How's the Economy?: The Philippines' 15 Richest

     Despite European woes and the general economic slow-down, the Philippine economy outperformed most of its neighbors. It grew 6.4% in the 1st quarter of 2012 improving on the 4.9% in the first quarter of 2011. It registered an 8.4% growth in 2010.

     The stock ­market index gained 17% from the previous year. The stock exchange composite index was also up 27% in 2011.

     The 40 richest in the Philippines saw their collective wealth grew over $13 billion to $47.4 billion, up from last year’s total of $34 billion, (where a minimum of $85 million was needed to make the list) and $22.8 billion in 2010 (where a minimum of $50 million is the cut-off). This year’s List of 40 richest in the Philippines has a cutoff of $140 million

     There are now 15 billionaires (their net worth is in USD), up from 11 billionaires in 2011.

     The top 15 of the 40 richest in the Philippines are billionaires whose individual net worth is in USD. 

They are:

(1) Henry Sy; 

(2) Lucio Tan; 

(3) Enrique Razon Jr. (International Container Terminal Services); 

(4) John Gokongwei, Jr.; 

(5) David Consunji (construction firm DMCI, Semirara Mining); 

(6) Andrew Tan (Emperador Distillers); 

(7) Jaime Zobel de Ayala; 

(8) George Ty (Metrobank); 

(9) Roberto Ongpin (Atok-Big Wedge, plans to shift from mining to oil and gas exploration);
(10) Eduardo Cojuangco; 

(11) Robert Coyiuto, Jr. (power transmission firm National Grid); 

(12) Tony Tan Caktiong (Jollibee, Chowking, Greenwich Pizza); 

(13) Lucio and Susan Co (Puregold, country's second-largest retailer); 

(14) Inigo & Mercedes Zobel (Shares of Ayala Corp. Other assets include 25% stake in San Miguel. Inigo was appointed to board of PAL in April after San Miguel took controlling stake in the carrier); 

(15) Emilio Yap (Manila Bulletin. Philtrust Bank);

(Perry's note: My source is Suzy Nam, who writes for Forbes. She is a former corporate lawyer who now follows the richest of the rich in Southeast Asia. She covers tycoons in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines and produces rich lists for each of these countries. As part of the Global Wealth team at Forbes, she also works on their World Billionaires List.)

Legacy #2: Snapshots of a Past Frozen in Time – A Tribute to Relly S. & Marden I.

I intend my “Legacy Series” to be a short story of old friends with whom I’ve had the opportunity to be reconnected recently. It certainly will not capture the persona in detail much like a biography would. But that is not the intention. 

It will however, give a glimpse of something special in each of them and how that has touched my life or what lesson I have learned from it. I’m sure I will miss important details here and there but that’s because I failed to make notes on everything, relying only on my recollection of our conversations.

This being the second, I will call it Legacy #2: Snapshots of a Past Frozen in Time – A Tribute to Relly S. & Marden I.

Relly Salle and Marden Iglesias are two of my childhood buddies in elementary grade because we all lived in Mandaluyong when it was still a town and not the urbanized city it is now. We could walk to each other houses and sometimes rode on the same jeepney to school. We seldom saw each other in High School and never after that, but as fate would have it, we got reconnected as recent as about 2 years ago through Facebook.

Relly is now a Colonel with the Technical Services of the AFP and I hope he will make it all the way to being Dental Surgeon General before his retirement in a few years. But that’s just me hoping. I do not know his career path so more than that, I hope he will enjoy more of his time stress-free. He had a heart bypass surgery in the recent past but he looked marvelously fit in the two times that we sat down over coffee and talked for a couple of hours about life’s twists and turns.

Marden, is now based in New York. He is a successful personality in the arts as can be gleaned from his FB wall. Marden had always excelled in fashion because I can remember reading his name occasionally on the fashion pages of Manila Dailies back in college. 

Although we still have not met each other since our elementary days, it is always refreshing to read Marden's comments as he drops in on my FB wall from time to time. You can tell he has an eagle eye for detail by the way he appreciates your photos and other posts. Most of all he holds a warm appreciation of life.

It was in my Mandaluyong ancestral home that Relly and I met for the first time over coffee. He recalled how 3 young grade-school boys rode the bus all the way to Cubao to watch the Harlem Globetrotters at Araneta Coliseum. The three boys were myself, Relly and my elder brother, Lope. Harlem was a team that played wacky basketball against a serious pro team and that they made bumbling fools of.

After a few months, it was time for a second coffee sit-down and this we had at Relly’s ancestral home in Tanglaw street. Although it was renovated, I could still picture the basic structure of an apartment complex that Relly’s parents owned years ago. His dad played pro tennis while his mom worked in a mental hospital that Mandaluyong is famous for. Both his folks are gone now.

The first thing Marden recalled as we exchanged messages on the internet was my old house and its stair steps. It was atop an elevated sloping terrain that you can reach first, by crossing a sturdy wooden bridge that my dad constructed over an open canal by the road, and second, by climbing a series of uphill ground steps. By this time you would have reached the elevated wood balcony of our house but you need to take another 3 stair steps to enter it. I guess this is why among engineering topics, I hold a fancy for the stairs the most.

