The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians: The 1980 MBM CHARGERS of Professor Horacio “Junbo” Borromeo Ph.D.
Compiled and written by Gel Tamayo Edited by Gen. Vic Batac
MBM 1980 1 “A fool sees an enemy. A wise man sees a lesson to be learned.” -Mahatma Gandhi
2 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians We are presenting this collective article anchored on several parameters, among which are: our privilege to reminisce on our two-year sojourn; our Alumni ideas about AIM; and our “pass-in-review” as MBM 1980 Cohort. Lest we be misunderstood, allow us to clarify at the onset that, in this write-up, like in a “talk-show magazine”, we do not intend to demonstrate ersatz bravado or brazen braggadocio. We simply want to reminisce those days in AIM as young, carefree people of that era, then release little bragging rights in a good light, and tell the truth as we saw and experienced it. We also wish to put in proper perspective that, given a sampling of people, a number, in the course of human existence, would tend to have a bit more in life. Expectedly, some would become Chairmen, CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CMOs or CIOs of reputable business conglomerates, while others would turn to be “successful” entrepreneurs. Some would have less in ranks, titles and net assets. C’est le vie. What is important to us, MBM Cohort of 1980, is one’s inner growth as a person, and that one is always willing to get back on track and move forward in life. We have no desire to irresponsibly compare each other, or insinuate about another’s plight. This is merely our way of celebrating thirty-two years of our lives. As we have been evolving as AIM alumni and as business practitioners for the past thirty plus two years, we believe we have earned the right to provide inputs as well as constructive remarks and expect that appropriate people in the AIM hierarchy will take heed. The last portion is our way of updating each other. To those who would care to read on, it provides tidbits on where we have been and where we are now, thirty years after graduation.
MBM 1980 3 Our MBM Cohort’s Coordinator
Before, we lose ourselves in reminiscing, we want to focus the spotlight on a key person in our two-year sojourn in AIM. Our Cohort’s Coordinator at that time was a young professor named “Junbo” Borromeo, one of the “stars” in the MM Program. His college orientation was in Behavioral Science at the Ateneo De Manila. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that he is again the MBA Program Coordinator (i.e. the “Father Rooster”) for the MBA Class of 2010. This is historic in the sense that in so doing, Prof. Junbo is uniquely bridging, perhaps for the first time, two classes that are more than a generation apart.
How was Prof. Junbo in our time?
As MBM Coordinator, Prof. Junbo was strict and deliberate in communicating policies and reminders. But he was well balanced in dealing with us. He was not wont to compromise the high standards of the MBM Program at that time. He was like a stern and acerbic boot camp drillmaster, but with a marshmallow heart. Somehow, Prof. Junbo was omniscient on what was happening at the dorm, day in and day out. (We did suspect that he had people going over our garbage or taping our phone conversations, then.) He knew who were really studying and spending time with their can groups and those who were just playing backgammon or ping pong. He knew about the night escapades and those who sneaked back to the dorm early the next morning. He joined us in our periodic beer pubs. In many occasions, “You are supposed he found time to sit down with us during to be graduate mealtimes at the cafeteria. He could detect in-campus problems and he knew students, not kids. how to push the right button or give the Don’t get caught, right motivation to an underachieving, downhearted, or frustrated student. if you want to do Occasionally, he strummed his classical guitar in a corner somewhere, while little something funny or huddles of us tolerated or actually listened dysfunctional.”
4 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians to his renditions that were not that bad, really. But we knew how to “keep the distance”. After an exhaustive survey among classmates, we found out that in those two years, many of us remember Prof. Junbo most for the following: 1. His booming, eloquent, deliberate voice, especially in convocations and in the case room discussions; 2. His trademark high-pitched “whistle” which he often resorted to when we were on the edge of “verbal chaos” during case discussions and convocations, after which we would all be silent and one could actually hear a pin drop; and, 3. His favorite line: “You are supposed to be graduate students, not kids. Don’t get caught, if you want to do something funny or dysfunctional.” Today, we once again proudly salute and raise a toast to Doc Junbo for his passion and patience, tolerance and talent to guide and hone graduate business students for more than thirty two years, during which he even found time to earn his Ph.D. Indubitably, he is one of the few, ever loyal, senior faculty members of AIM who is much revered and respected by students and alumni alike. He still joins us on a regular basis during our Cohort’s get-togethers at the Malacca Restaurant which specializes in Malaysian cuisine. It is located along Jupiter Street in Makati City and is owned by a classmate Philip KC Ng. It is undeniably our favorite watering hole. We wish Doc Junbo all the happiness and the best of health… in the same spirit that we convey the same wish to all our MBM Mentors.
So Here We Are Again, After 30 Years
Thirty years after graduation in May 1980, here we are once again, happy to look back, carrying a plurality of mind-sets, work experiences, and bringing layers of varying emotions, opinions, and visions.
For Starters, Highlighting Our Cohort’s Contributions
At this point, within the context of history and the MBM’s raison d’êtres, we highlight a number of meaningful, (nay outstanding, or remarkable at the very least) achievements and contributions by certain members of our Cohort
MBM 1980 5 to their respective communities, to society and to the world of business, hopefully, to encourage and inspire young AIM MBA aspirants and the more recent MBA graduates, and to let them see AIM MBM 80 in the context of becoming Managers and Business Leaders,. After all, we came to AIM for the MBM degree, and people would like to know what many of us had or have done. We opted to omit the names of the achievers in the enumeration below, so that readers can focus on the achievements. Can you guess who they are? 1) The ever passionate Filipino CEO of a premiere NGO established for the protection of the environment and endangered species, about global warming and reduction of carbon emissions, and related concerns. He takes pride in taking the lead on related or relevant educational initiatives; 2) The Filipino investment banker in that major financial team, who in the early 90s succeeded in co-packaging and strategically assisted in the launching of the now burgeoning and very progressive Bonifacio Global City, beside the Makati Central Business District; 3) The Indian (now American) investment banker who quietly but significantly helped in co-packaging the hefty funding for the first modern, toll Skyway project in the south of Manila; 4) The young corporate banker in the early 80s who was the author of the initial study for the Monetary Board of the Central Bank of the Philippines, that became the basis for attracting and harnessing dollar remittances of the Overseas Filipino Workers into the Philippines; 5) The Filipino global CMO for furniture exportation that carved in the world map the now world-renowned Filipino furniture / interior designer and the furniture brand which is now among Asia’s best and the most reputable for “progressive Asian design fusion”; 6) The erstwhile Undersecretary of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Head of the Board of Investments, who after over a decade as a prized Senior Officer in one of New York’s top banks, came back to Manila and pioneered the investment-promotion work that led to the boom of the Business Process Outsourcing Industry in the Philippines; 7) the Filipino COO who pioneered in wholesale funding of SMEs and middle class businessmen in terms of legitimate and respectable mode of middle-class financing and micro-financing in the country; 8) the Malaysian who at a relatively young age became the CEO of the
6 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians world-renowned and no. 1 ASEAN conglomerate that is a leader in the rubber industry and is also into consumer and industrial goods, agriculture, motoring, and energy, among others; 9) the unassuming Filipino classmate who has been the South Asian Region’s President of one of the world’s largest and most profitable pharmaceutical conglomerates; 10) the key member of the original core group of young, reform-minded, military officers in the mid-80s that sparked the 1986 EDSA People Power revolution which resulted to the toppling of the Marcos dictatorship; 11) the smart Filipino duo that is undertaking the establishment of a chain of reputable, modernized and streamlined hospitals in the Philippines; 12) the Malaysian CEO who, among his other entrepreneurial ventures, successfully and sustainably introduced to the Philippine market the ergonomically designed executive and office chairs and a complete line of quality office furniture and furnishings; 13) the Singaporean CEO-entrepreneur-engineer that succeeded in having his company listed in NASDAQ in the early 1990s. He was recently awarded by the mainland Chinese Government the title “National Friendship Award”; and he has recently launched a computer-IT firm that is known to have the most advanced microprocessor in the world; 14) the Malaysian senior executive that made waves for almost a decade in a multinational consumer conglomerate, while assigned as GM in Malaysia, the Greater China VP (based in HKG) and the VP in Russia (based in Moscow); 15) the Filipino classmate, who has stayed for thirty-four years, and is now a Head Partner in Tax Consulting in the respectable firm, SGV Group; 16) another Filipino classmate, who has remained for over thirty years in a Filipino-Chinese conglomerate, and is now the overall Group Head of Corporate Procurement in the mother firm that is publicly listed (i.e. in one of the most trusted, higher positions); 17) the Korean finance genius classmate, who after being successful for over a decade in a high Corporate Finance position in a big Seoul company, finally preferred to take an HRD lead position in order to understand more and appreciate better actual human behavior in the organization and in the process have a more human view of his fellow Koreans; 18) the Canadian/Pakistani classmate who successfully owned,
MBM 1980 7 established and then sold the Dow Jones-Telerate franchise in Pakistan and served as its CEO; 19) a number of Cohort mates who had been assigned as expatriates in other countries and succeeded in their roles as CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CMOs, Chief Country Officers, GMs and Regional Heads, in many ways whereby AIM could stand proud of them; 20) the lady classmate who took over a family business and was responsible for exporting Philippine marble and succeeded to supply halls of five-star hotels and resorts in the USA, a commendable feat vis-à-vis the traditionally preferred Italian marble; and finally but not the least, 21) the passionate Deputy Fire Marshal for Eastern Metro Manila of the Association of Volunteer Fire Chiefs & Firefighters of the Philippines, who risked his own life in order to save hundreds of people in Marikina at the height of the flood onslaught of Typhoon Ondoy in late September 2009.
What Matters To Us Now?
To most of us, age no longer matters. Or at least, we tend to down play our having peppery hair, receding hairlines, balding pates, double- vista lenses and visibly defined paunches. Some of us already have kiddy grandchildren—“Ouch?” or “Is it Cheers?” The mind makes us prefer to stay young. Oh, yes, as humans, we also care about comfortable living and putting aside some funds after we retire, at the very least—and who wouldn’t? But, we also rather not talk of who has stashed the most millions among us or who has the biggest mansion or the flashiest and most expensive car. We rather help, for example, in a quiet manner, an MBM classmate in dire and immediate need—as the Cohort has proven. To us, success is having true happiness as a person, or something close to that, especially if one has been meaningfully contributing to his family and his immediate community. Given our druthers, we jocosely muse that scotoma may be our best ally—that is, we only believe in what we prefer to think of, and we like to see what we want to see (he, he). Talk about attitude and simply enjoying life to the fullest.
8 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians What We Want To Impart Now?
This portion should have been placed in the latter stage of this “talk”. But, we are apprehensive that the readers might not finish reading our article. Who cares about thirty-year Jubilarians, anyway? Thus, we bring up now these six, main, grouped messages. They are worth reading.
First Message: Too Much Cutting Down One’s Classmates
We want to convey to all, especially the Trustees, the Governors, the Faculty, the Alumni and Students, that in our time, AIM emphasized so “much protecting one’s own position” and “so much fending for one’s own swim”, especially in the case rooms. The effect was that there was so much of “cutting down each other” inside and outside of the case room, in the guise of “may-the-best- idea-win”, and then having to put on “calesa-eye blinders” in order to survive, or to speak out more often for one’s self to be noticed, especially in the first year. Then, each of us had to carry on with the “paper chase ” in order to finish the MRR on time for graduation in the last year. (Was there at least another choice at that time? Our answer is Yes. Many among us think so in categorical terms, without meaning to hurt the MBM, now MBA standards.) In retrospect, there was a long-term backlash.
