The voice of corporate social responsibility
June 19, 2006 | 12:00am
When I first started to write this column in 2001, I remember having gone over notes I had recorded from the lectures and conferences I had attended in 19 years of government life, for no reason except for the fact that I liked doing so.
One particular paragraph I’m glad I saved is a quote from Konrad Lorenz: "The rushed existence into which industrialized, commercialized man has precipitated himself is actually a good example of an inexpedient development caused entirely by a competition between members of the same species. Human beings today are attacked by so-called manager diseases – high-blood pressure, renal atrophy, gastric ulcers, and torturing neuroses. They succumb to barbarism because they have no more time for other interests, primarily helping man." If there is any set of words that absolutely does not apply to Washington Sycip, the man SGV (Sycip, Gorres and Velayo) and Co. is honoring on its diamond anniversary tomorrow, June 20, and the founder of the country’s leading auditing firm, it is the above-quoted.
Beyond founding such an outstanding business institution as SGV and Co., it is an undeniable fact that Wash has, through all these decades, been breathing life into the phrase "corporate social responsibility" (CSR) in the Philippines and the world community, like no other business tycoon has ever done, within my living memory.
Wash, who celebrates his 85th birthday hardly a week after SGV’s 60th anniversary celebration, to my knowledge, has never been afflicted by any of the manager diseases Lorenz enumerates, no torturing neuroses, and instead of "barbarism", he has the kindness and genuineness of a man who believes that business needs a lifting purpose greater than the struggle of materialism, greater than the man himself.
He is such an extraordinary world citizen whose work and travel pace will certainly put a businessman half his age to shame. Respected here and abroad, even at international telecom conferences, I have found myself thrilled when I am asked if I know a man in the Philippines by the name of Washington Sycip.
About a week ago, at a small dinner Wash hosted in honor of a visiting friend, Sirkka Korpela, an accomplished development professional and diplomat who currently teaches "Corporate Social Responsibility and Development Issues" at Columbia University in New York, I could not help but think, as Wash introduced us to each other, that Korpela’s course is one that our host has been teaching by living his life. Wash has been breathing life into the very heart of CSR in the country, as no other businessman I know has ever done before.
In 1946, the year Washington Sycip founded SGV and Co., the Philippines was just emerging from the ruins of a devastating war. There was a need for traders and importers to put their operations in order, to reconstruct documents and certify financial statements. This is when W. Sycip and Co. was born, the one-man accounting and auditing firm that Fred Velayo joined in 1947. Fred and Wash had been classmates at the Burgos Elementary School in Manila, through the Mapa High School, and the University of Santo Tomas.
It was in 1947 when SGV added a tax division to its accounting practice. About a decade after, the firm offered management consulting as a separate service to clients. In the ‘60s, SGV embarked on the creation of the largest Asian multinational group of accounting firms in the region. With very astute foresight, perceiving the extensive impact of new technology on business, SGV was able to "leap-frog" competition through the establishment of an electronic data-processing service as early as 1962. This particular leap-frogging saw the tie-up as early as 1985 by SGV with global information and communications technology leader, the Arthur Andersen worldwide organization.
As a professional firm, SGV has been actively involved in helping promote the economic growth of the country, bearing the rationale that the firm can prosper only if the nation prospers. SGV has therefore always maximized the use of its national human resources. The firm has developed expertise in such specialized fields as business systems consulting, computer risk management, corporate finance consulting, international development projects, operational consulting, and contract financial management. Because of this, specialty work groups were organized to serve the varied requirements of clients from all over the world. Washington Sycip has been at the helm, and has been around, to steer the growth of SGV and Co. from a one-man, one-room operation that he was, to the largest professional services organization in the country.
It is, however, not so much the professional success of a man in founding, leading and nurturing a corporate existence to the heights of success the organization has attained. What is superior and what really counts in a country and a world where a despicable kind of materialism exists in abundance these days, is the social developmental corporate philosophy injected, guided, and never broken. This is that unquantifiable success, I am certain, where Wash finds his fulfillment.
Beyond SGV and Co., likewise, are the social and developmental institutions he has founded or helped found, the most well known of which is the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). As one of its founders, it must give him tremendous satisfaction to see the foremost educational institution in Asia that it has evolved into today, having attained key successes in the development of professional managers in Asia.
Wash was one of the seven founders of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), a foremost forum for managers of major Philippine enterprises. As a co-founder with Sixto "Ting" Roxas, the Philippine Business for Social Progress has, for a fundamental objective, the sharing of corporate profits to help the poor communities of the country.
Under the very capable leadership of one of the women I admire most, is my friend, former Usec for finance, Nene Guevarra, who heads Synergeia. Its basic thrust is to help upgrade elementary education in needy communities all over the country. This is indeed a great endeavor, and Wash has been actively extending his support to this organization. As he assisted the University of the Philippines and Santo Tomas University, he has also been working with Ateneo in the latter’s program to help improve teaching in public schools. As with "Opportunity, US" where he supported the program of assistance given to micro-finance organizations in the Philippines, Wash is also supporting the IIRR (International Institute of Rural Reconstruction), a global organization, based in Silang, Cavite, in the latter’s work helping poor communities all over the world.
As a member of Asia Society in the Philippines, I am aware that Wash was on the board of Asia Society New York. He was the leading figure that established the Philippine organization, whose current chair is Doris Magsaysay Ho, as dynamic and efficient a leader as they come. Everyone knows by now, because the MBC (Makati Business Club) has become such an extremely visible organization, that Wash was actively involved in the setting up of this club. But not too many people know that he helped in organizing the Euro-Asia Center at the graduate school of INSEAD in Fontainbleau, France, to improve European companies’ awareness of Asia.
In the accounting profession, Wash Sycip was one of the founders of the Confederation of Asia and Pacific Accountants and was instrumental in helping, as president of the Philippine Institute of CPAs, in improving the standards of the profession. For that matter, he served as the third president of the International Federation of Accountants, the global organization.
He is indeed the global man personified. At the Conference Board, New York, an economic and business organization of CEOs based in the US and Europe, Wash Sycip served as vice chairman, helped the organization establish a Chinese Center with offices in New York and Beijing, and helped them expand in the Philippines and Asia. For that matter, the Asia Business Council of about seven CEOs of companies with major operations in Asia, counts Wash as one of its founders. This, by the way, is the only cross border organization with an "Asian voice and viewpoint" on economics and business issues.
He’s got one good advice for the youth of the Philippines and that is to actively participate in all endeavors to reduce poverty in the Philippines. One way to do this, he advises, is to concentrate on upgrading education in the country and participating in microfinance so that the lower levels in business and entrepreneurship can have credit at reasonable cost.
But the most heart-warming tribute comes from Sylvia Sanchez, one of the nicest functionaries at SGV, Wash’s executive assistant for 29 years, when she says: "Count me as one of those grateful people whom Mr. Sycip has helped. Hs commitment to help the bottom group of our society is truly remarkable, and in the 29 years that I have worked with him, I have witnessed how hard he works to bring progress to our nation."
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