15-day tribal wake set for business icon Jack Dulnuan

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet -- The province of Benguet (or the whole of Cordillera for that matter) has lost an icon of the local entrepreneurship scene.

Jack Dulnuan, the founder of Jack's Restaurant, passed away Wednesday morning. He was 81 years old. A 15-day tribal wake with Ifugao (where he traces his roots) rituals is being held at their residence here in Barangay Betag where gongs are being played while cows, carabaos and pigs are being butchered, his relatives said.

At press time, throngs of people were going to his residence to pay their last respects to a man who exemplified the virtues of hard work, persistence and being humble to get ahead in life.

Dulnuan's rise to prominence can be aptly described as a rags-to-riches story. In his early years, he took on odd jobs like working as a houseboy and a delivery boy in Baguio City.

His daughter Rose told the media he started as an entrepreneur after he saved P1,000 from odd jobs like working in a bakery.

With the money, he started a sari-sari store and with perseverance and  penchant for saving his money, he slowly turned his life around by engaging in various business ventures like a vehicle shop.

Later, he bought a lot in Betag and made it into a farm which he planted with temperate vegetables.

He was the one who did the gardening and a few years back, he built the Trinidad Valley Institute of Technology over the area.

But his most well-known contribution to the Cordilleran community is his line of diner-type establishments popularly known as Jack's Restaurant.

Dining in a Jack's Restaurant is now snugly embedded into the evolving cultures of Baguio City and La Trinidad. Almost everyone now knows what a Jack's Rice is.

If queried, a Baguio person can confidently recite the contents of a Jack's Rice meal: the rice, the pork lechon, the fried egg, the fried chicken, and the vegetables.

A story was that whenever he came home from work, he wanted to have a little of everything in one plate so that it wouldn’t take time to wash dishes.

It became a tradition and that’s how the legendary Jacks Rice became a hit among diners. 

Aside from offering good meals at very affordable prices, Jack's Restaurant has also succeeded in making itself stand out from the crowded dining scene in Baguio City.

Loyalty within the ranks of its customers has allowed the restaurant to expand and open branches of the restaurant in almost every major street corner of the city.

Dulnuan also dabbled in politics. He served as a Board Member in the province of Benguet.

During his tenure, whenever he had the chance, he always tried to instill the importance of saving and smart entrepreneurship among his constituents. During a public assembly in La Trinidad sometime in 2014, he had this to say to the crowd: "I have solved my poverty. It's because I learned to save."