Second Message: What AIM Did Not Teach Us?
Academically, during our time, the MBM standards looked awesome. It was impressed on us that AIM was Asia’s version of the Harvard Business School. However, in terms of the business realm, the Institute did not teach us the values and the core
MBM 1980 9 exercises of effective “alliancing” and “networking”, starting with looking after our own seat mates or fellow dorm mates. Professors and cases did not show us the effective ways to make partners and subordinates “bloom”, to grow and improve together. We were not taught to be conscious of mutually adding value to each other or to the team or one’s Company. Thus, AIM did not teach us the value of “effective and sustainable relationships”—-we did not experience the “feeling of being cared for” in those two years. In terms of the environment, the professors and the cases did not even teach us “managerial initiatives” or “believing in dreams” to protect the environment when developing projects that could affect nature around us. They did not teach us the importance of climate change and the significance of reduction of carbon emissions. In terms of ”Return to the School” yardstick, we were not also taught, nor “brainwashed” to “soulfully belong to” and to keep that good attitude of “giving back” to the Alma Mater. No wonder, many of us —perhaps, even also true in other MBM and MBA Cohorts—are not interested in coming to AIM to join important activities and celebrate milestone events, what more the minor ones, albeit the pre-announcements. No wonder, most graduates do not attend homecomings or pre-scheduled group dinners or break-out events, even if they are just a stone’s throw away. No wonder many of us prefer to be mere nonchalant “fence sitters”. Yet we look around and notice that alumni of the PMA, the Ateneo and De La Salle have that legendary fire in their bellies, and they meaningfully
10 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians articulate their loyalty to their Alma Mater, expressing this in sustainable and concerted group activities. People can tell us that there could be other factors that those schools have, which AIM does not have. Others may argue that there is a process in time involved, that a graduate undergoes through the years, and then, he or she may “come back”. But, we feel we are making a distinct and not a distant point here that must be heard. Perhaps, it is time for AIM, especially the Trustees and the Faculty, to understand what we, as a well-meaning group of MBM Alumni, are trying to say. We feel that AIM must also revisit the problem situation by starting to look again at what is happening in the case room, even when the MBA track has been reduced to only sixteen months. In the process, we hope that something sustainable and consistently innovative must be done, especially in the core MBA Program, which is traditionally AIM’s trump card. To dramatize a case in point—we feel this is not an isolated one—allow us to bring up an article written by Shasank Kalyan of MBM 1997, published in the January-March issue 2008 of the AIM Alumni Leadership Magazine. He wrote: “I had one very bad day at AIM. I had volunteered to do the financial analysis of a case for Prof. Felix Bustos’ class. I had worked through the night and was late for the case in the morning. I put up the slide on the projector and presented the cash flow statement. Immediately, my seat mate Srini Kodali found some major mistake in my work and struck it down. Prof. Bustos, being a highly diplomatic man, underplayed my mistake, spoke on my behalf, calmed aggressive Srini down, and asked me to take my seat beside Srini. To date, I remember asking Srini why he did not love his neighbor a little more!” How succinctly described, indeed. Now, Mr. Kalyan runs his own computer institute in India. But, please, do not get us wrong. We, the MBM Cohort of 1980, really want to “give back”… perhaps, in some other equally important modalities, hand-in-hand with the much addressed, direct “monetary form”.
Third Message: AIM’s Placement Office
After our graduation in 1980, the AIM Placement Office fell short in helping many of us get good jobs. Many of us in the past had felt—too bad it
MBM 1980 11 has stuck and emblazoned in our brains—that AIM’s Placement Office was weak. Because of that past misimpression, many of us in our MBM 1980 Cohort still carry the belief that the Placement Office should be consistently effective in helping our MBA graduates get better and more respectable jobs, year in and year out, or every AIM graduate should be guaranteed at least a good job like any masters graduate of any high quality North American or European business school. And why not? This is AIM, isn’t it? Well, people will retort that times have become harder, and may bring any other rationalization there is. But that is a distant way of looking at the true picture, and not facing the challenge and the adventure. We hope the AIM Placement office in recent years till today has tremendously improved. In this connection, we ask all Alumni who ... we ask all Alumni who are are Decision-making Employers Decision-making Employers and and Bosses to bring AIM graduates Bosses to bring AIM graduates into their companies, given their substantial company budgets, and into their companies, given their assuming that the AIM graduate- substantial company budgets, and applicants fit in well—that is, when assuming that the AIM graduate- all factors in the job competition are applicants fit in well... about equal or close to that.
Fourth Message: More Solid Corporate Sponsors Needed
Most of us in our Cohort have been “fence-sitters” all these years. But that does not mean that we have abdicated our right to speak out. Perhaps, we can be wrong here in terms of perception. Just like the Third Message, the “fixated opinion” seems to stay in us. For example, we have taken the impression that given the Institute’s 40 years of existence, there has been a slack in terms of a strong network in building a more sustainable arsenal of “corporate sponsors” in the Asian Region. Any reference to Asian in the Institute’s name becomes incongruous, if in truth there is no network of corporate sponsors that can sustain it. There must be a steady CORE Group inside AIM that should be well focused in building solid blocks of strong corporate sponsors or conglomerates from key Asian cities, that are willing to invest on their human resources and send their
12 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians officers to AIM for further studies, especially in the MBA Program. At the same time, we believe that the courses must be appropriate and “best-fit” to the current times in the region, and for future requirements of those corporations. For example, we see that there are very few students from Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan or the Middle East (Oh, yes, we are aware of the Indian and the Mainland Chinese scholars.) when it can not be denied that they are still among the heavyweights in the “then-and-now factors” of developing and pushing for Asia. Thus, we wonder why, over the recent years till today, these countries have not been sending on a regular basis a good number of their MBA and MM scholars to AIM? And then we have been calling our Institute “Asian”? We can go on and on with this topic and support topics, showing certain variants and modalities. A passionate and representative handful from our MBM Cohort should be able to sit down on these with AIM’s authorities in the near future, as we trust that AIM wants to listen to us, too.
Fifth Message: Our Role As Alumni In Relation To AIM’s Becoming
As MBM 1980 Alumni, we view ourselves as a part of a “mystery” that is the unity of the past, the present and the future, in the same manner that thinking people and other Alumni Classes fix themselves in time and space. AIM has carried a 40-year tradition, a great part of which is supposed to show awe and wonder, and to attract the newcomer-student and, hopefully every future Asian Boss of the newly minted MBA graduate. In the past 40 years, we and the older Cohorts before us have witnessed AIM taking huge and bold steps to renew itself, dealing with the present to safeguard the future. We believe that making AIM more competitive and attractive to the market is totally compatible with the original vision of the Founding Fathers, as long as it remains steadfast in continuously accepting change and to innovate year in and year out. But, we feel it is vital to introduce change within a “continuum”, while bringing in the value of past and present work experiences. It is a must
MBM 1980 13 to find new ways of defining AIM’s role and position in the future, in the context of its past and present. Many of us in the 1980 MBM Cohort feel that the “job” is really to “romance the future”, with doggone determination and in the context of sustainability. The older MBM Alumni are a major ingredient of that “continuum” and that “job”. To totally discard that may not be advisable. Doing so will hasten the chances of colossal failure for the Institute, especially amidst the incessant regional and global competition. In addition, the older Alumni are contemporaries of company owners, and CEOs and Chairmen of successful conglomerates. We have heard that some of the senior Faculty Members have talked about this same topic in the past years and in recent months, in terms of embracing change and in facing the future. Meanwhile, many of the Alumni may ask: “What is in it for us? What have we got to do with AIM this time, when we have been through with our “boot camp”? Our answer is: “A lot!”—-with the underscoring. We are ready to line up our focused, rifle-approached initiatives, if only to keep up high the AIM flag for many years to come.
Sixth Message: The Doctoral Program
To be more competitive in Asia and the Pacific region, perhaps, it is about time for AIM to open its Doctoral Program, with two main directions: one for the practitioner-oriented, and the other for the management research-inclined. But both lines must keep that Asian depth and edge in view of the four decades of Asian orientation in teaching graduate management and business leadership. However, we are aware that going this time for the feasibility study, the step-by-step technicalities, and the Government requirements is another story. Well said, and enough of our sharing. We believe that we are afforded this unique license and opportunity to speak up precisely because we are Thirty-Year Jubilarians. We are optimistic that our messages concerning the Institute will not be treated as mere “picograms” of the total picture, and, hopefully, these will germinate into more positive and sustainable initiatives.
14 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians Now, We Reminisce On Our Two MBM Years
Meanwhile, allow us now the leisure and the youthful fun to do our collective reminiscing as MBM’s Thirty-Year Jubilarians.
Our First Year in AIM
There were over 250 MBM applicants who made the cut for our batch. But, in early July 1978, only 113 of us arrived at the AIM dorm as young, vibrant, aggressive idealists. There were 13 girls and 100 boys. Thirty-three were foreigners. An older MBM alumni once said that, if you wanted to see pretty girls while in AIM, you must not do the ogling and the socializing inside the
MBM 1980 15 campus, but go outside to get a more refreshing perspective, after too much case-reading, and take a walk at QUAD or what is now known as Greenbelt. But our girls in MBM 1980 were not only pretty, but smart and charming. We accompanied them out for those walks. Starting in our first year in 1978. we had five military scholars, all graduates of the PMA, who were real gentle men and officers of the lofty kind. They were: Cesar Bello (the logistics-oriented Colonel in the DND); Vic Batac, (a Major who later became an original Core Group Member of the RAM); Tony Siapno (a Navy Commander with a proclivity for diplomatic spiels in the case room); Tony “Torch” Torres (the unassuming PMA Valedictorian); and, Rudy de Castro (a jolly PAF helicopter Pilot). We also had SGV scholars. They were employees of SGV who were sponsored by SGV to take their masters in AIM. We would like to acknowledge the trust that SGV has had in continuing to send its scholars to AIM. In our time, the SGV scholars were: Ruben Rubio (who is still in SGV), Gil Palad, Albert Toribio, Art Falco, and Alfred Severino. These guys more often than not, took the center stage in our accounting, finance and marketing modules.
Dorm Life At Paseo
Entering dorm life at Paseo, which was somewhat a mandatory stay-in for the first three months, was pure fun and adventure for us young people, especially in making new acquaintances and even keeping lasting friendships. Most of us stayed for two years in the dorm, which at that time, still sported relatively fresh interior looks. Our age range mode in class gravitated from 20 to 26 years old.
