Economy in good hands

In a two-week period, late July and early August, I interviewed more business titans than I did in any two-week period in the past 54 years of business journalism – Teresita Sy Coson, vice chair, SM Investments Corp. and matriarch of the SM Group; Lance Gokongwei, CEO, JG Summit Holdings; Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, chair and CEO, Ayala Corp.; Ramon S. Ang, chair and CEO, San Miguel Corp.; Henry Soesanto, CEO, Monde Nissin M.Y. San; Joey Concepcion, CEO, RFM Corp. and George Royeca, founder and CEO, Angkas.

These tycoons and taipans encompass the whole gamut of Philippine businesses, from the smallest to the biggest, from the oldest to the newest. Name any business or enterprise in the country, they own it or started it.

From my interviews totaling more than 15 hours, I make the following conclusions: 1) the Philippine economy is booming and is in good hands; 2) there has never been a better time to do business in the Philippines than now; 3) President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. is the most business friendly, most open, most transparent president to business ever; 4) the administration is keen to modernize the economy, fast, with its largest ever P9.3-trillion infrastructure rollout and ease of doing business steps and 5) private business is eager to participate in and help realize Philippine modernization to reduce poverty, reduce inequality, enhance inclusion and make life better for all, under Ang Bagong Pilipinas.

President BBM (Bongbong Marcos) meets regularly with our top businessmen, over extended lunch or dinner, through the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC). In these meetings, BBM is always on time.

I have been a business journalist for 54 years, rising from senior business reporter of The Manila Times to business editor of The Times Journal, which became the largest daily, in just six years. I went on to become senior correspondent of Asiaweek, covering business, politics and Asian affairs. Under Time Warner, Asiaweek became the largest newsweekly in Asia.

In Manila, I helped push Asiaweek’s circulation from 200 copies in the mid-1970s to 35,000 copies by the time of the Aquino assassination and People Power.

I met the legendary John Gokongwei Jr. when he was 49, in 1972. At a breakfast in his Forbes home, he introduced me to his only son, Lance. “He is bright and good,” the towering John enthused.

The same year, I met Enrique Zobel de Ayala, then president of Ayala Corp., the Philippines’ oldest commercial house. I spent a whole day with him in his leafy Hacienda Calatagan in Batangas. Then with him as pilot, he took me on a helicopter ride returning to Manila. The ride was, to put it mildly, topsy turvy. At that time, the Ayala family was the single largest owner of brewery giant San Miguel Corp.

I met Tatang Henry Sy Sr. when he opened his first hotel in Manila, also in 1972. At that time, Metro Manila was still a concept and an SM mall ecosystem was farthest from Henry’s mind. Opening the first Shoemart store in downtown Manila in 1958, all he was thinking of then was if he could sell a pair of shoes to every shoe buyer and make a one peso profit, it would be just great. Today, SM has “got it all for you.” In his 80s, Tatang would invite me for occasional lunch or merienda in his sprawling Forbes Park home, apparently to get a feel of the politics and economic vibes of the moment.

In the 1970s, I became good friends with industrialist Jose N. Concepcion Sr., the founder of Concepcion Industries, Inc. He introduced me to his twins, Jose “JoeCon” Concepcion Jr., president of RFM Corporation (co-founded in 1958 with the Araneta and Server families), and Raul “Ronnie” Concepcion, president of CII. Today, JoeCon’s son, Joey Concepcion III, runs RFM, while Ronnie’s son, Jojo Concepcion, manages the largest and most modern air conditioning company, Concepcion Industrial.

In the early 1980s, I met Eduardo M. Cojuangco Jr., the politician-tycoon, who in 1983 acquired a 51 percent controlling interest in San Miguel, using a creative infusion of his own money and a leverage buyout. I interviewed him extensively when he ran for president in 1992. It was not until 1998 when he maneuvered to assert his majority ownership of SMC and groom Ramon S. Ang, “a diamond in the raw,” he told me, to succeed him.

Today, RSA is his own man and San Miguel’s largest owner. He is undertaking the largest industrial expansion and infrastructure buildup ever by any entity, government or private, in the Philippines.

The combined wealth of the Sy, Ang, Ayala and Gokongwei families is easily $25 billion, 36 percent of the total wealth of the 20 richest Philippine families, per Forbes rankings. The combined sales of their corporations – SMIC, SMC, JG Summit and Ayala Corp. – was P2.695 trillion in 2023, 11 percent of Philippine GDP’s P24.27 trillion.

Tessie Sy is the matriarch of the SM Group and vice chair of their family holding company, SM Investments Corp., the largest holding company in market capitalization (P1.136 trillion). SM has 85 malls, 65 supermarkets, 54 hypermarkets, 219 Savemore, 1,600 specialty stores, 1,692 Alfamarts and 88 Waltermart outlets.

A double summa from UPenn, Lance, 57, is the CEO of JG Summit, Gokongwei’s holding company which owns and/or operates the Philippines’ largest airline, Cebu Pacific, with 54 percent market share; Clark Airport; the largest petrochemical plant and the largest branded food products industrial company, Universal Robina. JG is the second largest owner of Meralco, 26.4 percent; PLDT, Inc., 11.3 percent and Singapore Land, 37 percent.

JAZA’s Ayala is so old (190 years) the only business or enterprise it did not undertake was cater the Last Supper.

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