7 lessons from Manny V. Pangilinan & why he’s not running for president

When will we start choosing good leaders who possess the guts and wits to push systemic and not just cosmetic reforms? Why do we in the Philippines tend to elect leaders who are personally honest but perceived to be inept, or leaders who are smart but lacking in idealism?

On the evening of July 29, a small yet high-powered gathering of top government and business leaders met for dinner at the Taipan Room of Tower Club, Philamlife Building, Makati City. They were there to honor 69-year-old First Pacific Group and PLDT boss Manuel “Manny” V. Pangilinan as recipient of the 2015 Ambassador Ramon V. del Rosario, Sr. Award for Nation-Building (RVR Award).

The RVR Award was created by the Jaycees of JCI Manila to honor outstanding leadership that contributes to national development as personified in the career and ideals of the idealistic late tycoon Ambassador Ramon V. del Rosario, Sr.

RVR was an extraordinary man whom I’ve had the privilege to meet, and I heard him once deliver an impassioned speech criticizing our failed politics over the past decades that have kept the Philippines lagging behind our Asian neighbors.

The dignitaries that night included Senate President Franklin Drilon, Foreign Affairs Secretary and former First Pacific executive Albert del Rosario, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Secretary Rene Almendras, Trade Secretary Greg Domingo, Education Secretary Armin Luistro, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, SGV Group founder and former 2012 RVR Award recipient Washington SyCip, 2014 RVR Award honoree Jaime Augusto de Ayala of the Ayala Group, 2010 RVR Award honoree banker Ambassador Jesus Tambunting, among others.

Why MVP won’t run for president in 2016

RVR’s second-to-youngest son Toon City CEO Juan Miguel del Rosario said his dad, up to his final years, told him he liked my STAR columns due to my positive attitude about life and business. That night, he was seated beside MVP. He told MVP his sister wanted him to run for president in 2016; MVP just laughed.

I asked Phinma’s former CEO, the retired businessman Oscar Hilado, his opinion of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago’s assessment that MVP would make a good president; or the story that Vice President Jojo Binay was reportedly wooing MVP to run as his vice president in the coming presidential race.

Hilado replied: “I’ve known Manny since he was in his 20s in the mid-1960s. He is brilliant and he is a workaholic; he was the only one who could outwork or outlast me in that company. He is a solid person, very principled; he has integrity, he is generous to his people. The qualities are there (to make MVP a good president or vice president), but I don’t think he has the temperament for politics. He’s a mover, a game-changer. I don’t think he likes the bureaucracy.”

When I asked MVP what it would take to convince him to run for president or vice president of the Philippines next year, the Ateneo economics cum laude graduate and alumnus of the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania replied with a smile: “I would have to get permission from my mother.” When I asked him the age of his mother, he replied: “She already passed away.” (He added that his comment on entering politics only if his mom permits was just a joke.)

7 lessons from MVP

Unlike most politicos who enjoy long-winded speeches, MVP delivered a speech that lasted less than half and hour and which shared a lot of lessons from his life. He started by saying that he’s “usually not given to accepting tributes, but the RVR Award is exceptional, and personally gratifying.” He explained: “Phinma gave me my first job — after Procter and Gamble turned down my application, despite being their scholar at Wharton,” the top business school. The late Ramon del Rosario, Sr. was the boss at Phinma.

1. Be bold because you’re young enough to fail. This was the first lesson shared by MVP. He explained by telling a story about the late RVR himself: the late distillery and mining tycoon Carlos Palanca had famously told RVR that he was a “fool” to leave Philamlife at the young age of 35 to establish his own firm. MVP quoted RVR’s reply to Palanca: “I am young enough to make a mistake. If I wait any longer, I’d be too scared.”

MVP recalled: “After Phinma, I took my own risk by emigrating to Hong Kong, taking inspiration from RVR’s example. Nowadays, I always tell our students, and young entrepreneurs, to ‘Be bold because you’re young enough to fail.’”

2. Keep it short and simple. MVP recounted how he joined the Phinma Group as executive assistant to the president of Filoil Marketing, Titong Chuidian. “One of the earliest tasks Titong asked me to do was to recommend an increase in the petty cash fund that he himself had approved. Waiting to showboat my newly minted Wharton degree, I studiously looked into this, and submitted a six-page memo full of numbers and statistical analysis. Titong called me to his office and, with my memo in hand, casually said: ‘Let’s just raise this from P2,000 to P5,000 a month.’ Lesson No. 2: Keep it short and simple.”

3. Keep it real. MVP recounted another experience: “I was also assigned to oversee Phinma’s coconut plantation in Siasi, Sulu. One afternoon in April 1970, I received a message by SSB from Siaso: ‘Plantation under attack. Udjah Umbat killed.’ Muslim squatters and our security detail had a skirmish that morning, and their leader was killed in the encounter. I had to fly to Siasi, assess the situation, including the prospect of securing a 1,000-hectare plantation by the sea.”

MVP continued: “I must confess to my gun-running days in Siasi — procuring Armalites, bullets, Browning automatic rifles, an armoured jeep and other assorted armaments for our security force. On one of those trips, Oscar and I returned to Manila with a bullet hole in the Phinma plane’s left wing. As to securing the plantation, I was inspired by the Vietnam War and thought: ‘Why not build a trench around the plantation perimeter 12 kilometers long, with poisoned spikes?’ When I presented to the Filagro Board this ‘brilliant’ solution, FCR (Filemon Rodriguez) looked at me with amusement; RVR with bewilderment — mixed with an expression that said: ‘What a dumb idea.’ Lesson No. 3: Keep it real.”

4. Tell the truth. Next MVP told the crowd: “I was also assigned to supervise Phinma’s sugar plantation in Negros. This included the selling of raw sugar, evidenced by quedans or warehouse receipts. I sold our sugar through Warner Barnes, our usual broker/dealer. On the day that we had to turn over the quedans, to my horror, we were short. I had no recourse but to buy from the market. A check was prepared to settle. I dreaded sending the check to RVR, so I sent it to FCR instead. The check came back signed, but with a note of gentle rebuke: ‘Manny, I thought we were selling sugar, not buying it.’ Lesson No. 4: Tell the truth.”

MVP also shared “three key takeaway lessons from the Valley,” referring to California’s high-tech Silicon Valley where he has had meetings with the likes of Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky. 

5. Failure is not frowned upon. MVP said: “If you must fail, fail fast and move on. One of the common quotes we heard comes from the playwright Samuel Beckett, who wrote: ‘Ever tried, ever failed, no matter. Try again, fail again, fail better.’

6. Disruption happens anytime, anywhere. MVP explained that the business landscape changes rapidly, “not only in telcos but now in the power industry and elsewhere. Businesses operate in a Darwinian landscape. It will not be the biggest or smartest amongst us which will survive, but those most adaptive to change.”

7. The halcyon days of manufacturing — bricks and mortar, iron and smokestacks — are over. MVP reminded the business leaders: “A new era of technology and innovation is upon us, emphasizing the supremacy of intellectual capital. That’s why this country has to move closer to information technology (IT) and engineering.

“Look at Uber and Airbnb — they didn’t exist a few years back. But Uber is now the largest transportation company in the world with a market value of $50 billion. Airbnb is the biggest lodging company with a market value of $24 billion. And yet neither one owns a single asset — no motor vehicle or hotel room.”

* * *

 Thanks for your feedback! E-mail willsoonflourish@gmail.com or follow WilsonLeeFlores on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and http://willsoonflourish.blogspot.com/.