Eugenio Lopez Sr.’s A Legacy of Service

"When I Was Growing Up, I Always Admired My Father’s Relentless Spirit. Not only did he have timely business acumen, he also was endowed with a heart of gold, always ready to give a helping hand to those who needed his help," says Oscar Lopez, current head of the Lopez Group of companies, about his father, the legendary Eugenio Lopez Sr. whose 105th birth anniversary the clan is celebrating this week in his birth place of Jaro, Iloilo.

The celebration centers around the inauguration of four projects to benefit residents of the communities within the district of Jaro, now a part of Iloilo City. The projects, undertaken by the Lopez group’s various foundations in cooperation with partner organizations, address pressing needs in nutrition, housing, education and reproductive health.

A six-month intervention feeding program aims to reduce malnutrition in more than 500 malnourished children in at least 40 barangays in Jaro. The program is undertaken with the Bantay Bata chapter in Iloilo.

Partnering with Gawad Kalinga, 50 houses will soon rise in the Eugenio Lopez Sr.-GK Village on a lot donated by the Jaro Archdiocese in Barangay Buntatala.

The education and training program will provide media-based learning, educational television and teacher training to 15 public elementary and three public high schools through the Knowledge Channel Foundation and the E-Media Program of the ABS-CBN Foundation.

A responsible parenthood program called "Pamilya Ko, Palangga Ko" will provide health care service and seminars for the parents of the children under the feeding program as well as youth counseling. Other projects under the program are barangay immersion in identifying women beneficiaries such as lactating mothers for family planning, breast exam, pap smear, as well as a component for husbands and male partners.

The homecoming and socially relevant celebration is the family’s way of living and continuing the values held dear by the patriarch, affectionately referred to as Don Eñing, who once said, "...human values are superior to material values; the right to enjoy the fruits of labor is paramount to profits and losses, and success should be measured not by the wealth we accumulate but by the amount of happiness we can spread."

But his wasn’t merely a feel-good/pat-on-the-back kind of philanthropy; it was, in fact, corporate social responsibility way before its time, long before, as current chair Oscar Lopez says, "the phrase was coined and its principal tenet widely understood." It was born of a belief in and commitment to private sector responsibility for the public good, based on sound business logic.

"We sincerely believe," Don Eñing said fifty years ago when he received the "Businessman of the Year Award" from the Business Writers Association of the Philippines, "that a greater proportion of the earnings accrued from business should be returned to the people whether this be in the form of foundations, grants, scholarships, hospitals or any other form of social welfare benefits. We consider this a sound policy and a good investment which, in the long run, will pay off because it will mean more business and goodwill for the company and would minimize, if not prevent, the social unrest and disorder which are prevalent nowadays."

His brand of philanthropy/corporate social responsibility covered more than hospitals and scholarships, although education was–and continues to be for his descendants–a major focus.

He helped establish two Philippine institutions: the Asian Institute of Management (he donated the main building of the school) and the Lopez Museum (Eugenio Lopez Foundation). Over three decades later, his heirs were likewise motivated to donate land in the prime Rockwell area development to establish the Ateneo Professional Schools at Rockwell Center.

Says Oscar Lopez of his father’s emphasis on education: "He sought every opportunity to pass on the value of a good education to all his children."

He relates: "I remember during World War II, when we were hiding from the Japanese in the mountains of Dingle in Iloilo, he (Don Eñing) contracted a husband and wife teacher team to keep us abreast of our studies. During the latter part of the war, when we migrated from Iloilo to Baguio City, and when all the schools were closed down due to American bombings in the city, my father had us walk for miles to the De La Salle Training Center across town where some La Salle brothers gave us lessons in chemistry, geometry and typing. This was in the mornings, and in the afternoons we would have to walk a few more miles to where Sta. Escolastica sisters were residing, and then we would get some more lessons in English literature and religion."

Don Eñing brought the Lopez family to the zenith of its wealth and business success, and saw it through its most trying and devastating times. Inheriting the family business –which was confined mainly to sugar–early in the last century, Don Eñing expanded into different fields, including publishing and land, water and air transport. From the ashes of World War II he rebuilt the family business, going into the budding broadcast industry and, in 1962, led the group of Filipino investors that acquired Manila Electric Company or Meralco, then the largest corporate entity in the country.

From the end of the war on through the following decades, the growth of the Lopez empire seemed to have no boundaries. But 1972 and the declaration of martial law totally changed the family’s fortunes, as it changed the character of the business community and even the country.

The family’s print and broadcast companies were forcibly shut down by the government, and their interest in Meralco and its subsidiaries was forcibly sold. Don Eñing escaped incarceration only because he was in Boston at the time to receive the coveted Harvard University Distinguished Service Award, given in recognition of "his accomplishments as business leader, communicator, and champion of sound management in Asia".

His eldest son Eugenio Jr. or Geny was jailed on charges of conspiring to assassinate Ferdinand Marcos, and was not allowed to travel to San Francisco when Don Eñing died in July 1975.

But the lessons Don Eugenio Lopez Sr. taught his children–Geny who died in 1999, Oscar, Manolo who heads Meralco, Presy who heads PASI, which extends educational assistance to poor communities, and Robby who died in 1992–by word and deed live on in the Lopez family through three generations. The Lopez group with its 17 companies and nine foundations remains today a model of responsible and responsive corporate citizenship.

As the family and the business group mark their patriarch’s 105th anniversary, it is apropos to recall his words uttered half a century ago: "The old business tenets have given way to the modern concept, which is not based on profits alone, but rather on the service it can render and the contribution it can make to the prosperity and progress of the nation as a whole."