Profriends at 25: Realizing The Vision For Filipino Families
February 23, 1999--- a new developer was born. Property Company of Friends, Inc., better known as Profriends, started with the principle of improving the quality of life of the Filipino family. First thing in mind is to provide them a decent home at an affordable budget to enable young, start-up families to spend valuable time together in a home they can call their own. Notwithstanding the timing, which was just after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Profriends founder Guillermo Choa, bravely collaborated with eight colleagues to start this benevolent task of creating communities and transforming lives.
Starting with one project at a time, Buhay Na Tubig in Imus developed into a residential strip, thanks to the pioneering villages of Profriends. More houses were built as demand also increased, together with various establishments setting up to service the needs of the residents. Soon after, the pocket developments grew into estates, making way for Profriends to improve even more its portfolio of offerings. Its flagship project, Lancaster New City, is designed to make quality life of the common man achievable, as it was developed with the live-learn-work-play-pray lifestyle in mind. Profriends continues to make home ownership attainable through its selection of house models and collaborates with financial institutions to make financing flexible and affordable.
Driven by its purpose to continue creating communities and transforming lives, Profriends never stopped in just delivering houses to its homeowners. The organization recognized the needs of its residents beyond the four corners of their home. With the eagerness to give what is best for the families it serves, Profriends added value to its developments: nurture the culture and instill values among its communities. This was realized by introducing different community activities, initially capitalizing on regular calendar events such as Christmas, Halloween, fiestas, and other religious and secular activities through Profriends’ property manager, OnGround Partners (OGP). Aside from undertaking community development, it is also a training ground for current and future community leaders, to ensure the programs and values espoused are sustained.
Many youth residents have stepped up and discovered how this noble opportunity opened to them by Profriends: “we were not aware before that there is this inner trait within us that all the while we possess, that we can lead in front of many other people in the community. Volunteering in different youth activities have boosted our self-confidence,” agree Lancaster residents and youth leaders Rinoa Lamadrid and Luster Añabieza. Both shared the same sentiments when asked how volunteering in the community through the GalingLNC movement helped develop their personality. Together with the other youth volunteers, they are honed to share their talents in different community youth-led activities by attending various trainings and seminars, conducted free-of-charge by Profriends in collaboration OGP. This endeavor has transformed Profriends calling from being a house builder to being a community builder with a heart.
Entering its 25th year in the property development industry, Profriends will continue to serve the changing needs of more families by offering more projects, soaring to new heights, but with the same community feel of turning kapitbahays into kapitbuhays - where neighbors look after and care for each other.
To date, Profriends has built and delivered over 64,000 homes in Cavite and Iloilo. In its flagship project, Lancaster, there are already over 24,000 families residing.