Washington SyCip: We must focus on education

Washington SyCip. INQUIRER FILE

Washington “Wash” SyCip, founder of SyCip Gorres Velayo & Company (SGV & Co.) passed away enroute to New York City on Saturday night. He was 96.

His remains will remain in a NY hospital while documents are being prepared, former Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said in a Facebook post.

https://www.facebook.com/cvpurisima/posts/10213984163135229

SyCip was best known as an icon in accounting and business management, particularly due to the SGV & Co., the accounting firm he founded in 1946, together with Ramon Gorres and Fred Velayo, his friend since childhood.

After retiring from SGV in 1996, SyCip continued to be active in business and civic endeavors, and was a part of many Philippine and international companies and foundations’ board.

His advocacies include the improvement of public education, micro finance and entrepreneurship, and public health.

In an article by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 2015, SyCip pointed out that the biggest problem of the Philippines is “illiteracy.”

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“When a child is hungry and can’t go to school, you can’t expect him to be very intelligent,” he said in the article.

“We must focus on education; you can’t get a job if you can’t read or write,” he added.

SyCip said this was the reason he supports over 200,000 children through a partnership with the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development Mutually Reinforcing Institutions (CARD MRI).

According to the article, SyCip, together with friends abroad in the SyCip-Kazarian Foundation, founded the “Zero Dropout Program” via the CARD MRI mechanism, “which lends from P1,500 to P3,000 each to small livelihood borrowers, payable in three to six months, to enable their children to go to school.”

Noting the “almost perfect repayment batting average” in loans, SyCip said “The poor are often more honorable than the rich.” /cbb