in vices like  smoking, drinking and gambling. “As a medrep, I sold physician samples to augment my income.”

During their early days in business, he allowed Prosel to fall into the trap of joining the illegal, immoral but acceptable practices in government bidding and procurement process to corner a sizeable chunk of its budget for drugs and medicines. 

They also resorted to convincing and influencing some doctors, nurses, pharmacists and salesclerks to prescribe, endorse, use and push our products in exchange for monetary considerations and other forms of questionable support.  But despite these practices, the business did not prosper and his family life was not as good as expected.

CHANGE AND TRANSFORMATION
“So, I changed. We all changed. We took the risk of losing sales and profit by totally stopping to the hilt these practices. To our surprise, the business grew by leaps and bounds and beyond our imagination and expectations. We sometimes turned down some business offers and opportunities because we could no longer handle them. Kahit maliit basta legit (Even if small, as long as it is legitimate). This became our guiding principle in doing business. We don’t mind having a little margin as long as it is clean and legitimate. In short, we stopped being greedy,” June says.

Employees are told to work with honesty and earn with dignity. To constantly remind them, they put this statement in all their accountable office forms. “We want them to know that it is not good to feed their loved one, especially their children, with food bought by money coming from a no-so-good source or means because they will get the negative vibrations that is not good for their health and total well-being.” He says.

VALUES
June was born raised and educated in three different sets of values that he made it a point ti impart to his children and employees.

“I was driving with my father one time when one of the distributors asked permission to increase the prices. My father said no, he said it will become a burden to the patients. His concern for the patients made an impact in me,” says Janvier Luna, a licensed pilot and the eldest of the three children of June and Ellen.

True enough, Prosel managed not to increase the prices of its products during the past six years. Instead of increasing the price of its medicines every year. Instead, of increasing the price of its medicines every year. Prosel just keeps on registering new products and it is so blessed that it is able to launch a new product every year to increase its sales and sustain its operations.

“The best policy is to make myself and others happy and the best principle is to make my-self and others peaceful,” he says.

This story was written by Ms. Clyd Estrella Masmela and was featured at the SundayBiz, the Business Section of the Phillippine Daily Inquirer last September 14, 2008.