Jose Cuisia Jr. money man, family man

Jose Cuisia, Jr.  knows all about money. He has been in the business of handling money all his life. At one point, he took care of the country’s private pension fund and later, controlled the nation’s funds as head of the Central Bank of the Philippines.

He knows the importance of money and the spot it should occupy in one’s list of priorities. It might not be at the very bottom, but neither should it be at the very top.

“There are things that I try to pass on to my children: that money is not really the primary goal for them. They should use money to help other people, to do good, to do more for the common good. Of course, and I try to tell them, yes, they need money for their material use but at the end of the day they must use money wisely so that they can help more people, to try to improve the life of their fellowmen,” he said.

Like most fathers, Cuisia hopes the lessons he and his wife try to impart to their five daughters do not just go in one ear and out the other.

They needn’t worry. The eldest, Joline, turned her back on a very lucrative banking job to become a school teacher.

“She said banking was not her cup of tea. I asked her what she wanted to be and she said, ‘I want to teach.’ After that, she resigned,” he recounts.

Ever the finance man, he cautioned her, “You have to be prepared to receive much less than what you are earning now as a banker. She was prepared and she was aware that she would have to adjust and so she decided to teach for a year and get her master’s abroad.”

Education is a new career path for any of the Cuisias, but this new occupation has also pre-occupied the patriarch, whose latest pet project is the Program for English Proficiency or PEP.

He is a part of the Philippine Business for Education, a group composed mostly of chief executive officers and other business executives who want to see an improvement in the education sector.

Philamlife, together with the American Chamber of Commerce and the Makati Business Club, is sponsoring this program to improve English proficiency. The insurance firm has the largest stake among the other corporations. This is a major project for Philamlife, which is celebrating its 60th year, and a special budget had to be provided for it since it was not in the firm’s annual budget.

They are sponsoring 6 schools: 2 in Luzon, 1 in Metro Manila, 2 in the Visayas and another in Mindanao. “The idea is to train at least a hundred teachers and a thousand students in each of the six schools so by the end of the program—which we believe will be end of this year—we would have trained about 600 teachers and 6,000 kids,” he explains. 

Cuisia believes English proficiency, even among young executives who graduated from the top schools in the country, has deteriorated. This sad state has to be addressed, particularly since business process outsourcing and call centers have a huge demand for young people who can converse well in English.

The PEP is only one of the major projects. The business community is actually trying to better coordinate its resources alloted for the education sector, which amounted to P1.2 billion in 2005.

He said they found out that this huge sum is spent doing different things, so they thought of coming together to make sure these resources are spent more efficiently and effectively.

“We’re looking at improving teacher quality and the level of English efficiency. We’re also advocating certain reforms in the education system,” he says.

While the first two objectives found support from Education Secretary Jesli Lapus, the third was met with much hesitation.

One of the reforms the business sector is pushing for is increasing the cycle of education from 10 to twelve years, a move very unpopular with the parents who would be shouldering the extra expense. “But if you spend for ten years and then your children are not qualified to compete for jobs, even jobs here, not to mention jobs abroad, parang it’s a waste if they are not fully qualified,” Cuisia argues.

Still, he understands why Lapus would need to do further study before such reform can pass. He hopes the Philippine Business for Education will also have a stonger voice in the future.

Education is not the only area of concern for Cuisia, as he is also very concerned about the pervasiveness of corruption in the country.

“It’s not just an impression. There’s a group called Transparency and Accountability Group, which did a study together with the Social Weather Stations. They did some surveys, and the level of corruption is quite high,” he shares.

Cuisia chairs the Coalition against Corruption that includes the Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference, the Makati Business Club, the Ateneo School of Government and other organizations. “Corruption is one of the major problems of the country. We’ve got to address the problem of how to bring down the level of corruption,” he insists.

But he acknowledges that it cannot be done without the cooperation of government.

“If the government really wants to bring down the level of corruption, they should expand the effort for members of the private sector to sit in the bids and awards committee of the different government corporations. Some agencies are not so cooperative,” he points out.

He said they had a working relationship with the Department of National Defense during the time of Secretary Avelino Cruz. But so far, during the term of Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane, they have not been invited to attend biddings and awardings.

On a more positive note, though, he says the level of corruption in the printing of textbooks has gone down. Since they were able to monitor printing jobs, particularly whether the number of books scheduled to be printed were actually printed, they have seen a big reduction in the cost of printing books.

