A Class Unto His Own

Can one let an interview with a successful businessman progress without touching on business? A paradoxical thought, yes, but it was an actual request for the media interview—his first after many a year—with Mr. Manny Gonzalez, principal owner of the triple A Plantation Bay Resort and Spa. 

For someone behind such a high-profile hotel property, media encounters with him have been sporadic, and to some extent, non-existent. He has a bit of a reputation for shying away from interviews. We told him this, and he appeared genuinely surprised that we noticed. Later on, the former international investment banker who was alternatively based in the business capitals of the world, such as New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, Washington DC, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong, simply explains that he doesn’t want to talk business anymore. 

Interestingly, his everyday routine at the hotel is somehow reflective of this intention, as he makes it his business to do other things.
By other things, he means conducting out-of-the-box training sessions and seminars for the employees. “I am fortunate because we have a lot of good officers here at Plantation Bay, so I don’t really actually have to do any work. So I get involved with what I enjoy, and the things I enjoy are public relations, meeting people from the outside…
“But every now and then, I do training sessions. Like for example this afternoon, I’m giving a seminar, which will be attended by mostly the young ladies in the hotel, on ‘Finding and Keeping Romance.’”

“This is true,” he reiterates after we must have looked taken aback by its, pardon the pun, “out-of-the-box-ness.” “We have weird ideas here. But we want our people to be happy. Mind you, I’m not really qualified, but I’m giving one anyway.”

He delves into the history of this activity. “We have an adventurous training manager, Mia Singson, who also likes to do oddball things. She decided to have a seminar, saying that a lot of our staff needs assistance or advice such as on this one. This is the first time that we’re giving this course, so we will see how it will turn out. But we’re hopeful about it.” (Ms. Singson has since gotten married and is now in Thailand.)

Mr. Gonzalez, we learned, also enjoys passing around some of his books to his staff. Right now, he’s big on self-help books. “I am currently reading a lot of self-help books. For example, the book I’ve been reading is the Five Languages of Love, which I’m incorporating in our seminar.”
“You should read it; it’s good. It tells the theory about how each person has a preferred way to receive love. If you want that person to feel love, you need to identify the language in which she/he understands. The languages are words of affirmation, loving touch, personal service, gifts and quality time.”
He ruminates, “A lot of people shy from self-help books because they think they don’t need help. I think self-help books are interesting because it’s a way to learn more about oneself.” 

So no more business books on his current reading list? “At this moment, I’m not interested in business. But I’ve read lots and lots of business books when I was in the mood in the past, like this book entitled ‘Built To Last,’ which I really recommend. It talks about companies that are quite successful, and which have been around for a long time.”
“But every now and then, I read fiction—particularly pop fiction.”
Reading is an avowed leisure of choice (he also tries to make time for marine sports, ballroom dancing, riding and dressage, watching vintage movies or fortune-telling—graphology, palm-reading, astrology and I-Ching divination—for entertainment). He somehow laments that young people today no longer value reading. He launches into questions about our own book list, and cites literature and poetry (some his own!) in between.

Mr. Gonzalez has published numerous articles on financial issues in leading international publications like Euromoney and Asian Wall Street Journal. Oft-quoted in the media on various business issues, he even landed in The Economist and the New York Times. But interestingly enough, he is most proud of his small booklet of sentimental, occasionally sensual verses: “Seasons Lost, Memories Found” (sample: “Your breathlessness at dusk returns / to restless seas we calmed / by sands our summer warmed”).

His mixed interests have always been there, even made obvious in the education he pursued. He took up AB Humanities at the Ateneo De Manila University (although he had thought about taking up literature or creative writing) on a full presidential scholarship for topping the entrance exams. After college, he worked for a while with a young politician from Batangas during the Constitutional Convention, although politics shouldn’t be much of a strange territory to him being the grandson of the former Senate President M.J. Cuenco. He went to Columbia University for his MBA right before Martial Law, wherein he copped several awards for exceptional academic achievements, including the most outstanding first-year student. Armed with his post-graduate degree, he wanted at first to venture into marketing, but at that time, it was difficult to secure work in the US for many reasons, including being a Filipino. Nevertheless, he wound up in banking. The rest is history. 

Intriguingly, Mr. Gonzalez, who was born in Cebu but spent a chunk of his life abroad, particularly in the US since his father worked for the Philippine Embassy, rarely misses his high-flying career after deciding to return to Cebu in 1993. He corrects our impression that he is always on the go, admitting that he possesses not the “appendage” that most of us cannot probably live or work without—cellphone.

“A, I’m fortunate to be surrounded by people who have cellphones, so naa jud ko’y masangpit if I want to make a call. B, Nobody interesting ever wanted to give me a call, kay manawag ra nako to talk business. I had a cellphone in 1997 or 1998, pero bill collectors ra ang manawag sa ako. After that, I dropped the cellphone because I saw no benefit in it jud.”

He continues, “Maybe it’s a little statement that I’m making, since I feel that people nowadays are obsessed with constant communication, always sending text messages. That you want to be available always. To my mind, I don’t think it should be so. In Canada, however, where my wife, who is American, and children are, I carry a cellphone for security and emergency purposes.”

While he has extensively travelled for pleasure to Latin America and the Caribbean, he admits that he hasn’t made that sort of trip that much lately. But he relishes sharing his favorite travel experiences. And his topmost would be? ”That’s an interesting question. In the Philippines, one of the nicest places I’ve been to is Daet in Camarines Norte where I went with some friends. We enjoyed the open Pacific Ocean waves and of course, the Hispanic architecture,” says Mr. Gonzalez, whose fine tastes in architecture and interior design have been translated well into the quaint, old charm of Plantation Bay (of which he was the designer) that yes, reminds you of “Gone with the Wind” kind of period movies. 

He adds, “Abroad, outside Vancouver in British Columbia, people don’t imagine or have no conception what the scenery is like, but if you go East of Vancouver, after about three hours, you get to a little town called Hook, and around that vicinity, you’ll find the most spectacular Western-style mountains.”

He further describes in detail, “They’re rugged, dry, and the scale is very impressive, stretching as far as the eye can see! They look very Western, like, you know, in the movies. I drove through the area once, and I was scared to death driving through the mountains, since I was going down the mountains that practically had a single lane, and I worried I would fall off the cliff. But I wouldn’t mind doing it again, even if I’m scared of heights.”

At this revelation, Joanna Cuenco, his PR officer, opens up with ease about her own fear of heights, and how she learned to overcome it, much to his interest. We had to ask him if he always had this comfortable relationship with his employees. “We have a very nice atmosphere here in this hotel. We really do. Well, I feel comfortable on a personal basis with many of the people here, and although they never forget that I’m the boss, I treat them as friends.”

And small wonder really. Mr. Gonzalez has this unassuming mien, like he didn’t mind our photographer’s prodding to  pose here and there for the pictorial of this article, aside from that air of accessibility that makes you want to ask him about many things other than, of course, business.

And so as our Q&A approached its close, I tread a little more with the question on what his personal philosophy is. He ponders a bit, before putting it simply but meaningfully: “I’m a strong believer in the power of God’s grace in shaping one’s life.”