ISLAND GARDEN CITY OF SAMAL—One day in 2006, Bartolome Malacura decided to post the names of his debtors outside his sari-sari store in the Island Garden City of Samal in a bid to collect from them.
The person who owed him the biggest amount got the most prominent and largest poster. One sign even listed the names of an entire family and labeled it “the family who doesn’t pay.”
Malacura had told the Inquirer then that he did that to keep his store afloat. “I am already old and this is a small store and yet they won’t pay me,” he had said.
When the media took notice of his unorthodox way of doing business, people from all over the world were amused.
Some were sympathetic, while others commented that there was no way for them to emulate what Malacura did. “If I am to do that, I might not see the sun again,” one comment said of Malacura’s shame campaign.
One best practice?
One business website said it “is one best practice entrepreneurs won’t learn in any business school.”
Malacura’s strategy worked for some of his debtors and they immediately paid. In return, he had their posters removed.
Many, however, had outgrown it and had never paid.
In 2008, Malacura died at the age of 73. The store has remained open and is being run by his wife Lolita, now 75 years old.
The posters are gone. “After he was buried, we decided to tear down all the posters and burn it,” Lolita said.
Bad debts
She said a number of people on her husband’s list were still callous and had not acted on their impropriety.
“What am I going to do with all those listed? I was not the one who lent to those people and I don’t want to be in trouble like what happened to my husband,” she said.
She recalled how Malacura was summoned by barangay officials to explain what he was doing.
Lolita said her husband had the right to get back his money but she never agreed to his manner of collecting. “Many praised him for what he did, but also some people were hurt by what he did,” she said.
The widow still lends, but “only to customers whom I can trust.”