16 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians The oldest was Col. Cesar Bello, a scholar of the Department of National Defense. The second oldest was Rev. Fr. Beda Liu, a Chinese Jesuit. The youngest was a pretty and a new chemistry Cum Laude graduate from Indiana University, Kathy Co. We had the ebullience and spontaneity of youth, like any other eager, young, full-time, masters freshmen. We were reminded by the faculty at that time that we were shaky and, at times, brash neophytes. We were told that we still had lots of rice to eat and more bottles of milk or beer to drink (the latter We were told that we still would be preferred), before we could make had lots of rice to eat and our bones in the proper corridors. more bottles of milk or beer Just like the MBM 1979 ahead of us and the MBM 1981 after us, our MBM to drink (the latter would 1980 Cohort had the same AIM bricks be preferred), before we and mortar that stood out in the wide, could make our bones in the almost empty talahib (grassy reeds) fields proper corridors. of Legaspi Village at that time. There were practically no other taller or bigger buildings nearby and around us, except the old Corinthian Plaza, the old Pioneer Insurance Building, the old PAL Building, the old PCIB Building, the old Charter House, and the old Standard Building. Where the ACCM-Hotel building stands now, there used to be an unpaved, pebbled, open parking lot and the cemented basketball court. The late Fr. James Donelan, SJ, (of the dreaded freshman WAC Faculty Department) would play one-on-one or three-on-three basketball with some of us after classes late in the afternoons. There was no huge, modern Greenbelt Complex in front. The non- existing Greenbelt 1 and 3, as we recollect, used to be the improvised feedlot area for the late Don Enrique Zobel’s cows, before they were sent to the butcher’s house, and become good beef steak Tagalog and local hamburgers on some people’s plates elsewhere. At Christmas time, that feedlot area in front would be converted to a mini carnival setting of a few kiddy rides and monster train thrill tunnel. Oh, yes, some of us tried those rides and the dark train tunnel at night in those two Decembers, in the guise of dates with some girls in the batch or from the outside. Talk of simple joys.
MBM 1980 17 Where the Makati Shangrila is now standing is the same place where there was that famous Rizal Theater and Rizal Cafe. Aside from movies, the Rizal Theater accommodated concerts and musicals of the Repertory Philippines. The only “mall” near then was the Ayala QUAD, whose main entrance is now the Gate 1 of Glorietta Center, which still faces that old QUAD parking building. After some slices of Shakey’s pizza and mugs or pitchers of draft beer, or after buying siopao from the Kowloon outlet beside the old QUAD, walking alone late at night from the QUAD to AIM was a bit scary. Paseo De Roxas was mostly unlighted then in the evenings. Joints along Burgos Street in Makati and that disco bar along Pasay Road (now Arnaiz Street) were among the favorite hang-outs of many classmates, especially after submitting those dreaded, hand-written, take-home WACs. We also remember a Japanese restaurant along Pasay Road (Arnaiz Street), where “can groups” or dorm roommates would go together and enjoy the “eat- all-you-can” tempura at a reasonable price. A group of us saw a teen-ager there win first prize in the annual eating contest at lunch time by finishing 38 tempura plates, including the fried veggies, minus the drinks. (Oh, my…) We made friends in the old AIM dorm with the guys and girls of MBM 1979 and MBM 1981—the former included the now successful global banker, Marlon Young, and the latter had the renegade military scholar, now Senator Gringo Honasan, who was fun and nice to be with in the dorm, sometimes with his pet baby boa constrictor, which he raised and trained from a war-jungle corner of Mindanao. We also made friends with the charming and eloquent young Muslim leader, Amina Rasul, also of MBM 1981. We were true sports in tossing into the swimming pool near the sunken garden a birthday celebrant or a classmate who got a Distinction grade in his or her WAC. It was hard to run away and hide from at least 20 guys chasing a “victim” at midnight, or after hearing a new Distinction WAC announcement in class. There was definitely no escaping the pool-dunking ritual.
18 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians The MBM Cohort With The Lowest Group IQ Average
Many in our Cohort recall that, for a few times, the faculty assigned to us would make insinuations, telling us in the case rooms in our first year, that ours was the MBM Cohort with the lowest group IQ average, that had ever joined the two-year MBM Program. We just smiled and let their comments drift through the air vents and doors. We wondered whether what the faculty declared to us about having the lowest IQ average as a Cohort was also slung to every other freshmen MBM class. Talk about KITA or Kick In The A___. At that time, we were new in the Institute’s system and, perhaps, we could not bravely answer back, because we were simply intimidated in our seemingly neophyte predisposition. But we wondered whether the faculty forgot that we were supposed to be taught to manage and, better, to lead. Perhaps, they forgot that in managing and leading people, IQ is not the only “Q” in the process. There are also other important “Qs” such as the Emotional Quotient, the Physical- Athletic Quotient, the Artistic-Creative Quotient, the Intuitive Quotient and the rest of the “Qs”. In short, the Left Brain and the Right Brain factors. Or as renowned psychologists Raymond Cattell and John Horn would theorize, there is the “fluid intelligence” on one hand, and the “crystallized intelligence” on the other hand. In our Class, there was not much of inter-university “bragging”. Unlike in present-day situations among young college students outside, the “air” of “being” Green Archers or Blue Eagles or UP Maroons, and the like was not really pronounced in our class. It was not our cup of tea as MBM aspirants. Even the Indians and Pakistanis, while coming in from two different cultures, were cordial and diplomatic. Perhaps, at that time, we were more apprehensive of and in a hurry at night in mastering the skill of “speed- reading” those long and seemingly abominable and lengthy cases. Maybe, we were more engrossed with our two-year “paper chase” life—meaning, each wanted to march on graduation night to make one’s parents happy. Or each was more subdued and reticent in terms of feeling secured in one’s culture and upbringing.
MBM 1980 19 Our First Year Professors
Our professors in the first year of MBM—the first year to us was the initially dreaded boot camp—were: Irene Schatz (M.A., U. of Hawaii) was our HBO professor. She tried to get Bharat Parashar expelled for being “too arrogant and insulting of his classmates.” Irene left for Seattle in 1981 and has not been heard from since, but not before becoming Bharat’s good friend and tennis partner. Suresh Seshan (MBA Harvard With Distinction) taught MACS (equivalent of Managerial Accounting and Management Services) as a visiting professor from IIM Ahmedabad for two years, then joined ADB until he retired. He is now based in San Francisco. Junbo Borromeo was our marketing professor in first year. He finally finished his PhD in 2009. For Finance, we had no less than Benjie Palma-Gil (AIM MBM With High Distinction, and Ateneo de Manila U, Economics Honors Program). He would become President and CEO of Philippine National Bank. Today, he manages a bank in Los Angeles. Quintin Tan taught Operations Management in the first semester. QT, as he was fondly called in campus, got his MBA from UP, then went to Harvard for the ITP or International Teachers Program. After retiring from AIM, he would serve as Undersecretary of Department of Trade and Industry. Dean of Students, Jun Bernardo, took over from QT for second semester Operations Management. An MBA from Stanford, he would later become Dean of AIM. Mayo Lopez taught Environmental Analysis. Mayo had an MBM from AIM, and an MPA from Harvard. Rafael Azanza had an MBA from Harvard. But he did not teach us Finance, which was his specialization; instead he taught WAC. He was assisted by Rev. Father James Donelan, S.J., (former President and Rector of Ateneo). Father Jim held Masters degrees from Oxford and Woodstock. Finally, we had the unassuming Dean of Faculty, Gasty Ortigas, for Quantitative Analysis. Gasty had an MBA from UP, and a DBA from Harvard. During our second year in AIM, Dean Gasty would be hunted by the Marcos military and he would flee to Sabah and later the U.S., where he joined forces with Senator Ninoy Aquino. In 1986, Gasty returned from exile
20 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians and became Dean of AIM.
First Year Bragging Rights
In AIM’s history, our Cohort, in the first year, broke the MBM record by producing three classmates who obtained the first “Distinction” final grades in Human Behavior in Organization (HBO). They were Lory Tan and Vincent Jayme. The third one prefers not to be named. HBO at that time, under Prof. Irene Schatz, was a behavioral science- based subject, where the structured analysis could be both subjective and socially intuitive. Since the main mode was not quantitative, it was very hard to shoot for a flat “D” final mark for the first year or remain consistently at the top in every class session under her.
Some Rare Feats
We boast of ten classmates who did very well in Quantitative Analysis (QA) under Dean Gasty Ortigas: 1. the quiet and unassuming full scholar Noel de la Paz (AB Economics Honors Program, Cum Laude, Ateneo de Manila U.); 2. another quiet Indian girl, Bhavani Srinivasan (Magna Cum Laude, B.A., Assumption College; 3. the relaxed and deliberate Leo Francis Gonzales (Industrial Engineering from UP-Diliman); 4. the cool Francisco Abes, Jr. ( a Cum Laude math graduate from the Ateneo); 5. the affable but brilliant Gary Santos (Cum Laude geo engineering grad from UP-Diliman); 6. the sharp Singaporean engineer, Chew Eng Seng; 7. the straight-shooter Magna Cum Laude Maryknoller, Minda Garcia- Arcilla; 8. the no-fuss Malaysian, Lim Chin Hock; 9. the BS Management Engineering boy from the Ateneo de Manila, Greg Domingo; and 10. the Cohort’s overall no. 1 graduate, Leow Kee Peng. Of these top ten, in terms of numerical averages of assignments and
MBM 1980 21 exams, Noel de la Paz garnered a perfect 100% final grade for the whole of first year. In Finance I and II, we had the Korean scholar Johnny Jeong who mesmerized us with his at least twice a week case room presentations, using his handwritten financial worksheets (no Excel spreadsheets then), which he religiously filled up every night, using only a pencil and a four-function calculator. He often showed complete five-year financial projections and conclusions, which made Prof. Benjie Palma Gil grin ear to ear. He earned the monicker, the “First Year Finance Whiz Kid”. Notwithstanding his broken Korean English, his finance presentations were always a marvel.After all, Finance Math is universal. We easily knew at that time that Johnny was having a meal nearby with his caring Korean wife, with a toddler slung on her back, whenever their home- made kimchi and chalbichim for lunch or dinner wafted all over the place. In MACS I and II (i.e. the equivalent of Managerial Accounting and Management Services Modules), the “HP”to “D-“ performers in class were the likes of the SGV scholars, such as Ben Rubio (now an International Partner / Head for Tax Consulting in SGV), Bert Torribio, Gil Palad, Art Falco, and Alfred Severino. The other star performers in MACS were the Citibank scholar and a Magna Cum Laude from San Carlos U. Ramon L. Lim (now the Senior Chief of PNB’s Overall Treasury), Maritess Del Rosario Bo-ot (the bright and practical girl from Maryknoll, now Miriam College, and UP-Diliman) and Mon Diaz (another Magna Cum Laude in Accounting, and now a resort entrepreneur in Negros Oriental in Visayas). We cannot forget how seriously we involved ourselves as a Cohort in Marketing I and II under Prof. Jun Bo, especially in preparing and submitting the annual marketing plan project as a final exercise, before moving on to second year. We had many sleepless nights and lost some weight because of that project. When we reached the second year marketing classes under Prof. Peter Garrucho, Prof. Bert Ladores and Dean Gabby Mendoza, we were very much prepared for bigger battles and challenges. Our Cohort to this day affectionately jokes about one of our younger classmates, Lawrence Alandy Dy who managed to have memorized Philip Kotler’s book. But truth to tell is that all of us, without exception in that first year, had to read almost page by page the same marketing book daily, because we seriously took Prof. Jun Bo’s advice, in that the genius Kotler
22 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians was the best preparation for us to face the case room marketing stalwarts in second year like Peter Garrucho, Gabby Mendoza, Mel Salazar, Bert Ladores and Vic Limlingan. The advice paid off.
