The grand dame of Philippine textbooks

 “To achieve great success in business and in life, one must be willing to walk the extra mile.”

Through the years, this is the philosophy that has been driving veteran textbook publisher Esther A. Vibal of Vibal Publishing House, Inc. (VPHI), the country’s largest textbook publisher.

Under Vibal’s stewardship, VPHI has grown into a multibillion peso corporation that has been cited by the Bureau of Internal Revenue as one of the highest taxpayers in Quezon City. With state-of-the-art software and machinery housed in a two-hectare facility, VPHI serves the needs of thousands of private schools all over the country, and continually makes major company moves that almost always rock the entire local book publishing industry.

Long-running love affair

Vibal’s love affair with the written word began in her college days, as the features editor for the UP student organ The Philippine Collegian. Her newspaper career began rather serendipitiously in 1946 when she met the young publisher Joaquin “Chino” Roces, who offered her a job in the Manila Times women’s section. Under the tutelage of the great women writers Trinidad Tarroza-Subido and Estrella Alfon, Vibal’s honed her passion for journalism with a diligent commitment to balancing her work with her studies.

Her husband Hilarion Vibal, on the other hand, was the business editor of the then Evening News, sister publication of the Manila Times. Love blossomed at the publications’ shared composing room where they would often bump into each other. Together, the Vibal couple later on made the big leap to entrepreneurship and established initially, a business magazine called Insurance and Finance, and later on, a printing press in 1953.

Paving the beginnings of the country’s largest publishing house to date, its venture into textbook publishing started when the American endowment for the funding for Philippine education in schools was established in the country.

“In the 1960’s, I saw a notice for the endowment, where bidders to publish textbooks were being invited. We formed a consortium with other printers and that’s how we got our start in the textbook business,’’ Vibal recalls.

From this initial project, they were able to grasp the fledgling textbook publishing industry and established what is now the country’s leading developer and publisher of textbooks and curriculum materials for elementary, high school and college students, reference books, workbooks, supplementary materials and even children’s storybooks. Widowed in 1988, Vibal ventured out on her own to propel the company into the success it is enjoying today.

Capital formation

Vibal firmly believes that thrift and prudence in handling money is vital for entrepreneurs to succeed, as she has seen its importance in the growth of her business.

‘’When we formed the consortium for the US endowment, my husband and I saved all our earnings and plowed them back into the business. While the other members of the consortium bought houses or luxury cars, we built up our capital. Today, VPHI is the only surviving company from consortium and we know we did the right thing, holding off on luxuries and thinking of our employees first,’’ Vibal says with pride.

Vibal also emphasizes that there is no substitute for hard work. ‘’All my waking hours, I was focused on the business. My husband and I really did everything we can to grow VPHI. Luck is only one percent, the rest is really hard work,’’ she recounts.

In spite of VPHl’s unparalleled status as a publishing giant, Vibal continues to find new ways to update the business.

Vibal’s innate resourcefulness and business savvy, together with her industrious nature and dedication to her work, has contributed to the growth of the Vibal conglomerate, including diversified assets such as real estate and business process outsourcing.

“We have to move forward and go with the signs of the times,” she stresses, underscoring the reason why VPHI is one of the most advanced publishing firms in the country today, garnering success in its brave ventures into multimedia and the Internet.

Despite the company’s foray into technology, Vibal maintains that there will always be a need for textbooks.

“This is a need business what with 85 million Filipinos and a steadily growing population. Textbooks are important especially in the Philippine society. Ten years ago, the ratio of books to the number of children is 10 to one, now each student can now have his own book to himself in the public schools. The country has definitely come a long way when it comes to the quality and quantity of textbooks for school children, and we intend to grow with that,” Vibal concludes.