Oscar M. Lopez, 93

Past 8 Saturday (April 22, 2023) night, one of the Philippines’ most eminent tycoons and entrepreneurs, Oscar Moreno Lopez, died. He was 93.

Oskie, as friend and colleagues called him, epitomized the rollercoaster saga, the ups and downs of doing business in the Philippines, where politics and business make for a volatile brew, with sometimes fatal consequences, both for the business and the major players.

To survive the battles, triumph over the endless wars, navigate the economic labyrinth, one must have guts, courage, gumption, intelligence and considerable skill, talent, dexterity and persistence. Oskie had a surfeit of those qualities.

It is no accident that the Lopez family has for its symbol the phoenix, the mythical bird that keeps burning itself on a funeral pyre only to rise again and again with renewed vigor, ready to fly higher.

The family’s listed holding company, First Philippine Holdings Corp., calls Oscar its North Star, the Polaris that shows you the north, no matter where you go.

I interviewed Oscar a few times. He was always humble but frank and warm, and proud of his management at FPH and its culture of excellence, his advocacies (trees, climate change and the environment) and his being a health buff. In his 70s, he could climb mountains.

An FPH statement said Lopez built and rebuilt FPH conglomerate.

Oskie took command when his elder brother, Eugenio “Geny” Lopez Jr., died in 1999.

Geny and Oskie were the sons of the patriarch Don Eugenio “Eñing” Lopez Sr., the Harvard-trained lawyer and tycoon accused by then president Ferdinand Marcos Sr. of trying to assassinate him.

After martial law in 1972, the Lopez businesses (which included Meralco, ABS-CBN, PCIBank, the anti-Marcos Manila Chronicle) were seized and Geny was jailed until he miraculously escaped on Sept. 30, 1977. But not after their ownership of Meralco was ceded to another group. This drove the family to penury.

After People Power in February 1986, ownership of Meralco, ABS-CBN, PCIBank and the rest of the conglomerate was restored to the Lopezes. The brothers Geny and Oskie made the conglomerate, now known as First Philippine Holdings, even bigger, more powerful and profitable.

Crucial missteps, however, led to the loss of control of Meralco (now under Manuel V. Pangilinan of the Salim Group), the tollways business (now under MPIC of PLDT Group), the water business (also now under MPIC) and, most importantly, the ABS-CBN franchise whose renewal Congress denied in June 2020, after the network angered the then presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte for refusing to air his campaign ad he had paid in advance.  The feisty Duterte won, however.

ABS-CBN gave the Lopezes power to make and unmake presidents and elect topnotcher senators who are future presidents – except with Duterte.

To his credit, Oskie steered the family away from businesses invested with politics. He went big into renewable energy (85 percent of the P177-billion business, up 36 percent in 2022), prime real estate (residential, malls and industrial estates), construction and energy solutions.

The stock market currently values FPH at P29.3 billion with its stock price, P62, down from its April 26, 2022 high of P70.40. FPH has P421 billion in assets.

“He (Oscar) was our North Star, the inspiration and guide for succeeding generations of Lopez Group executives and employees who learned to treasure and practice with him the Group’s distinct core values: a pioneering entrepreneurial spirit, business excellence, unity, nationalism and social justice,” FPHC said in a statement.

OML is survived by his eight children, including current FPHC chairman and CEO Federico “Piki” R. Lopez, and his 27 grandchildren.

In 2001, Oscar won the prestigious Management Man of the Year award conferred by the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).

He pursued the two other Ps of the triple bottomline – people (society) and place (the environment), aside from profit.

That is why the Lopezes went into renewables. And Oscar founded the non-profit Oscar M. Lopez Center – Science for Climate Resilient Communities in 2012, to address the climate crisis and build resilient communities for Filipinos.

“It is our responsibility, each and every one of us, to protect our environment from further harm – and also to protect ourselves from the harm that we have already wrought upon our environment. For in abusing our environment, we have made ourselves vulnerable to the undesirable effects of that abuse,” Oscar said.

Oscar earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951 from Harvard University, and his Masters in Public Administration, Harvard, 1955. He was conferred the degrees of Doctor of Humanities honoris causa by De La Salle University and Ateneo de Manila University in 2010.

Since Oscar’s retirement in 2010, his eldest, Federico Rufino “Piki” Lopez, 61, has marvelously steered FPH into sustained growth and profitability. Piki has double degrees (Economics and International Relations) from the University of Pennsylvania, cum laude.

In 2020, Piki also won the MAP Management Man of the Year plum. MAP cited Piki for:

1. Passionately pushing for the country’s transition to a low-carbon economy through his various advocacies to proactively address the irreparable damage of climate change;

2. Championing the power industry’s deregulation for the benefit of the country;

3. Steering the Lopez Group to be at the forefront of energy security and sustainability, and clean technologies for renewable energy and natural gas;

4. Developing a deep bench of Filipino technical and managerial talent who are globally competitive;

5. His leadership role in the substantial contributions of the Lopez Group to national development in terms of production, value added, income generation and job creation;

6. His contribution to long-term positive development of society through his undertakings on technical-vocational education, youth development, community-based livelihood programs, scholarship opportunities for musicians and research projects on environmental protection;

7. Setting an example for Filipino managers through a track record of integrity, entrepreneurial excellence, professional competence and great leadership in his management career.

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