No Apple PCs Yet For Practically All
Just like MBM 1979 and those ahead of us, our MBM 1980 Cohort did not have the pleasure of having desktops or PCs. There were only five people in our Class who had desk top computers at home at that time, which was the Apple II PC model (and not in full color screen yet). They were Henry Brimo, the Indonesian lass Dewi Sodoermono, Lim Chin Hock, the humble Indian girl, Bhavani Srinivasan, and Chito Nepomuceno. Dewi left us after the first year. Word was she moved to Europe to study something else. However, even before the market influx of the first desktop PCs, we had classmates who were already adept with traditional “medium and large frames” such as those of IBM, Burroughs and NCR. Those computer-frame classmates were Philip Huang, Leo Francis Gonzales, Gary Santos, Leo Biscocho, Jun Abes, Roger Py, Lim Chin Hock, Chew Eng Seng, and Anand Padi.
Ordeal With 4-Function Calculators and Manual Typewriters
The majority of us survived in doing our nightly chores on financial projections by using the simple four-function calculators, especially in tackling Finance, Marketing. MACS, Quanti, and Banking cases. We had to be patient in typing our formal reports and MRRs with the now Jurassic manual typewriters (No pun intended, OK?). Erasing typing errors was literally a real darn ordeal. We had no choice. Talk of nights without much sleep to beat those dreaded deadlines. The young MBA students of today are so lucky with the latest, fastest, wireless laptops and other gizmos.
MBM 1980 23 The WAC Syndrome And Other Nuances of Campus Life
We could not forget the WAC that was hung above our heads like a “Sword of Damocles”. Our WACs were submitted, more often than not, handwritten on yellow pad sheets, plus one’s yellow work sheet attachments, if needed. If you had a very small, natural penmanship, you were sure to be dead meat. In the first three months, many of us got dog-ear notes that said V.G., meaning, the kind words, “Verbal Garbage”. (Nothing more, nothing less.) In the dorm, our favorite midnight snack was the hot pan de sal, dabbed with Queensland or Anchor butter. If there was no butter in the dorm, we were happy with the classic Dairy Cream. If there was no more pan de sal, we learned to cook ramen in our rooms using electric boiler-pots. With fresh eggs, hot ramen was really good. At times, Rakesh or Madhu or Bharat Parashar would share with us their “chapati bread” and leche flan-like desserts called “gulab jamun”. Some of us who had residences nearby had our parents or relatives bring us home-cooked food at night. Other Filipino dorm mates also convinced some of the foreigners to try the Filipino delicacy “balut”—the taking of it was found to be an adventure and a novelty. We ate our snacks in small huddles in our dorm rooms at midnight, before going back to our Can Groups till the wee hours. The best time to openly drink beer was during occasionally SA-scheduled Friday night beer pubs, Asian cultural event-parties, and Christmas parties. We had simple joys.
Classmates We Cannot Forget
In our first year, we took notice of our classmate-entrepreneurs like Winston Kawsek, Roger Py, Lory Tan, Bong Layug, Philip KC Ng, Vince Jayme (especially his playing in the stock market, while in between classes in the mornings), Danny Goquinco, and Minda Garcia. The coolest guy inside and outside the case room was then Major Vic Batac. But he was always ready to launch his well-studied salvos if called
24 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians upon by the professor to talk. Danny Goquinco passed away in San Francisco in 2005 (May he rest in peace). Danny’s coup in Environmental Analysis was really classic. Instead of submitting a written analytical report, he handed a cassette tape to Prof. Mayo Lopez, and in front of the entire class, he asked the inscrutable Mayo to simply listen to his taped analysis and conclusions. Danny averred that he did not like writing down his own long report. We cannot forget how Prof. Mayo tried very hard to maintain his composure but his red face was a dead give away of how he felt. Both broke into a repartee in the Ilonggo dialect which many of us did not understand. We also remember in prayer Linda Perez, Zakiah Bte Haji Ismail, and Makmod Mending who had already gone ahead to the Great Beyond. Makmod died in a bombing attack in southern Mindanao in 2003. We heard that he was doing his prayers inside a mosque at the time of the attack. Among us, the surviving Cohortmates, we cannot forget the simple but generous Winston Kawsek (whose family has been in the business of packaged food distribution networks, especially Kraft brand) … meaning, if we had a class project, be it a class outing or something else, Winston would slowly simply ask: “How much is the cash deficit, so we can move forward?” Then, he would write a cheque right in the case room to solve the financial problem, period. (Talk of easily finding a financial solution for us, man. Oh, goodness.) Winston to this day has not changed his ways. He is still much of an entrepreneur these days.
The Late Dean Gasty Ortigas
Our Batch will never forget the simplicity of the late Dean Gasty
MBM 1980 25 Ortigas. He would repeatedly tell us in the case room: “If the process is too complicated, either someone is trying to hide something with many convoluted things, or something must be terribly wrong at the start.” That stuck well in our brains to this day. Then, the big surprise came to most of us, including the military scholars in our Cohort. Dean Gasty had to “disappear” to escape the claws and chains of the Marcos dictatorship, only to return to AIM after EDSA I. The rest is history. May he rest in peace.
Dean Gabby Mendoza
We cannot also forget a couple of times when Dean Gabby Mendoza guested in our HBO and EA classes. One day, Lory Tan (now the passionate CEO and Vice-Chair of WWF Philippines) and the pretty Dedette Singson were defending a position on a behavioral analysis of a case. Dean Gabby himself was getting exasperated with the weird reactions of certain classmates in the case room. Then, he audibly remarked, “Well, now I know that we have lots of Philistines in this class.” After class, someone bravely asked Dean Gabby: “Sir, what are Philistines?” (Talk about attitude and IQ.) The other recollection we have of Dean Gabby is this. He said: “In AIM, here is the place where you are allowed to make big mistakes. In the real corporate world out there, if you make such big mistakes, you will be a goner.”
Dean Jun Bernardo
Dean Jun Bernardo was Dean of Students in our time. Well, he was feared by all. Later on, we realized that he had to put on that strict demeanor for the right purpose. Who would not?
Dean Mel Salazar
We all loved and respected the teaching style of Dean of Faculty, Mel Salazar (MBA, Harvard). He taught us Business Policy I and II. He was straightforward, incisive but not fussy.
26 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians In second year, Dean Salazar was a “god of Olympus”. We were all ears to him from Day One. We will never forget that very long case that starred an entrepreneur-boss, named Monsieur Latoure. We bled for it, including the final paper, which was like writing an MRR. Dean Salazar’s favorite lines for us were: “There is no one fixed solution. It depends on xxx…” ….and “I am not here to teach you intuition and common sense”.
Prof. Edilberto C. De Jesus
Prof. Edilberto C. De Jesus (Ph. D., Yale), the incumbent AIM President, taught us Management of Change. That was one of the most populated subjects in our second year. Prof. De Jesus appeared to us as a mild mannered but deliberate academic. You would be ashamed if you came to his class without at least reading the case assigned. His two favorite lines for us were: “You must be always ready to face change and manage it. Believe in and apply the principle of “Management By Walking About” or MBWA.”
Prof. Heinz Riehl of Citi NY
Also in the second year, we were lucky to have as our main professor in Foreign Exchange Operations (Banking and Finance), Mr. Heinz Riehl, who was Citibank NY’s respected global guru and leading textbook author for Foreign Exchange Marketing and Bourse at that time. He taught us in class, using his own globally famous book in FX Bourse. Seven classmates got final marks ranging from“D-” to “D“ from Mr. Reihl. Our classmate, Chito Nepomuceno, topped that FX course with a 100% numerical score in the final exam and in the quizzes. Another first in AIM’s history in terms of the second year subject, FX Operations and the International Bourse. Prof. Benjie Palma Gil co-anchored the Bourse Game with Mr. Riehl, in the latter stages. In our second year, Bharat Parashar, toned down on his abrasiveness, and was really liked by the Cohort. Maybe, the first year MBM sweet girl, Cely, whom he married after AIM, had tamed him in the process, even before their wedding. If our recollection does not fail us, Bharat obtained the highest final grade in the Advanced Marketing Course under the industry’s respectable
MBM 1980 27 marketing guru, Peter Garrucho (a Summa Cum Laude grad from De La Salle and Stanford U., later CEO of RAMCAR, then Executive Secretary in Malacanang for a while, and now CEO in one of the Lopez companies).
The Glory of Fr. Donelan’s Grand Tour
In our second year, the late Fr. James Donelan, SJ, or briefly called as Father Jim, came back from his USA sabbatical, and he continued presenting his once-a-week evening Grand Tour in the case room. Students and professionals from the outside would fill up the case room. As a man of literature and humanities, it was Fr. Jim’s passion to show distinctly organized sets of color slides of great places, palaces or even simple abodes, marvelous architectural works, sculptures and paintings from Europe, Middle East, America, and Asia, including the wrap-up night, which filled up the big case room. The slides were presented in schedules with sub-themes. Those color slides were taken by him in his overseas trips during the past three decades. Since in our time, there were no dazzling color Power Point Slides, no personal digital cameras with automatic blue tooth projections and connectivity or wifi, and no National Geographic Documentaries via sat feeds yet, nor DVD hardwares, we were just happy with watching well-preserved color slides in the dimly lit case room. Prim and impeccable with his Oxford necktie and dark blue blazer (with the standard Oxford seal patch on the left side), Father Jim would vocalize the ad libs, based on his organized outline, as he would bring out lessons from the projected color slides. We had fun and imbibed the additional learning. We would call Father Jim, the “Renaissance Man of AIM”. He had such great passion in presenting his Grand Tour. It was actually a kind of “humanities and philosophy sojourn” for the interested MBM and MM students in our time. Too bad, the Grand Tour stopped after his demise. But to us who watched Father Jim’s scheduled Grand Tour, his memory and his insights will remain emblazoned in our hearts and minds forever. Many of us remember the insights that the late Fr. Donelan shared with us and even in his homilies in the chapel. One cannot forget that particular spiel one day. His deliberate, cool lines went something like these: “You people are lucky in your life’s journey. You have passed through a
28 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians great cross road, whereby you have seen ...you should be able to the coming of the celluloid film, the beta tell yourself that with your max, the Sony Walkman, and the first experience of holding and Apple personal computer. The world is changing fast. But I worry for the youth, digesting a book or novel, because of the new and modern electronic and reading the classics, as gadgets coming into the market. Young well as your laborious use of people these days might tend to have the slide rule and the basic less enthusiasm and less zeal to sit down four-function calculator and read the great classics and the best literature. But you guys have experienced in the past, you were able sitting down in some quiet corner to read to deeply and effectively the assigned and the unassigned literary exercise your minds and masterpieces. Even when the Apple stretch your imagination, far computer or its competitors with new into the enviable realm of the models will multiply in the market, you should be able to tell yourself that with great authors and mentors. your experience of holding and digesting a book or novel, and reading the classics, as well as your laborious use of the slide rule and the basic four-function calculator in the past, you were able to deeply and effectively exercise your minds and stretch your imagination, far into the enviable realm of the great authors and mentors. And all these are a great experience and a gift which I hope will remain with you for a long, long time.” Many of us in our Cohort and among the earlier MBM graduates have always thought that Father Jim was correct, even to this day. He did not live longer to see and experience today’s much faster and mind-boggling IT gadgets, the cell phones that come as new variants every six months, and the faster softwares. But if he were still around, his philosophy and insights would still be articulated, if only to help safeguard the old but true and timeless values. For Father Jim, “Requiescat in pace”.
