Business for social good

(Acceptance remarks of PLDT chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan when he received the Best CEO Award from FinanceAsia magazine in Makati City on June 21.)

I have received a number of kindnesses from other institutions, but this award from FinanceAsia tonight is indeed priceless. I also feel particularly gratified that this recognition comes from colleagues, investors and finance professionals who understand the daily challenges a CEO faces. My thanks as well go to Maybank and ATR KimEng for sponsoring this awards dinner. Congratulations to all the other awardees.

Traditional CEO role

I’m reminded on an occasion as this—that while a CEO’s role is clearly pivotal, no CEO can succeed without a team of equally competent and capable professionals behind him. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have the able support and counsel of a world-class management team, some of whom are with me here tonight, and all of whom I thank and share this honor with. I’m also happy to note that PLDT, Philex Mining and Metro Pacific are recognized in other winning categories.

So tonight, I represent our companies as a trustee, inspired with this recognition. I’m a curator as well for this award, which I hold in trust for its many and true owners. I want you to know that this means I will continue to give more to our country than what has been given me. Oprah Winfrey said it best—“When you learn, teach. When you get, give.”

The Filipino CEO’s mission

But CEOs in this country are differently situated. They can’t replicate what the titans of the First World are doing, although they provide models to emulate. Filipino CEOs should be different. That’s because their preponderant mission is not only to manage companies to world-class profits and governance standards—but must, at the same time, stimulate and nourish the kind of economic growth that will lift the masses of our people from poverty, hunger, ignorance and disease.

Until we succeed in doing this, growth will be meaningful only to those who are already rich. Should we fail, we may contribute more to the fissures in our society in terms of economic disparity. John F. Kennedy said that—“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

The companies I help manage reflect that fundamental concern for mass-based growth and welfare. Telecommunications keep us talking to one another. Roads connect our north with the south, our east with west. Media delivers content to our people, enriching our national experience. Hospitals keep our people healthy. None of these would of course be possible without reliable and affordable power and clean water. Even mining—sadly maligned by the ill-informed—can create opportunities for jobs and development in the countryside.

Yes, we seek to grow even more, not because we want more profits for ourselves, but because we see our companies as agents of national transformation. We want to help make new and better things to happen. We want to improve people’s lives. We want the Filipino healthier and wealthier. And we want to see innovative technologies change the way we think, the way we live.

The story of Asia

We all know the success story of Asia.

Its uniquely successful economic model rests on a supportive and competent developmental government, strong political leadership, an entrepreneurial class of business leaders, the ability to harmonize west with east, while retaining its unique Asian character.

But for all these reasons, the single constant of the Asian development miracle remains its people.

Indeed, the story of Asia is simply the story of human effort. Behind the statistics, charts and models lay the decisions and deeds of people, both great and common. Economies are built not by policies but by people who craft them; not by capital flows, but by people who invest; not by output and exports, but by people who take the jeepneys and buses to work each day. As South Korea’s great nation-builder, Park Chung Hee, once wrote, his country’s economic transformation “is not much the work of a miracle as the result of many years of hard work to make ourselves stand on our own feet.”

Like Asia itself, it will be confidence in ourselves that will give our tired souls new strength to move forward toward a better Philippines. We shouldn’t be afraid when our days become heavy with dark clouds, and our nights darker than a hundred brownouts. So if others can do it, so can we.

It is my fondest wish that all of you in this hall accept the challenge of leadership—that it is ourselves who can best solve our problems— because no one else will. Now is the time to do it—because the Philippines is now in the uniquely proverbial “investment sweet spot.”

In closing, India’s first Prime Minister, Nehru, captured the essence of this social and transformative leadership when he said, in August 1947, on the eve of Indian independence and soon after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi: “The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means ending poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, our work will not be over.”

While our work in our country is indeed far from over, may everyone in this hall resolve to wipe every tear—in every eye—of every Filipino.

Manuel V. Pangilinan is also president and CEO of power distribution utility Meralco and chairman and CEO of mining firm Philex Mining Corp. He also sits as chairman of Metro Pacific Investment Corp., Maynilad Water Services Inc., Manila North Tollways Corp. and a number of hospitals, including Medical Doctors Inc. (Makati Medical Center) and Colinas Verdes Inc. (Cardinal Santos Medical Center).