Why Sid Consunji loves wearing rubber slippers

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March 9, 2026 | 12:00am

Notes on the beat

SIRAWAI — It was still dark when we left Zamboanga City around 4 a.m. to embark on a bumpy ride to the municipality of Sirawai, a coastal town nestled in the Zamboanga Peninsula.

The only light came from a waxing crescent moon.

I was among a group of Manila journalists invited to visit the plantation of Sirawai Palm and Rubber Corp., an agricultural company owned by the Consunji family.

After two hours, we finally reached the site – a wide expanse of greenery with dirt roads and narrow paths winding through tall, slender trees and thick bushes. The sun was already peeking out to signal a beautiful new morning.

We headed to a small but quaint house with orange bricks, somewhere in the sprawling forest where our hosts, tycoon Isidro “Sid” Consunji and his sister Lucy, graciously welcomed us.

I felt the fresh provincial breeze and the quiet peace of being at the heart of nature.

We had a hearty breakfast, plus lots of stories on the side. Sid recalled that decades ago, the nearby areas were rebel-infested.

But so much has changed, he said, as we would later see.

We soon left the farmhouse and rode our vehicles to roam the plantation, located 115 kilometers from Zamboanga City.

The art of tapping rubber trees

Our first stop was a stretch of trees by the roadside to witness the tedious process of making rubber.

From the road, we walked a few steps down a slope filled with rubber trees.

I learned that natural rubber comes from the sap, or latex. The skilled hands of tappers carefully and slowly tap the tree’s bark, allowing the milky latex to drip into small black cups attached to the trunk.

This was amazing to watch. The hands of the tappers are very steady. I was told they use a carefully designed knife imported from Europe, which enables the planters to shave a thin strip of bark from the tree without cutting too deeply into the wood.

Arnold Belleza, editor at large at The Manila Times, said in jest that the hands of the tappers must be comparable to those of a pickpocket – smooth and steady.

The collected latex is then treated in a small factory-like warehouse where it is made to coagulate, forming soft clumps that are pressed into thin sheets. These sheets, in turn, are dried and turned into raw rubber that factories later process into products such as tires and footwear.

We saw this whole process when we visited the rubber processing plant.

It was a fairly straightforward process, but one that required patience, diligence and attention to detail.

I was in awe of the process and the hard work of the tappers and plant workers.

The plantation is divided in two: rubber and palm oil. We then went to learn how palm oil is made.

Palm oil

It starts from the fruit of the oil palm tree. Harvesters collect ripe fruit bunches. They are huge, perhaps bigger than langka.

They then separate the fruit from the bunches. The fruit is then brought to the mill, where it is steamed and the pulp is pressed to extract crude palm oil.

Industrial-grade palm oil, in turn, is used for cooking, cosmetics and processed foods.

The company’s palm oil mill has an expandable capacity of up to 60 metric tons per hour from 30 MT/h and a storage capacity of 3,000 MT. The current production is 1,000 MT per month.

Furthermore, company data showed that the palm oil portion of the plantation has 600,000 productive oil palm trees and employs over 500 workers.

The rubber plantation, meanwhile, has 540,000 productive rubber trees and more than 350 tappers.

After a few hours, our rubber and palm oil plant tour came to an end.

We finished off with a hearty lunch of seafood, fresh vegetables and fruits.

It was a learning experience to see the entire palm oil operation.

We also caught a glimpse of the vast oil palm fields.

In between our visit to the palm and rubber plantations, we also saw schools, a health facility and a church that the company built.

They have also helped improve infrastructure and connectivity, allowing the public to use their company road, which has reduced travel time to the nearest city by over four hours.

In some sitios previously without transportation or communications, they also introduced Starlink satellite and shuttles so that children can get to school.

These initiatives have helped improve the municipalities.

Sirawai has improved from fifth class to second class. Candoni, where reforestation started just a year ago, has changed from fourth class to third class in one year.

Agriculture, Consunji said, is his next big venture, as he aims to build rural communities in the process.

Our short but educational field trip was a lot of fun, despite the scorching heat.

My favorite part was seeing how rubber is made. It is quite intricate.

As I stepped out of the rubber mill, I realized that perhaps this is why Sid Consunji loves wearing rubber slippers, whether he’s brewing deals at an exclusive sports club, in a meeting at his Makati office, or simply relaxing over food and drinks. Aside from comfort, perhaps they are his quiet homage to the art of making rubber.