Our Second Year CORE Professors
In the second year, our professors in the Core Subjects were: Peter Garrucho for Advanced Marketing I and II (MBA Stanford);
MBM 1980 29 Dean Mel Salazar for Business Policy I and II (MBA Harvard); Dean Gabby Mendoza for Advanced Finance and for certain prerogative- wrap-ups, as Dean and President then (MBA Harvard, With Distinction); Edilberto De Jesus for Management of Change Module (Ph.D., Yale, now AIM’s President); Bobby Lim for Source and Uses of Power (Phil. Military Academy, US Naval Academy, and Harvard); Vic Limlingan for Development of Enterprise or Entrepreneurship (Ateneo MBM and DBA, Harvard); Prof. Vicky Licuanan for Banking and Financial Institutions (the respectable banking and investments guru then, with a Doctoral track in Harvard and now the Dean of AIM); Bert Ladores for Advanced Sales Management (MBM, Ateneo); Toby Canto for Controllership and Advanced Financial Strategies (MBM, Ateneo); Doc Ned Roberto for Applied Marketing Research (Northwestern U., DBA in Marketing, and was a direct student of the famous marketing author, Philip Kotler); the cool and articulate genius Dean Ed Morato for Advanced Finance and Development Finance (AIM MBM, With High Distinction, and Ateneo Economics Honors Program); Armando Buenviaje for Personnel Management (Doctor of Civil Law, UST); Mayo Lopez for Business Ethics and Leadership (AIM MBM and Harvard MPA); and Heinz Riehl of New York Citibank Head Office for Foreign Exchange Marketing and the FX Bourse, together with Professor Benjie Palma Gil (MBM With High Distinction). We might have missed other professors. Our apologies, if we did. It was not intentional.
Reminiscing Our Second Year
Individual MRR Or Put Up A Business? We were given a choice: to write an individual MRR (a written thesis and must orally defend it before a panel of three) or to set up a Business Option (an entrepreneurial business) as a joint venture of three classmates and give a periodic written “Total Report” on how it is faring, till the last three weeks before graduation night. Most of us signed up for doing one’s own written MRR. We recall one unusual written MRR by Nibbyi Shah which was about raising deadly crocodiles in a farm in Palawan. (But, his defense was not
30 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians fatal. He passed it.) Another classmate, Tiny de la Paz (now he is called Mar in the NGO world) the Magna Cum Laude young man from Davao, wrote an MRR about pomelos. While writing his MRR draft in the dorm, he would joke about the need to produce hybrid pomelos that are squarish, rather than the naturally round ones, to maximize usage of spaces in delivery boxes. In the end, he got a “D-“ in both the written MRR and his oral defense—a clean pass, and, we recall, it was one of the highest MRR final grades in our Cohort. The chosen MRR businesses by some of us were: a socio-economic venture involving jailed youthful offenders; T-shirt manufacturing and selling; sandwich spread manufacturing; putting up a printing press; manufacturing and selling a native alcoholic drink, to name a few. At that time, simplicity was the thing.
Bragging Rights Upon Graduation
On graduation night, we marched as 97 MBM grads (that’s about 85++% success rate just for that night). We cheered for five With Distinction classmates. Others also passed their MRR defenses and made final copy submissions some weeks after that graduation night. The With Distinction guys on graduation night were: Leow Kee Peng (Biological Science, Magna Cum Laude, University of Malaysia)), Greg Domingo (BS Management Engineering, Dean’s Lister, Ateneo de Manila), Jun Abes (BS in Math, Cum Laude, Ateneo de Manila), Leo Biscocho (Dean’s Lister, BS in Mechanical Engineering, De La Salle Taft), and Mike Soledad (BS in Business Admin, College Scholar, UP Diliman). However, we found out later that there should have been eight With Distinction graduates in our Cohort. Unfortunately, AIM’s policy limited Distinction awards to not more than the top five percent of the entering cohort. We were just mere mortals then, who had no right to
MBM 1980 31 question the gods of Mt. Olympus. Three With Distinction guys (Jun Abes, Leo Biscocho, and Mike Soledad) stuck to each other as regular, nocturnal Can Group mates during our second year (without let-up, really), and it was a must-do to each of them each night, such that no one would come to the can group table unprepared. Thus, it was not surprising that they all graduated with flying colors.
Our Leather-Bound Yearbook On Graduation Night
On our graduation night at the sunken Zen garden, we did not only receive our real MBM diplomas in dual languages, but we also presented to our Parents, the Faculty and Trustees our leather-bound, gold-engraved, well- printed MBM / MM Yearbook. Many eyebrows were raised that night. A core team in our MBM Batch led the editorial staff and the business side of things for that particular yearbook. That feat of delivering our Yearbook on graduation night was unprecedented in AIM at that time. Leow Kee Peng, our no. 1 With Distinction classmate (a Malaysian) defended his MRR with flying colors as early as the second week of January in 1980, and thus was able to focus his editorial skills, together with hard-working Col. Cesar Bello and the lean staff of classmates, in finishing our Yearbook very much on time, even before graduation night in May 1980. Vincent Jayme, Lory Tan, Winston Kawsek, Mac Hermoso, Monty Salgado, Chito Nepomuceno, among a few die-hards, collaborated to complete the coffers and totally pay for our Cohort’s Yearbook’s printing and timely delivery, including the fine leather-bound covers in gold engravings. How did those guys do it? That is a kept secret. But we thank Mac Hermoso for his generosity in providing the swatches of pure leather that were used for the yearbook’s covers. Mac’s family owned a huge tannery in Bulacan. We will never forget the passion of Lory Tan and his ilk of zealous photographers, often making stolen shots on us, whenever they could. Talk about use of resources and time management.
32 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians Mens Sana In Corpore Sano
Our Cohort’s team became the basketball champ in the intramural and inter-alumni annual tournament in 1979-80, under the court-savvy and foxy leadership of the Ateneo varsity-fame Bong Layug and Cito Alejandro, together with Naqi Azam, Vic Bocaling, Bobbit Suarez, Augie Palisoc, Vince Jayme, Albert Toribio, Ernie Que, Ricky Lacson, Leo Echauz, Gel Tamayo, Bobby Cruz, and Chito Nepomuceno. Naqi Azam was such a spitfire forward and a terrific rebounder. He was named on and off the court by another spitfire himself, Augie Palisoc, as the Voltes Five Kid. Aside from basketball, several classmates went crazy over ping-pong and backgammon. There were many late night ping-pong and backgammon sessions by Nibby Shah, Bong Layug, Rakesh Mehta, Gary Santos, Roger Py, Bharat Parashar, Chito Nepomuceno, Johnny Jeong, Dulce Posadas, Evelyn Co, Shodan Purba, among others. Only a few guys were regulars in the swimming pool. We wondered why.
Our SA Chairman In Second Year
Also in the first month of our second year in AIM, Augie Palisoc did an unprecedented feat by winning the SA Chairmanship (in the Student Council) with a wide margin, even though he did not have a well-oiled, organized political party. It was also the first time that a non-fraternity candidate (in the person of Augie ) won the highest student political position in the AIM campus. How did he do it? That is another kept secret. Augie Palisoc was a Dean’s Lister and received the prestigious Leadership Award in our MBM graduation night. Augie has stayed for over 25 years in the same revered conglomerate, Metro Pacific Group, starting with those first days in HK. He remains as a stalwart “think-tank” and “M&A quiet executioner” beside the global business guru, Manuel V. Pangilinan of the famous PLDT Group. Together with Augie in Metro Pacific Group is the Quanti I and II super whiz kid of our Cohort, Noel de la Paz.
MBM 1980 33 New Motherhood While in MBM Schooling
In our second year, we welcomed a new mother in our Cohort, Maritess Del Rosario-Boot. Because of her new motherhood, she decided to kiss good bye her chances to work for a With Distinction rank on graduation night. But, she was really good in academics, even with the challenges of taking care of her first infant.
34 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians As MBM ’80, Where We Are Now?
The Entrepreneurs Among Us
As of this day, thirty-three in the Class are entrepreneurs. That is more than 30%. You will read who they are in the “data liners” of our “pass-in- review” section. Our entrepreneur Classmates are into furniture manufacturing and marketing, 5-star hotel interiors renovation, real estate development and selling, restaurant business, private development banking, financial advisory, management consulting, restaurant business, automated laundry services, agriculture, prawn farming, resort management, marble exportation, graphic design, apparels’ manufacturing and marketing, orchard-farming, gas stations, commodities trading, equity capital, stock exchange and securities dealing, venture capital, security services, pawn shop business, footwear business, realty brokerage, computer-IT, software development, dental equipment marketing, fashion jewelry, children’s bags, children’s wear, veterinary medicine, pharmaceutical laboratory, retail meat business, medical transcription, biological research, and airplane and airport equipment marketing. Our entrepreneurship-oriented Professors should be happy to know that a good number (about one third) among us have become entrepreneurs.
Ten Have Stayed Long In Their Companies
However, as career executives, not as entrepreneurs, ten of our classmates have remained in their same corporate group for twenty years or more, and did not leave their jobs. The record holders are Ben Rubio of SGV as International Partner and Head of Tax Consulting (for 34 years and counting); Eddie Yap of the Gokongwei manufacturing group as the head for the Group’s Purchasing (for 30 years and counting); and Mar (“Tiny”) de la Paz (for 27 years) in the Del Monte Group—he retired in 2007. The other seven, who have stayed for at least about twenty years (and still counting) in their firms or conglomerates as executive and managerial employees, are: Augie Palisoc (Metro Pacific Group), Vic Bocaling (Swedish Match), Gigi Zenarosa (Philippine National Bank), Bobby Cruz (Philippine National Bank, although Bobby recently retired), Gerry
MBM 1980 35 Bacarro (Pfizer—now as the President of the South Asia Region for Pfizer Worldwide); Jun Abes (Bank of Nova Scotia Group, Canada); and Ernie Que (Ameriprise Financial in the USA).
The Dedicated Military Officers
We also salute our military classmates who stayed much longer in the defense establishment or uniformed services as dedicated career senior officers. These areCesar Bello (Assistant Secretary), Vic Batac (Two-Star General), Tony Siapno (Rear Admiral), Torch Torres (Colonel), and Rudy de Castro (Lt. Col.). We also doff our hats to other classmates whose “data liners” may have not been included or were late in coming for printing them here, but they have been the quiet and unsung heroes and heroines in their communities in those past thirty years and perhaps in recent days. The Passionate Advocates In Civil Society
We respectfully and dearly acknowledge our Cohort mates who are active in commendable Advocacies, and in civic and religious types of commitments. They are: Lory Tan and Mar (Tiny) De La Paz (in tirelessly spearheading pro- environmental initiatives and pro-protection of endangered species, and pro- environment educational projects in WWF Phils., an in-country unit within the world’s leading and largest pro-environment NGO); Ricky Lacson (in Gawad Kalinga in Negros); Dulce Posadas-Blas (Sugar Industry Foundation, Inc. with sugar workers in Panay); Jayaram Mamidipudi (in a medical-educational Advocacy in India with the aim of abolishing child labour in all its forms and mainstreaming them into formal schools, thus benefiting about 300,000 children); Retired Police Director Vic Batac and the PNB Treasury Ramon L. Lim (in the Philippine National Police Foundation Inc. (PNPFI) the organization established to assist and support the PNP in terms of equipment that will enhance the latter’s capabilities to shoot, move, communicate and investigate); Art Falco (in the Tapaznon Foundation, Inc., which extends medical and dental missions, including cataract operations and scholarships);
36 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians Nolo Quezon Avancena (in the Foundation for Enterprise Management Innovations, Inc. (FEMI), an organization engaged in assisting SME’s grow their businesses, through credit and training, so they can generate additional employment, thus, can attain poverty alleviation and go for nation building); Fred Severino (in livelihood assistance projects for low income families in his community); Leo Biscocho (in Catholic-parish related, pro-people projects in his immediate community in his county in California); and Roger Py, the never-say-die classmate, who has been the Deputy Fire Marshal for Eastern Metro Manila of the Association of Volunteer Fire Chiefs & Firefighters of the Philippines, and Fire Chief of the Marikina Filipino Chinese Fire Brigade Volunteers (recall Typhoon Ondoy and the floods in late September 2009). The last man, but not the least in heart and passion, is the humble and friendly Fr. Beda Liu who is still active as ever in the Lord’s vineyard as a Roman Catholic priest. We admit that we need to update the list to include those in similar “pro- people involvements”.