Marden is an only child. His home was one of the plushest houses I’ve seen as a kid, although, to reach it we had to pass open fields where the uncouth indiscriminately dumped their garbage. He told me that both his parents had passed away and that he left this patrimonial home in the care of a relative.

If you think hard about it, the blessing that childhood friends bring is that they are repositories of memory. In IT lingo they are like our backups or redundancies – the memory storage devices, in case ours crash or get deleted in oblivion as we take our life journey. They can give you a snapshot of a common past that is frozen in time. And when the memories come rushing in, they will jolt you pretty much like lightning, you will get goosebumps as you visualize images of a pleasant, distant past.

To Relly and Marden, thanks for the memories. Cheers.

Legacy #1: Taking Care of Parents – A Tribute to George F.

Today is Easter. 

This should be a day of joy so I think it’s a good day to start my “Legacy Series”. I had been thinking about writing this for the past few weeks but I could not find the time because of my heavy schedules. I intend my “Legacy Series” to be a short story of friends and how they touched my life or what lesson I have learned from them. This being the first, I think I will call it Legacy #1: Taking Care of Parents – A Tribute to George F.

I’m sure I will miss important details here and there but that’s because I failed to make notes on everything, relying only on my recollection of our conversations in the 4 meetings we’ve had in the last 2 years. My friend George T. Fernandez left the Philippines for USA as a young professional in 1983. He lived there for around 27 years although he would infrequently visit the country of his birth from time to time.

I did not see him from the time he left the country until we got reconnected about 2 years ago through Facebook. On my birthday in February of 2010 he took a vacation. Meeting him for the first time in 25 years was quite a blast. 

We traveled Luzon from north to south. We talked for hours on end, mostly about life and its twists and turns. Before the year was over, in December, George came back a second time, bringing his 87-year old mom to settle her back to their Project 4, Quezon City residence.

The following year, 2011 George made 2 travels to the Philippines. In May, he brought his kid KJ, a college student whom I taught how to scuba dive. In October, he came to visit his mom and also made arrangements to refurbish their original residence at Project 4.

A long time ago, George’s parents migrated to the USA where they both worked. Later, 3 of their kids, including the youngest, George, joined them there. Before passing away in 1997, his dad, an engineer, intimated to George his desire of a burial in the Philippines. But when the end came, it was all too sudden.

His dad had expired when George arrived at the hospital. Still, to comply with a dad’s final wish was the burning desire that consumed his focus and energy. And so it happened that a loving son made a father proud. George’s dad’s remains were laid to rest in his native soil.

George’s nephew and niece help in the care of his mom. I think it somehow relieved his worry that if he hadn’t taken his mom home, at some point in time she may land in a care home for the elderly in the US. Although her mom shows signs of impairment of short memory, she is still smart and lean, perhaps owing to long time profession of being a teacher.

What struck me about George’s life journey is his concern for his parents. My mom and dad passed away within a year of each other, in 2010 and 2011, respectively. I know too well the burden that bears upon a bereaved family and how difficult it is to attend to the thousand and one details that demand your attention. 

And yet my friend George traveled 12,000 kilometers, first to bring home the remains of his dad, and next, to assist his aging mom settle down back in her country of origin. And he will continue, as he has done so 4 times in the last 2 years.

Filipinos are gifted with a strong sense of filial affection and family ties. I know a few people who took exceptional care of their parents. One of them is my sister, Bonit, who went a fantastically extraordinary mile to take care of our mom and dad. 

I believe that people like them are blessed with a cloak of invincibility that exempts them from the normal travails of life. To George, you made this friend proud. Cheers.

X-factor #1: Resilience - The Art of Bouncing Back.

On March 16, 2012 I will be delivering the CEO message to the graduating class of 2012 of a tertiary school for the 19th time in the 21st year of its existence. I’ve been asked many times what the one quality I had hoped each of the graduates would have learned within the portals of the academe and would carry with them in their lifetime.

Well, I had given this question much thought in the past few days and even made it subject of my talk in my Saturday staff meeting 2 days ago. As I prepared my message my answer crystallized in my mind. The one quality I would wish upon any youth about to embark on a journey with a life full of promise in front of him is Resilience.

We cannot expect to go through life without experiencing some temporary setbacks or even failures. It is important during the times that we fall to always have the resolve and the stamina to “bounce back”. But this is easier said than done. 

I have encountered a lot of people who in their younger years have shown so much promise. They have the intelligence and even the family pedigree to assure a bright future. 

Many years later, and much to my surprise, I found many of them had lived ordinary lives, way below what one would expect for them to achieve, given their status in life. Some wallowed in discontent. A few were downright unhappy, and even regretful. Not a few had failed marriages or bad relationships.

I also know people who in their youth could barely afford the basic necessities of life, much less the “too-much-hype education” in a Filipino culture. But despite their humble circumstances, they attained a lot of success years later. Many of them reside or work in different parts of the globe. This is the reason I get so many standing offers to visit places.