The coalition also sends out volunteers to check on public projects such as roads. They found two projects to be non-existent, but the volunteers could not come out for fear of their lives. “We brought this to the attention of the public works secretary. We gave this report from our volunteers who came to inspect the roads but (the roads) were not there. This is really part of our concern,” he says.

Unfortunately, he sighs, the Department of Public Works and Highways is not as cooperative as the Department of Health, for example.

But it is time to get, as they say, up close and personal.  One, of course, cannot tell the full measure of a man in one short interview. However, in an open and candid interview, one gets the privilege of having insights into the person, glimpses of what he is about and possibly a peek into his soul.

One would think that having provided his children with all the benefits and advantages of wealth, Cuisia, the president of one of the top insurance firms in the country, can rest easy. Instead, his regret is one that money can’t buy an answer for.

“What is my regret? It’s that I didn’t spend much time with my family. But I had to do that because of the job demands, and if I had to do that all over again, I would make sure that I would provide more time with my family. Because when the children have grown up, the moment that time has passed you can’t recapture that,” says Cuisia.

Apparently, this is a concern that he has been keeping in his heart, a concern of every loving parent the world over. During the seven and a half years he spent in government, he had devoted most of his time to service, robbing that time from the portion that he should have spent, particularly with his second and third daughters. It is a sad lesson that he does not wish others to learn.

“I tell my employees, make sure especially when they’re growing up, you spend time with them. Because one they’re grown up, you’ve lost that opportunity. And that’s what I learned from my own experience. It’s important to spend time with your children. They must know that you’re there for them, of your care and concern for their welfare,” Cuisia says emphatically.

And because most of his daughters are abroad, he tries to make it a point to get everybody together at least once a year. “E-mails and phone calls are just not the same,” he says.

However, they may not be complete for the get together this year because his eldest daughter is giving birth by June.

The Cuisias are expecting a grandson. “Of course, we’re excited,” says the expectant lolo. “I’m looking forward to it, being the first grandson in the family.”

Though two daughters have also chosen finance as their careers, he does not really view this as following in his footsteps. “My children have different likes and dislikes. I encourage their individuality,” he says.

The eldest is living here as she nears her term of pregnancy. The second daughter works for AIG, Philamlife’s mother company, in New York while the third is also with AIG but in London. The fourth is studying at the Singapore Management University while the youngest is at the Ateneo de Manila University.

“The one thing that I always stress to them is that they must maintain a balance in their life. They must have time for their profession, for their work, but they must also have time for their families, time for their friends, time for themselves and time for God. Each one must make sure that they maintain a balance in their family life, spiritual life, professional life, and social life. They must also spend time with their friends,” he explains.

Cuisia says he has served his time in government and has no plans of going back. “Let the younger people have the opportunity,” he says.

That is not to say that he is turning his back on public service. When he retires (at a time in the distant future, he laughingly stresses), he plans to devote his time to Gawad Kalinga and good corporate governance.

Philamlife has already put up two Gawad Kalinga villages, one in Bulalakaw, Oriental Mindoro and another in Payatas. Gawad Kalinga is an organization that has captured his full interest.

He wants to be like SGV founder Washington Sycip, who at 85 still works for various charitable foundations and academic institutions. Sycip is a man he obviously admires. “He’s certainly a man of action and he’s a real role model and he continues to give of himself for the common good,” Cuisia muses, adding that Sycip is someone who teaches and yet doesn’t stop learning.

And this is one piece of advice that he wants to impart to the youth. “I always tell them to get the most out of their education. Get the most out of it, apply what you learn, and continue (to learn), even after graduation. There are lots of opportunities to continue the learning process.”

He also stresses the need to always remember the values that their parents taught them.

“Apply these values in whatever you do, whatever work you do...values of excellence, values of integrity, honesty and fairness. Be just and fair. Hard work is another value you must always practice. They have to keep trying to improve themselves, trying to learn more and doing, of course, their best whatever endeavor they engage in. Always remember that what they do must be offered for the glory of our Lord because we were given this opportunity to do good for our fellowmen,” he says.

And the achievement that he will bring to his Creator is not that he has propelled major corporations to the top or that he once steered the financial course of this country.

“I would like to say that I did my best to try to rear a family that is God-fearing, God-loving and that cares for my neighbors and that recognizes  that we are just stewards of what we have in this world. And the material goods we have are meant to be used for the common good,” he confesses.