Now, Here Is Our Cohort’s “Pass-In-Review”…. But We Miss Many Classmates
Before proceeding, we wish to convey to all that our Core Group for the February 2010 Grand Homecoming had tried to contact as many classmates to obtain information in order to write their updated “data liners” and to complete our information-data base. Much time was allotted. We had asked around. We tried calling. We availed of the modern communication facilities to contact them. We even emailed other people, and resorted to opening “Facebook” and whatever global “Twitter” there is. It is not really our intention to leave behind the rest. We miss those Classmates, too.
First, The Girls In Our Cohort
Aida Aladad Kahn is the wife of our other classmate Nik Yaacob. Both studied with us.
MBM 1980 37 Dedette Singson-Bautista is the pretty but sharp lass from Assumption. She married the famous bar topnotcher, Atty. Ayo Bautista. Dedette for a time worked with Citibank Manila. Chia Yoke Sien, the Singaporean lady, is still connected with the Singapore Airlines Group subsidiary, SATS. She is holding a high position in that firm. Her tenure with the company has probably allowed her to be the first among those to receive and witness the arrival of the Airbus 380 at Chiangi International Airport. Evelyn Co Pasiliao after AIM, joined PNB as a Management Trainee and became an Assistant Vice President for Corporate Banking. In 1994, she left the bank to join the family stockbrokerage firm, Aurora Securities, Inc. to help set up and manage the backroom operations. She migrated to Canada in 2001. She is now semi-retired doing consultancy jobs once in a while. With her family, she lives in Oakville, Ontario, 40 km. west of Toronto. Their residence is close to the Niagara Falls. Evelyn is happily married to Virgilio Pasiliao whom she met at PNB. They have four children - Clarissa, their eldest, is doing her Masters Program in Pharmacology at the University of Toronto. Jose finished his BS Commerce from the University of Toronto and has just passed his UFE (the CPA Board exams equivalent in the Phils.). Donn is a 3rd year Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Toronto currently doing his internship at RIM (makers of Blackberry). Their youngest, Marianne, is in 2nd year BS Commerce at University of Toronto as well. Kukay Fragante is the ever jovial girl, with a trade mark laughter, daring and sharp in Finance and Marketing classes. After AIM, she worked for the SGV group, then ventured into investment banking with Vickers Ballas. After learning the ropes, she decided to go on her own. Now, an entrepreneur, she also owns laundry shops, among other ventures. Minda Garcia-Arcilla is the Magna Cum Laude girl from Maryknoll. She was sharp in QUANTI and Production Management in our Cohort. After AIM. Minda taught in the Business Department of Maryknoll College and Ateneo de Manila University. Her subjects were Marketing, Production Management and Business Policy in Maryknoll, and Principles of
38 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians Marketing at the Ateneo. From 1983 onwards, her main concentration has been her family’s marble business (Sujo Marble Corp.). She is proud to say that, through her company’s efforts, Philippine home-quarried marble found its way to the big hotels in Las Vegas ( Bellagio, Wynn Resort, Treasure Island, Mirage), Macau (Wynn Resort), Maldives , Argentina, and India. That was quite a feat, because the Italians have been world leaders in marble exportation. She married Atty. Edwin Arcilla and they have two children-- Louie (25 years old) who is into EVENTS, and Melinda (22) a financial analyst in Boeing Corporation (Virginia, USA). Dulce Posadas-Blas, worked with National Panasonic for a little over a year after graduation. Then she had to go back to Iloilo to help out in their farm, because her Dad was paralyzed by a stroke. She never left home after that. She got married, raised three kids. She is still in the agri and aqua culture businesses. She has a small “B and B” in Iloilo as an extension of her hobbies which are gardening and cooking. She is also actively involved in the Sugar Industry Foundation Inc, the socio economic/ civic arm of the sugar industry. She implements the socially oriented projects for the sugar workers in Panay Island. Bhavani Srinivasan was the super math-oriented classmate, but such a quiet girl from Assumption College. She now lives in the New York Area, USA. Maritess Del Rosario-Bo-ot is the pretty and brilliant case room discussant from Maryknoll and UP-Dilinman, who could come up with a powerful wrap-up, toppling almost everybody down. She preferred motherhood than pursue an overall With Distinction award. She was never afraid to ask cutting questions. Now, she is a dedicated mother to her brood of six. Maritess worked in the Banking, Life Insurance and Leisure industries before venturing on her home-based businesses such as real estate brokerage, graphic design, Public Relations, etc. to allow her quality time with her brood of six children, after being widowed in 1996. She volunteered to produce the commemorative video about our MBM Batch, a work of art and passion, which we are now thanking her for in advance. The life of Maritess now revolves around her five sons and a daughter. The first batch aged 30, 28 and 24: the eldest is an IE grad of UP and is now with Nestle Phils; the second son is an Electrical Engineer also from UP and is connected with Hewlett Packard; and the 3rd son graduated from Ateneo
MBM 1980 39 and is now with JP Morgan Chase. In the second batch, the 20-year old son is taking BS IT in STI; her only daughter is graduating from De La Salle Zobel and is expecting to go to Ateneo at 17, for a Management Engineering degree and wants to be part of the Lady Eagles basketball team; and the youngest son is a sophomore at Phil. Science High School. Such brainy children. At present, Maritess also writes business cases for AIM. Kathy Co, now better known as Kathryn C. Shih, was the very young Cum Laude chemistry grad from Indiana U (USA), who was also very good in QUANTI. She is pretty lass from a well-heeled clan and one of two youngest members of our Cohort. She was a not a regular talker in class, but was very sharp and ready when called by a professor to present something in front. She has, for quite a while now, been connected with UBS. She is now the Head of its Wealth Management Group for the Asia Pacific Region and is based in Hong Kong. “JM” Arlene Sycangco left us after the first year. Destiny had other plans for her. She finished a doctoral degree in another academe and is now the President of Holy Angel University in Angeles City, Pampanga (Central Luzon, Philippines). She is married to a bar topnotcher who is now the Dean of the Law School of the Ateneo de Manila. Salina Juh was the only girl from Taiwan. But she had a tough time in communicating in English. She left before completing the first year. Linda Perez was a very simple lady. After graduation, she concentrated in running the school owned by her clan, Tuguegarao College. She served as the college’s President, until she passed away in 1999, of cancer. Prof. Mayo Lopez and Linda saw each other several times after our AIM days. Our other lady classmate. Minda, still recalls the mass that the Cohort had for Linda—-- it was Prof. Mayo who gave Minda a copy of a letter from Linda to be read to the classmates during the mass.
The Indians
Bharat Parashar or BP is the tall and smart guy with an attitude but with a knack for precision and speed, perhaps due to his squash training for the Olympics before joining AIM. He was a second year Dean’s Lister. Somehow, he got rid of his attitude when he married Cely Veloso of MBM 1981. Bharat has spent his entire career in the finance business all around the
40 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians world, first as an investment banker and now in private equity. He has been an accomplished global investment banker as early as the first years of the 1980s. Currently, he is the CEO of a private equity firm, EMP Daiwa Capital Asia in the USA. Bharat’s major contribution to the Philippines amongst others has been co-packaging of mega funding to ensure the construction of the elevated toll Skyway in the south of Manila. Bharat and Cely are proud to have a son who graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, and a daughter who is going for her Masters at USC. Bharat says he wishes he could still fit in his old maong jeans from 1978, but he does not yet need a cane to walk, and he still has his own hair. In spite of the great distance overseas from the USA, Bharat is a staunch supporter of our Cohort. Jayaram Mamidipudi was not afraid to ask questions, and made people think in the case room. After a two and half-year stint with Summa Bank (PT Astra International) traveling between Manila, Singapore and Hong Kong, he returned to India and joined the family business for 3 years. He later joined the Netherlands Projects office in their Development section as Projects Management Advisor, working on Rural Water Supply and Sanitation. After 5 years, he Joined Winrock International as Senior Projects Manager working on Renewable Energy, Biofuels and Livelihoods in the rural sector. This assignment allowed Jayaram to travel all over the world as a consultant to the Word Bank, USAID, UNICEF and ILO. Jayaram is currently actively associated, as an Advocate, with his family’s trust, working in bringing children to schools and eliminating Child Labour. The Trust now works with approximately 300,000 children and their families in accomplishing this task. The Founder of the Trust is Dr. Shantha, Jayaram’s sister, who won the Magsaysay Award for this advocacy in 2003. Rakesh Mehta is a fighter for good causes. Even if thousands of miles away, he is another staunch supporter of the Cohort. He has been an entrepreneur since his AIM days. He is the owner and CEO of a garments and fashion business, Oak Apparels in India. After AIM, Rakesh returned to India and joined an engineering firm. After a year and a half of selling cranes, he shifted to Intercraft, running a large chain of retail stores. Eight years thereafter, the entrep bug bit him and he started his own company, Oak Apparels, that now manufactures and exports apparels. Two years ago, his firm diversified into manufacture of ladies’
MBM 1980 41 accessories. Rakesh married Supriya in 1984, and they have two children. The eldest, a daughter (24) is a graphic fashion designer. The younger boy (21) is an undergrad, pursuing bio- medical engineering in the University of Utah, USA. Anand Padi is the quiet math and engineering genius among the Indians. He loved San Miguel beer on week- ends, which was quite normal for guys in that young age. After graduation in AIM, Anand worked in Manila for a couple of years before returning to Bangalore, India, where he set up his own financial advisory services firm in 1983. In 1999-2000, he was involved in setting up a Venture Capital fund which promoted Companies like MindTree Ltd. This fund was a major investor in 20 plus start ups. However, only 6 have survived. And even now he claims he has not seen a rupee of returns. He retired in 2006 and moved to a smaller town-Mysore which is a 2-hour drive from Bangalore. He is married with two sons-ages 26 and 20. He has been active with the Management Profession, though, having risen to the position of President of Bangalore Management Association and Vice President of the AIM Alumni Association of India. For the past several years, he has been conducting the AIMAT for AIM in Bangalore. Anand wrote us that he has tremendous respect for the Professors during his time at AIM, many of whom he feels were exemplary. Sanjay Vinze was one of the friendliest among the Indians. Sanjay stayed in the Philippines until 1992 and was popular with the incoming Indian students who consulted him on “nocturnal” activities. While working in Makati, he was active with the Rotary Club of Makati Ayala and the Manila Golf Club.