I was intrigued by the x-factor that made "achievement" in one’s life journey easy for some and difficult for others. When I looked closely into their lives, one quality invariably stood out. All of them had resilience. I personally define this as the “art of bouncing back”.

But why is it an art? It is because Resilience is a skill that can be learned through observation and practice. And because it can be learned, it can also be created if you do not have it; as much as develop it when you barely have enough of it. I reckon it basically takes 3 things to be able to bounce back.  

The 3 Things We Need to Create Resilience: 

(1)  Wisdom. When life takes you down, you should immediately pray for wisdom to discern what lesson can be learned. If you can find a lesson in it somewhere, a setback would be easier to accept. I also think that when we pray for wisdom what we are actually given is humility.

(2) Creativity. When we fail, let's not waste time brooding over our weaknesses. Accept and move on. Look at your strengths and have the creativity to re-apply yourself to other endeavors where you can highlight your strengths.

(3) Discipline. Having decided on a certain path, have the stamina and the dogged determination to pursue it relentlessly.

Perry's Apothegm no.113: On the Benefit of Crisis in your Life

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One of the great benefits of a crisis is that it provides a great learning opportunity. What must a good leader do to turn around his organization when a crisis brings it to its knees? It is important to establish a clear vision of where he is taking the organization as it moves forward from that crisis.

It is surprising to note that the “most asked question” during a crisis is not whether we would survive the crisis but: “What would we look like when we come out of this crisis?” Therefore a leader must have the ability to create a path to the future in order to give a vision to his people.

(These are my thoughts on the talk of ANN MULCAHY, CEO of Xerox, [2001-2009], who was appointed President & COO in 2000, when Xerox was in deep trouble, having bankruptcy potential. She achieved a stunning turnaround, making her the 6th on the Most Powerful Women of 2005, and 15th in 2009. She was hailed One of America’s Best Leaders in 2008 by US news & World Report.)

So Perry's Apothegm no.113: " A leader must have the ability to create a path to the future in order to give a vision to his people."

Reflecting on a Reflection: Seeing the Magnificence of a Double-Rainbow - How Lucky Can I Get?

Today is Saturday, January 21, 2012 and I am expecting a long busy day since my Saturdays are usually “meetings day”. I wake up at 5am for my earlier-than-usual road run. Through the years I have found this to be simple but effective way of keeping up with the stresses. I need stamina to keep myself steady for the rigors of a long day. It rained during the night and the thought of wet socks and shoes after a road run somehow diminished my fervor of getting up.

With much effort I somehow managed to talk myself into going to the memorial park where I jog. As I began my run on a moderate climb I could feel mist on my face from the drizzle that just started. Much of my first kilometer was spent regretting why I did this run because the very light rain has now turned into a shower.

I was doing half-kilometer laps and as I turned for my 3rd lap the rains had suddenly stopped. Now the full view of a panoramic mountain was in front of me as the sun behind me started to manifest itself. Halfway through this lap I was captivated to see a vivid single arc rainbow. This optical phenomenon happens when a spectrum of light appears in the horizon as a result of sunlight striking the droplets of moisture in the atmosphere.

My 4th lap was downhill with the rainbow now at my back. What a fine lucky day I thought, this is the third time this month that I have seen a rainbow in this same spot. I read on it a bit after my 2nd sighting. The traditional view is that the rainbow spectrum has 7 colors. New thinkers however prefer not to include the color Indigo because it has a shorter wavelength and is almost indistinguishable between the blue and the violet.

The acronym for remembering the rainbow's colors is “Roy G. Biv.” Still I have a simpler ‘rule-of-thumb’. The human eye cannot see beyond red and violet – and a step beyond each end being either infrared or ultraviolet. The outside color of the rainbow spectrum is red while the inside is blue. In between them there are only 4 colors left and I bet you can guess their arrangement. In all, there are 3 fundamental colors: red, blue and yellow and 3 complementary: green, orange and violet.

I took a turn on the farthest point where the entrance gate to the cemetery stands for my 5th lap, and I am again running uphill. The mountain view is in front of me now and the sun is at my back. Then I saw it. I was spellbound at the majestic view of a double rainbow. The primary bow is so intense and vivid, all its colors seem so distinct. Next to it is a secondary bow, not as vivid, yet clearly visible.

I’ve read that secondary rainbows are caused by a double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops that takes place at a specific and precise angle. Due to the double reflection, the spectrum of the second rainbow is inverted, with blue on the outside and red on the inside. There is a dark zone of unlit sky between the primary and secondary bows called the Alexander's band.

As I warmed-down my run with brisk walking, I gave some thought to the meaning of the rainbow and its colors. Violet symbolizes the love for humanity, wisdom and royalty. Red is the color of passion and enthusiasm. Blue symbolizes the color of divinity of the sky. Orange stands for wisdom and energy. Green is the color of harmony and peace. And Yellow symbolizes happiness.

The rainbow itself can symbolize a new beginning, peace and relaxation.

On rare occasions such as today, I get to be so lucky to view a double rainbow. How many have seen one in their lifetime, I ask myself.

Pretty much like real life, luck, as well as opportunity, comes only to the right person who is at the right place at the right time.

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