The legendary Bobby Ongpin

President Bongbong Marcos remembers the first time he was in the same room with the late Roberto “Bobby” V. Ongpin, who was then serving as the youngest minister in the Cabinet of his father, then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

The younger Marcos was in the Malacañang office when Trade Minister Ongpin interrupted one ongoing meeting, taking the President aside to discuss an urgent issue with him.

The discussion soon became a heated argument.

“As the discussion went on, Bobby’s voice got louder and louder and louder, and he was literally screaming,” President Marcos recounts during the Feb. 28 memorial service for Ongpin who passed away last month. “And the people that my father were meeting turned around to see if everything was okay.”

“It got to the point when my father had to say, ‘Bobby, I think I have to remind you that you are addressing the President of the Philippines’,” he recalls. “And Bobby said ‘yes sir, of course, sir’—he didn’t say sorry. So he quieted down … for about one minute.”

But Ongpin’s forceful and impassioned arguments resumed soon after that and the younger Marcos saw his father smiling to himself probably thinking: “There’s no holding back this guy.”

“And thus the legend of tough guy Bobby Ongpin continued to grow,” he says.

But this tough guy apparently harbored a soft spot for the underprivileged, many of whom he helped by giving them access to better education, says Jesuit priest Fr. Jett Villarin.

According to the former president of the Ateneo de Manila University, the billionaire who had under his belt some of the highest-profile business deals in the country over the last two decades never lost sight of the importance of his family, the importance of education and the importance of God’s creation.

“Bobby was larger than life because he nurtured, he cultivated these three values,” says Villarin, explaining that Ongpin was one of the most generous benefactors of the nationwide chain of Jesuit schools through the Jaime V. Ongpin scholarship fund, named in honor of the businessman’s late brother.

To date, over 2,200 scholars have graduated from various Ateneo units around the country, thanks to this fund worth almost P300 million, having started with seed money of only P1.5 million for the matriculation of 10 students in 1993.

Binondo central bank

Alphaland Corp. founding president, Mario Oreta describes Ongpin as a boss, friend and mentor all rolled into one.

He recalls how he completed a key real estate development in 1983 with the help of the trade minister who had convinced Malacañang to release scarce funds to complete the project, hurdling several bureaucratic road blocks along the way.

In the early 1990s, Ongpin tapped him again to be a contractor for Tagaytay Highlands. They became fast friends, but this did not spare him—along with other associates—from the businessman’s hard driving ways.

“Surviving Bobby means you have a strong heart or you’re hard of hearing,” Oreta says, repeating the recurring theme that his mentor was a unique character. “The Lord made Bobby and, after that, threw away the mold.”

Another key business personality who paid tribute to the businessman was his former colleague at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ Monetary Board, Cesar Buenaventura, who recalls how Ongpin and former Prime Minister Cesar Virata “hounded” banker Jose “Jobo” Fernandez to become the country’s chief monetary and banking regulator during the Philippines’ most difficult economic period in the wake of the 1983 government debt default.

In particular, Buenaventura takes note of how Ongpin organized the so-called Binondo central bank by rounding up eight of the country’s largest dollar black market traders and forcing them to sell their hard currency to the cash-starved government every week at a fixed profit margin (all under the threat of imprisonment courtesy of a Presidential directive, of course).

“The nation owes you a debt of gratitude for the role that you played as the de facto governor of the Binondo central bank,” Buenaventura says.

“There were many critics, but the Binondo central bank and the ‘Jobo bills’ (referring to extremely high-yielding central bank bonds) saved the Philippine economy.”

Admirable bravery

Meanwhile, Maribel Ongpin recalls her brother-in-law’s drive to succeed at the highest levels even during his youth when they were junior employees at a multinational firm run by American executives.

“He wanted to be equal to everyone in the business community,” she says, adding that he gave her an indication of his tenacity early on, talking about the compulsory habit of locals addressing their expatriate bosses formally—a remnant of colonial practices.

“I will call them by their first names, not because they let me, but because I can,” Ongpin told her.

Her recollection dovetails right into the memories shared by Mr. Marcos and his admiration for his father’s Cabinet man who later became his friend.

“One thing I really admired about Bobby was how brave he was,” says the President. “He never backed off. You couldn’t intimidate him. You couldn’t frighten him. He never backed off from any challenge. He was perfectly willing to do the hard things. The painful things. That accounts for his success.”

Ongpin’s nephew, Eric Recto—who is now the chair of Alphaland Corp. and the executor of the late businessman’s estate, valued by Forbes magazine to be a little under $1 billion as of the last tally—recounts how their relationship evolved from a boss-employee tandem to one of equals.

“It was clear that he had to let me go to prosper on my own and to be my own man,” he says. “I know I made him proud because he told me so. This man that many grudgingly respect for his tough management style told me that he was proud of me.”

“I cannot think of any other compliment coming from him that would make me happier,” Recto adds. “The student that he had mentored through 25 years finally met his expectations.”

On a Sunday morning five weeks ago, his friends and associates were stunned to receive word that the billionaire—a man who had racked up astounding successes in business as well as crushing controversies—had passed away peacefully in his sleep.

As the preceding tributes make abundantly clear, there will never be another one like him.