42 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians He is currently looking for new opportunities as a Management Consultant in Indianapolis. Previously, he did Management Consulting at Grant Thornton LLP and Andersen Corp in the areas of Operations Improvement, Lean Six Sigma initiatives and Quality systems. In India, he had formed a consulting group, HexaPlus Consultants offering Strategic Change Management to small and medium enterprises Prior to consulting work, Sanjay’s experience was in managing companies in diverse business areas like chemicals, textile machinery, auto components and project engineering in India and abroad. Some of his assignments have been: CEO of Mather & Platt Fire Systems, heading the driveshaft business of Dana Spicer in India, and President of Trumac Engineering. He has been responsible for two ventures, both manufacturing projects, in India and the Philippines, right from start up to profitable operations. Sanjay is married to Suvarna . They have two daughters. Sanjna is in middle school and Archana is pursuing a masters in IT at USC. BJ Harid Balasubramaniam is a tall guy (6’4”), but was not into basketball. He exuded humility. When he would talk in class, he was quite passionate in delivering his spiels, with his long arms flailing all over. He is now a global entrepreneur who lives in New York. He is the President and CEO of Danbury Pharma LLC., New York. Udayan Nandykeolyar is now Dean at the University of Toledo, Ohio, USA. Badruddin Inayat Ali was reported to have gone into property development in Indonesia, He married a Filipina with Indian origin. Srinivasa Prasanna was the most quiet among our Indian classmates. He is now settled in Australia and is working as an independent consultant. He focuses on New Business start-ups from concept to conclusion and post- implementation performance management. While in the Philippines, after graduation, he worked for DYNETICS group companies till 1985 and then worked for Chandaria Group companies on job secondment to Nigeria. Prasanna migrated to Australia in 1989 and gained very useful exposure in the telecommunications business till 2001. From then, he branched out to independent consulting. He is planning to move into “personal development” space, after having gained good insights into “Executive Thinking’”and after having studied the behavioral patterns of people for a number of years. (It is the same HBO/ HRD shift that our Korean classmate Johnny Jeong also
MBM 1980 43 did in Seoul, after being a successful Finance Head for years.) Prasanna is married and has one lovely daughter.
The Pinoys Abroad
Leo Biscocho, a recipient of AIM’s “Institute Scholarship for Merit”, was one of the five overall With Distinction classmates on graduation night. He finished his undergrad degree from De La Salle University (Taft) and is a licensed Mechanical Engineer. As a La Salle Archer, he was happy and challenged to be roommates with very smart graduates from the Ateneo. Fond of doing the wrap up for case discussions, he was fortunate to be in the same Can Group with Jun Abes (from the Ateneo) and Mike Soledad (from UP-Diliman), especially in the second year. All three of them Can Group mates were blessed to graduate overall With Distinction in our Cohort. After AIM, Leo worked with the respectable Dr. Magdaleno B. Albarracin, as Assistant in PHINMA. He also handled courses in Finance, Operations Management, & Business Policy at then Maryknoll College and Ateneo De Manila University. Leo went into prawn farming in mid-1980s, and was considered one of the pioneers in intensive prawn farming. He was credited with developing systems and technologies adapted to local conditions that tremendously improved survival rate, productivity, feed conversion, and quality. His prawn farm was a model for SMC & Vitarich among others, and was recognized as most productive (per hectare) and highest producer of good size & quality prawns in Quezon Province with a sustained average production of 5MT/ hectare-cycle with two cycles per year. He migrated to the US in early 1990s. He is married to Elpidia R. Bartolome and they are blessed with four children. The eldest, Ann, graduated from University of California, Irvine and is with the family business; Kristine graduated from University of California, Berkeley and is with Accenture; Lorraine is a senior student at University of California, San Diego & currently in Rome under UC’s Study Abroad Program; and Francine is a sophomore at Stanford University, double majoring in Economics and Sociology. Leo is currently with Boeing and also co-runs a business with his wife. The business is involved with real estate, mortgage, and own & manage
44 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians rental properties in Southern California and Las Vegas, Nevada. They live at the Kerrigan Ranch in Yorba Linda, California and are very active members of the local Roman Catholic church….also helping in Catholic education, Eucharistic Ministry, & Hospitality Ministry.
Francisco “Jun” Abes, the Cum Laude math wizard from the Ateneo, was one of the overall With Distinction grads. After AIM, he worked for nine years with the Ayala Group, first in its real estate division, and then in the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI)—Treasury. Then, he migrated to Canada with his family in January 1989 (Yes...in the height of winter!!!!Brrrrrr…). In Canada, Jun decided to stay put in one company (much like Augie Palisoc and seven other Cohort mates), working for the Bank of Nova Scotia—first in Finance, then in Risk Management, and now as a Director and Global Cash Manager-- Group Treasury--Global Cash Management. He lives happily with his wife and two daughters: a 24-year old (recently graduated from York University-Toronto) and an 18-year old (now a freshman also in York University); and, he added in his e-mail to us, a 2- year old son (a Bichon Frise named Louis—one of the world’s most lovable and most friendly pet dogs one would like to have inside the house). Omar Capulong, after AIM, joined Bacnotan Cement (Phinma) as assistant to the VP for Operations. In 1982, he migrated to California to join his parents. He worked as an industrial and facilities engineer in manufacturing, ISO 9000 consultant and Quality Manager in fiber optics, and Analyst for aviation security. Currently, Omar is a California Realtor with special interest on short sales and foreclosures. With wife Louella Pineda (of the same town of Minalin, Pampanga), they are blessed with 3 daughters. Karina is on her Masters at San Francisco State University; Shelly is taking up Nursing (like her Mom) at University of San Francisco; while Vivian is still in high school at St Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco. Omar still plays tennis with the younger crowd. From the USA, he wrote us: “You should see the guilty look on their faces when I take off my cap after I quit the match. They probably felt that they shouldn’t have made me run like a windshield wiper all over the court. My hair is almost all white (or gray), but most of it is still there. But, I guess the black hairs are coming back.” Gary Santos was another brilliant but ebullient Quanti guy in the class.
MBM 1980 45 His college background was in geological engineering in UP-Diliman (Cum Laude). Now, he works in New York as Associate Principal Examiner in the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, NY. Gary wrote us recently from NY: “Life’s a wonder when you get down to it. It’s full of adventures. Some are really great, and I’m on one of those right now. I found myself on Wall Street as a FINRA examiner. Fate threw me here, you see, from over there. But, I’m learning something new and interesting and I can’t ask for anything more. Life’s current moment is good. I’ve worked 90% in the Financial Services industry. Investment banking. Financial consulting including reorganizations. The back office and compliance of a broker on the Philippine Stock Exchange. To end up in securities compliance in the US is indeed a privilege.” Henry Brimo was a Dean’s Lister in second year. He is an architect. He lived in Japan before joining our MBM Batch. After AIM, he stayed for a few years in banking and then a few years as a restaurateur. Then, he moved to Australia and still lives there. Armand Sison is in Australia working in Wyeth Australia, which is now a new subsidiary of Pfizer Worldwide. After graduation, he joined Phil Phosphate Fertilizer Corp as Assistant to the President ( for 6 years), then he migrated to Sydney Australia in 1987 and joined Nestle Australia. He worked with Procter and Gamble Australia for 6 years then went to Chicago to work for Oil-Dri Corp of America. He went back to Australia to join Wyeth as Business Applications Manager. He is living a quiet life in Sydney with his four children. He has now one granddaugther. Leo Francis Gonzales, a Dean Lister and the figures guy from engineering in UP- Diliman is in the USA. According to our sources, Francis is not well. We await for updates about him, as we pray for his fast recovery. Ernie Que (the Management Engineering grad from the Ateneo De Manila), after AIM, worked in Operations Research at Bank of America Manila Branch and in Asia Division Operations in the same bank from 1980 to 1985. He migrated to the U.S. in late 1985. He has worked at Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (formerly an American Express subsidiary called IDS Financial Services (1985) which was renamed to American Express Financial Advisors (1994)). It was spun off by American Express as an independent company in 2005. He has worked in financial analysis in Corporate Finance for 12 years and in information technology management for the last 12 years.
46 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians Ernie has been married for the last 19 years and has 4 children: 1 boy and 3 girls, aged 15, 12, 9, and 7. Danny Goquinco passed away in SFO in 2005. Augie, Winston, Mac, Bong and Gel attended that last novena day Mass in 2005 in Danny’s parents house in Forbes Park, Makati. Almost all his surviving classmates in La Salle Senior High School Greenhills attended that Mass.
The Pinoys in the Philippines
Lory Tan was a second year Dean’s Lister. An articulate Behavioral Science major from the Ateneo. Now, he is the CEO / Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of WWF Philippines; and is concurrently Chairman / President of the Philippine Tropical Forest Conservation Foundation, and Trustee of the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation. Lory is a very passionate and focused man for the protection of the environment and the endangered species. His face is a regular in ANC TV talk shows, regarding environmental issues and climate change. We saw the pro- environment inkling of Lory years ago, when he wrote that first book of his about the whales in Palawan. Before moving into WWF, he served well his family business of publishing and books’ distribution. We feel that, one day, Lory deserves to receive a Ramon Magsaysay Award for championing the protection of the environment and the endangered species, and in educating young and old Filipinos about such pro- environmental issues and causes. Mar “Tiny” De La Paz was the Magna Cum Laude from Ateneo
MBM 1980 47 de Davao. This ever smiling and brilliant guy, with a penchant for witty epigrams, was a marvel in writing his brief MRR. Many did not know that he got a “D-”final mark for his MRR (written thesis) and oral defense. After graduating from AIM, Mar (he is now referred to as Mar, not Tiny, in the NGO world, but that is another story...) joined the (then) Philippine Packing Corporation in Davao City as an agronomist, making the rounds of various cavendish banana plantations during the early to late 1980s, when the NPA, an assortment of lawless elements, and “alsa-masa” were quite fearsome. He was invited to join the pineapple plantation of Del Monte Phil. in Bukidnon, where he moved from agriculture to harvesting operations. an idyllic, charmed and peaceful existence — compared to his years in Davao. In the early 1990s, he was cross-posted to the pineapple cannery in Bugo, Cagayan De Oro. In 2000, he relocated to Manila to head the toll pack operations and quality assurance of Del Monte Phils, Inc. (DMPI). After twenty-seven years with DMPI, he retired in 2007 and was hired as a VP for Business Operations of a big and worldwide-respectable NGO, the WWF-Phils.. Early in 2009, he was appointed as the COO and Treasurer of WWF-Phils, a national organization that is focused on conservation and reducing carbon footprint. Chiara Batiller was not Mar’s (i.e. Tiny’s) high school sweetheart but she succumbed to his marriage proposal in 1977. She has retained him all these years and none the worse for it. Or so he claims. They are blessed with three children: Luis, who is a lawyer; Rica, who is in third year medicine proper; and Cristina who is a senior in the Ateneo De Manila in QC. Mar (formerly “Tiny”) has stopped swimming and is now into cycling (Lance Armstrong need not feel threatened). He is trying (unenthusiastically) to shed off excess poundage, and cooking (He says. “Have not “killed” anyone yet”—that is, with his cooking). He believes that: “Our children are God’s greatest gifts. Why? When I grow up, I want to be just like them.” Noel De La Paz is the hotshot QUANTI genius from Ateneo’s Economics Honors program (a Cum Laude), although was a quiet boy in the case room in the beginning. He was a full scholar including dorm and monthly allowances. After graduation, he worked in Bankers Trust for about fifteen years, and retired from it as Country COO in Manila, when it was acquired by Deustchbank. As an investment banker, Noel had a big hand in co-
48 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians packaging the huge fund to launch in the early 90s the Bonifacio Global City. After retiring from Bankers’ Trust, he did some entrep work, but then, he joined the Metro Pacific Group, for M&A, in Manila. He is known to be a cog in the Group’s acquisition or affiliation of local urban hospitals, among other proposals. Noel is the speedy but silent figure cruncher and strategist of the MVP Team (of PLDT, Meralco and infrastructure projects fame), together with our other classmate, Augie Palisoc. Noel started this yahoogroups.com email system for our Cohort, something we sincerely thank him for. Bong Layug remains as an entrepreneur. Now, he is the Group COO and CMO for the famous Budji furniture group and the Budji interior / architectural design firm. He established Budji Corporation showroom operations worldwide targeting residential designers and contract specifiers worldwide. From the 1980s to 2000 he was busy concentrating on the US market for high-end furniture. In the process, the company established a distribution network through a series of High End Representative Showrooms in important key cities in the United States. Since 2000, Bong had spearheaded the marketing of the famous furniture designer-group called “Movement 8” of the Philippines and his own brother’s furniture and design works now under the brand Budji Living. He had led the global thrust of Budji in designer showrooms under the banner of “Budji Living” in key cities in Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. From 2002 and onwards, Bong concentrated on establishing manufacturing operations out of Dongguan / Shenzhen / Guangzhou and Beijing in China to support the hotel con-tract projects in the Middle East and world wide projects in the Indian Ocean, Caribbean, Guam and Hawaii Islands.
