The First Pacific story

(Speech delivered on the occassion of First Pacific’s 45th anniversary held at the Meralco Theater)

MANILA, Philippines — To our beloved friends, to my co-workers — good evening. It is my high honor and a personal pleasure to welcome you all on the 45th year of First Pacific’s founding.

My special welcome to the Board of Directors and staff of First Pacific who flew in from Hong Kong. My special thanks to Maestro Ryan Cayabyab, the artists participating tonight, the FILharmoniKA Orchestra and the organizers — particularly Julie Carceller and Sara Cheung—who labored mightily to bring this special concert to fruition.

I would also like to pay tribute to those who were with me in the early years — present at the creation — Tom Yasuda, Chris Young and Ed Tortorici. With Bob Meyer, they were my real “A” team.

Let me begin by congratulating the 25 service awardees — with age of service ranging from 11 years (Eliza Wang and Zychary Young) all the way to 45 years (guess who that is)? Total accumulated service years for these 25 staff have reached 653 years, or an average of 26 years per person, representing about 60 percent of our 45 years of existence. In equivalent terms, if this were PLDT, this would mean 8,000 of its 13,000 people would be service awardees — and for Meralco, 4,000 out of the 7,000 people in its distribution business. That is the scale of loyalty of our people to First Pacific.

Present at the creation

45 years ago, on a bright Monday morning in the Hong Kong summer, Bob Meyer and I stepped onto our very first office — rented furniture included — of 50 square meters, to meet our entire staff of four people — Fanny, my secretary; Valerie, Bob’s secretary; Ah Kay, our messenger and Paul, the office driver. At the heart of Hong Kong—9th floor, Central Building, Pedder Street corner Queen’s Road.

At the start, Bob and I didn’t know much else — except for deal doing which was my thing, lawyering for Bob’s. We did know our future was just the vast unknown—pretty much like the recent knee surgery I just had—a major procedure whose broader health implications I failed to assess beforehand.

As to my knees, well, every small step has become a major achievement. Suddenly, standing up feels like winning a badminton championship. Walking across the room deserves applause. And finding a comfortable sleeping position takes more engineering than designing a power plant.

And you know what? This experience reminds us that no matter how successful we become, our knees remain completely unimpressed.

The early days

It took us 45 years for the long arc of history to raise our very first Christmas celebration of six people in 1981 in my flat in Hong Kong — to this historic Meralco Theater tonight with all of you.

If I could go back — and stand again in that small 50-square foot room and speak to my 35-year-old self—I would tell myself: Look around. There is something sacred about small beginnings that you cannot feel until they are behind you. There was freedom in being young. We risked freely. We didn’t have much in experience and money, but we made up for it in sheer energy, in daring, in taking risks and almost being promiscuous with it.

At one time, First Pacific was all over the world — a global trading company based in Amsterdam, two banks in California, a bank in Hong Kong and the Philippines. Dean & Deluca in New York, Imagineering in Australia, Berli Jucker in Thailand, a potato factory in Liaoning, China, telcos in India. Here in the Philippines, we used to own many iconic brands—Scott Paper, Dial Soap, Eskinol, Wilkins Water, Tanduay Rhum and of course, Fort Bonifacio Development Corp.—now known as Bonifacio Global City.

In Hong Kong, there was Guardforce Security and Armored Services, Dragon Seed Department Store, System One — the equivalent of Abenson here, among many others. That’s our youth — exuberant, adventurous unafraid to fail.

What those foundations became

What started as a pure investment company — investing in banks and trading companies, evolved in 1988 to become an investment and management company. Eventually, First Pacific’s investments began to connect the dots into something none of us had ever conjured, much less memorialized, into a coherent road map. God, after all, does not write in straight lines.

And what accumulated, over 45 years of being completely honest with ourselves and our governance, was a group that found itself woven into the fabric of daily Filipino life. The water people drink in the morning. The power that lights their homes at night. The roads that take them to work. The connections that keep them close to the people they love.

I know that it takes ambition and power to build empires, any empire. But equally, it requires passion for your work, and the love and care of your people to build a lasting legacy of an empire.

Conclusion

Let me now close by recalling one of life’s greatest reminders: comfort, strength and mobility are blessings we often take for granted until they are taken away.

We may own luxury cars, but today, the vehicle that matters most for me is a 16-year-old, thrice-depreciated van—because it is the only one that can carry me, my wheelchair and my hope for recovery.

The luxury cars may remain in the garage for now, but real wealth is with us here in this theater —family, friends, faith and the determination to stand and walk again.

I used to think that walking as simply natural. Today, every step for me has meaning. Every small improvement feels like a victory. And the simple things — standing up comfortably, getting into a vehicle, moving around independently — become blessings I no longer take for granted.

But tonight is not a story about loss or about pain. It is a story about resilience. About courage. About learning to slow down, to heal and to appreciate the people who stand beside us when life changes course.

Finally, I take inspiration from the movie — Conclave, where the Dean of the College of Cardinals played by Ralph Fiennes in his homily prayed that the new Pope be a doubting Pope—one who sins and asks for forgiveness, and carries on. Why a doubting Pope? Because certainty is the enemy of tolerance, of unity, of progress—if certainty were pervasive, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.

We all know business abhors uncertainty and the unknown. But if all things were certain in our world, there is no need for projections or forecasts; there would be no need for CFOs or even CEOs, because there is really nothing for them to do when all forecasts become predictable. We shouldn’t dislike the mystery brought by the unknown in our lives. I know it makes life more complicated for us, but it’s also what makes living so dynamic, so alive, so interesting.

Variety and doubt in life go hand in hand because views, beliefs, approaches and doubts are all part of life’s rich tapestry. And the sheer presence of variety and doubt precisely requires leadership that is able to manage the increasingly immeasurable complexity we encounter every day.

The 45 years we celebrate today is the First Pacific of the past. We must now put our face forward, and look toward the First Pacific of the future. I hope and pray that we are able to develop leaders who doubt. That I doubt freely — and even proudly — has made me a better person, and a better leader. I hope this tradition of leadership continues on for First Pacific.

I cannot wait to get back to my previous healthy life, and continue working with all of you and playing badminton. Again, congratulations to you all. Mabuhay ang First Pacific!