SOTY 2021: Cebu burger resto offers honest living to PWD dragon boat crew

Our Sportsman Who Cares awardee provides work for out-of-work para athletes
Feb 7, 2022
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PHOTO: facebook/@DubbysUltimateBurgers ILLUSTRATION: echo antonio

IN AUGUST, the spotlight — long switched off and gathering dust — finally shone once again on PWD sports.

In Tokyo, hot on the heels of our trailblazing Olympics, the Paralympics kicked off. Despite being hounded by a spate of COVID-19 cases, Team Philippines put up a gallant fight, especially in the swimming and wheelchair racing events. And then, in December, the future of PWD sports was assured as the country logged in its best-ever finish at the Asian Youth Para Games held in Bahrain.

It was a brief glimmer of hope for many athletes whose lives have been upturned during the pandemic.

The lockdowns brought on by COVID-19 have already made things difficult for able-bodied people everywhere. On top of all that, PWDs — who are estimated to make up 1.57 percent of the Philippine population — faced even more challenges.

Pandemic hits PWD athletes

“Our athletes were mostly trapped inside their homes because of the quarantine measures,” said JP Maunes, founder of the Philippine Accessible Disability Services Inc., or PADS.

The NGO fields a dragon boat team that has, since its founding in 2016, held its own in the field, even trumping their able-bodied counterparts in international competitions. At the International Paradragon Championships in Hong Kong, the PADS Adaptive Dragon Boat Racing Team won back-to-back championships in 2017 and 2018.

At the start of the global health crisis, the team was in the thick of their training for the Dragon Boat Club Crew World Championships in Aix les Bains, France. The pandemic put the brakes on the crew’s preparations. Coach Nick Burton was forced to go back home to Australia by the embassy, and many of the paddlers found themselves locked out of the sport — and worse, their livelihood.

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Thirteen of the PADS athletes lost their jobs, while as many as 60 were unable to receive government aid.

“Because of the scarcity of public transport, they were forced to walk for very long hours just to get to one place,” he said — a challenge for people who need to get around using wheelchairs or crutches.

Plus, “There was a huge risk of exposure to the COVID virus because some of our deaf athletes [could not] understand the information because there was no access to interpreters in our area, or the info materials were not ‘deaf friendly.’”

Dubby’s Burgers: A good meal, a good cause

Maunes knows firsthand the effects of COVID-19. His wife is a frontliner, the chief nurse in Mandaue City Hospital in Cebu. To keep her spirits up, he would whip up a burger for her “baon” — a recipe he made himself, with freshly baked homemade buns, quality beef, and a “secret sauce” whose ingredients, of course, he won’t reveal.

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“I made it as an expression of love and support for her,” said Maunes. “I wanted to comfort her every time she gets a bite of the cheese burgers.”

It wouldn’t stay a family secret for long. Word about JP’s delicious burgers grew, and soon, Maunes began selling the burgers online. He called them “Dubby’s Burgers,” after a term of endearment he called his wife. In no time, the online queues were swamped. Hundreds of orders were pouring in a day.

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So Maunes decided to reach out to the athletes of PADS and ask if they wanted to work in his restaurant. “We started with 1 deaf employee on the first day, and by the end of the week we hired around 10,” he recounted.

People who would pick up their burgers would sometimes eat them on the spot, so Maunes set up tables in their front yard. In three months, the online-only business transitioned into a full-time restaurant: Dubby’s Ultimate Burgers, the recipient of Spin.ph’s Sportsman Who Cares award in the 2021 edition of our annual Sportsmen of the Year Awards.

Maunes had never run a food business before. And true to the spirit of his NGO, he wanted Dubby’s Burgers to be accessible — in all senses of the word.

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“We have to make everything inside the restaurant is disabled-friendly,” he said. “We have to train everyone how to communicate in Filipino sign language. We make sure that our menu is very visual for our deaf customers.”

They have a menu printed in Braille. They accept orders in sign language via video call. And, through online videos and materials printed on the menus and burger wrappers, they also teach customers how to order via Filipino sign language.

PWD athletes find a new home

One of Maunes’ employees at Dubby’s Ultimate Burgers is Owen Loceno. At 42 years old, he was one of the pioneering members of the PADS dragon boat team. Before the pandemic, Loceno worked as a technician for video karera machines — a risky line of work, as these horse-racing video games were often targets of police crackdowns against illegal gambling.

At Dubby’s Ultimate Burgers, though, he is an assembly line chef. Maunes is also training him for a supervisory role. And even Owen’s wife Michelle has also become an employee of the restaurant.

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“One thing that I’m always proud of is our employees,” said Maunes. “We were able to prove to anyone who doubted us that we can successfully run a restaurant run by a complete PWD staff. We also have proven that we can make gourmet burgers prepared and grilled by people with disabilities.”

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    At present, 90 percent of the staff is made up of PWDs: 11 deaf, working in the back of the house and as service crew, and then 3 amputees and 1 polio survivor, who work as line chefs, front of the house, inbound sales, or as delivery service riders.

    Through Dubby’s, Maunes is proud that he has been able to provide them with a steady income — in keeping with the PADS spirit of empowering PWDs to become “independent, dignified, and active citizens” in a society that often leaves them in the margins. Prior to the pandemic, sports was one of the ways the organization did that. But even with active competition still uncertain, these athletes have Dubby’s Burgers to provide them with an honest living.

    Before the holidays, the super typhoon Odette cut a deadly swathe through the archipelago. Dubby’s was not spared from its wrath.

    “The typhoon damaged our restaurant badly,” recounted Maunes. Major electrical poles went down, and, during an interview with Spin.ph during Christmas Day, the restaurant still had no electricity.

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    But still, JP and the rest of the employees of Dubby’s soldiered on. Even with no electricity, they stayed open, and Cebuanos, still shell-shocked from the storm, were able to at least find a little comfort in the restaurant’s famed burgers.

    The stormiest waters, after all, will not stop this crew from rowing on.

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    PHOTO: facebook/@DubbysUltimateBurgers ILLUSTRATION: echo antonio
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