MBM 1980 49 The family business integrated the Budji Layug + Royal Pineda Design Architects, Inc. into an architectural and interior design services firm for both Residential and Hotel Contract Developments Projects in the Philippines and overseas. Bong’s marketing efforts paid off in putting the Budji furniture brand, with much pro-design respect, on an enviable position in the global map. As his new forays, Bong is now entering the Land Development Projects that are anchored on the “Asian Modern Concepts” for retirement and wellness residential villages and resorts, starting here in the Philippines, while at the same time carrying the design works of his world- renowned designer-brother, Budji Layug. The successful Discovery Shores in Boracay is a major handiwork of Bong’s CMO management in high-end furniture and interiors. Bong’s life partner is the sweet Anamari. His daughter, Vanessa graduated in the USA, while son Paulo finished college at the Ateneo de Manila last March 2009. Ramon Lim is a typical “promdi” (i.e. from the province, specifically Leyte) who cannot abandon his Cebuano regional (a la French) accent. He is a graduate of University of San Carlos (Cebu) in Accountancy (Magna Cum Laude). He was one of the few that got admitted to AIM without going through the admission’s panel interview. He was the eighth scholar of Citibank in AIM. After MBM graduation, Ramon returned to Citibank and was assigned in the Treasury, Citibank Manila. He worked in the Treasury business for several years—having foreign postings in New York, Taipei, Taiwan and Hong Kong. He left Citibank while working in Hong Kong and returned to Manila months before the start of the famous (or notorious) Asian Crisis of 1997. He worked at Union Bank of the Phils. in its Treasury, then Trust business, and then joined Philippine National Bank in late 2002. In PNB, he was one of the senior officers who co-engineered the rehabilitation of the bank (being one of the casualties of the 1997 regional financial crisis) and the culture transformation from a government-run to a privately and professionally run financial institution. He is currently the Head of the Treasury Sector in PNB and oversees other investment funds of its subsidiaries. He was convinced of the vision of Gen. Vic Batac to augment the
50 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians capabilities of the Philippine National Police. He helped in the establishment of a foundation for the Phil. National Police and he continues to be one of members of the Board of Trustees. He is an active member of a Catholic Charismatic Community (Bukas Loob sa Diyos) and is blessed, with his wife Nene Moreno, with three daughters and with one granddaughter (and hopefully, more to come!). All are now working (a blessing in that it means like having a big salary increase for him!). Incidentally, the name of Gen. Vic Batac’s wife is also Nene, and both their wives were born on same date – Nov. 1st (What a coincidence!). Ramon is also one of the “glues” that keep our Cohort together. He remains as an unassuming person. He communicates regularly with Gel Tamayo, the chronicler of the MBM 1980. Vincent Jayme used to work briefly for BPI in treasury operations. Now, he remains as an entrepreneur and is also involved in the Tagaytay Highlands, among other ventures. He loves to play golf a lot. Because of golf, he sports now a bronze skin. Vince is still active in Philippine stock market trading. Augie Palisoc, our Batch’s Leadership Awardee and another Dean’s Lister, has stayed for over 25 years in Metro Pacific Group (HK and Manila). He is the right hand man of MV Pangilinan, for M&A, among other chores,
MBM 1980 51 and teams up with Noel De la Paz, especially in the hospital acquisitions in the Philippines in the last four years. Augie is another avid golfer. After AIM, Augie tried entrepreneurship for three years (doing feasibility studies and real estate brokerage), but he realized he was not using much of what he learned at AIM. Thus, he decided to pursue a corporate career and joined First Pacific Company Limited in Hong Kong in 1983. He is still with the same group after 26 years (couldn’t find a job anywhere else—-he jokes.) Seventeen years were spent overseas in Hong Kong, Thai-land, and Malaysia. Most of his work has been in mergers and acquisitions as well as turning around under-performing businesses. Now, he is the Executive Director of Metro Pacific Investments Corporation, the group’s publicly-listed holding company in Manila for its telecom-related (PLDT/Smart/ e-PLDT) infrastructure investments, comprising toll roads (NLEX), water utilities (Maynilad), electricity (Meralco), ports (North Harbour), and he is currently taking the lead role in the emerging hospital group business (Makati Medical Center, Cardinal Santos Hospital, and Davao Doctors Hospital). He further muses: “I am doing all these, since we need to all prepare for our old age! Ha ha ha ...” Gel Tamayo, the Philosophy and Communications graduate from the Ateneo de Manila, who many thought was crazy and daring to take Finance subjects in second year, had meaningful employment stints after graduation, as an AO in corporate banking; as Area Credit Head in consumer and middle- market lending (he also taught Corporate Finance in the Development Academy of his mother bank); as CFO in sugar manufacturing and in sugar trading, and Finance Director in a provincial city electricity distribution; and also as Group CFO in realty development/ construction and in property assets management. He also became President and COO of a medium-size realty development corporation that did the first successful premium housing project inside a golf course in Metro Manila, which he left after unloading his little holdings. When he was a young corporate banker in the early 1980s, he was asked to do a significant study for the Monetary Board of the Central Bank of the Philippines, which had something strategically great in connection with incoming Dollar remittances of Filipino Overseas Contract Workers, starting in the Middle East and the USA. At that time, because of the good results of the study that he wrote for the Monetary Board, a “super” higher-up in the
52 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians then Government’s Administration invited him to accept a key position in Washington DC (USA), but he gently declined the offer and preferred to stay simply in Philippine banking in Manila. Turning down that offer almost cost him his banking job. He also became the Special Assistant, with rank of SVP, of the CEO and Chair of one of the most successful, biggest and privately owned Filipino urban realty groups in Manila. He had been involved in realty projects in the areas of project development supervision and strategic financial planning in Fort Bonifacio, Capitol Hills, and Puerto Galera (Mindoro Island). Though retired now, he still does a little project consulting here and there, especially for two Korean Financial Advisory and Investment Banking Units in Seoul, which are both affiliated with his now aged Korean foster folks, and where he has been an Ex-Officio Director for years. He also does consulting stuff for a local group in Manila. Up to this day, Gel practices the “out-of- the-box” thinking, and is still a believer of the 80s and 90s entrepreneurial and marketing strategy guru and also crazy but credible author, Tom Peters. Gel has written his first full-length fiction novel, which is being negotiated by an overseas investment banker for publication and launching, hopefully, in New York. In his spare time, he plays the classical violin at home to keep his spirit high and re-charge his batteries. He is into a regimen of controlled diet and daily calisthenics. He is the assigned (and forced-to-accept) chronicler of this MBM Cohort. Mike Soledad was a serious classmate and one of the overall With Distinction graduates He is also an alumnus of UP-Diliman. After AIM, he became an entrepreneur with his in-laws in Davao City, especially in farming and running a fried chicken restaurant. At present, he is the UP Vice- Chancellor in Davao. Greg Domingo, among the youngest at that time, was overall rank no.2 With Distinction in academics in our Cohort. After MBM graduation, he went to Wharton to take a masters degree in Operations Research, then to a doctoral program. He spent about ten years as SVP in Chase in NY. Then, he came home to become Country CEO for Chase Bank in Manila. He became Undersecretary of Trade in the Philippines, and BOI Head. Now, he sits in the Board of the SM Conglomerate, after staying in the Board of Meralco in Manila.
MBM 1980 53 Not many people know that the boom in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Indus-try in the Philippines, that is giving our many young Filipinos good paying alternative jobs domestically, can be attributed to the pioneering investment promotion work that Greg did as Board Of Investments Managing Head under a fellow Atenean, then DTI Sec. Mar Roxas. Greg was likewise in the Board of Directors of Small Business Corporation (with Benel Lagua as President). Many Filipinos and foreign investors can attest to the integrity and professionalism that Greg brought to government service during his short stint. Benel Lagua was a Dean’s Lister. He is one of those reticent but confident management engineering grads from the Ateneo De Manila. Some years after AIM, Benel took off to Harvard for his MPA degree as an Edward S. Mason Fellow. He is about to mint his Doctorate degree. He is a Career Executive Service Officer (CESO) and is the President and COO of the Small Business Corporation which is a government financial institution (GFI) whose core business is in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Financing. He is a passionate person about middle-financing for SMEs, and for the middle class and below middle class Filipinos. He is also known as one of the contemporary pillars of legitimate micro-financing in the Philippines. Recently, Benel was the Key Note Speaker in the 4th AAAB International Conference, with the theme “Managing Asian Business Corporations in the 21st Century”, that was held on December 17 and 18, 2009, in the AIM Conference Center Manila along Paseo de Roxas Avenue in Makati. The Asian Academy of Applied Business (AAAB), in collaboration with the School of Business and Economics of the Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and in cooperation with the Asian Institute of Management
54 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians (AIM), held the said conference that included speakers such as academics, consultants, practitioners, professionals, leaders of government agencies, and policy makers, who presented their ideas on how Asian companies should manage themselves in these times of uncertainty. About 80 academic research papers were presented/ submitted throughout the conference. Corporate CEOs from diverse industries, academics, public leaders, and policy makers from the region attended the conference. Many of us also believe that, one day, Benel should get a Ramon Magsaysay Award (Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel prize award), although he humbly tells us that he does not dream of getting that. Mario Nicolas, after AIM, joined Philippine National Bank initially as a Management Trainee, then spent twelve years in international banking operations including his posting in New York. After PNB, he ventured into remittance services, operating Philippine Remittance Company in New York/New Jersey, which served various remitter needs from 30 states to the Philippines. He was also involved in management consulting and international shipping. Prior to retiring in 2004, he was Director of PAL Maritime Corporation. Now he is back in Manila. Lawrence Alandy Dy, the Cum Laude boy from De La Salle Taft, was said jocosely to have memorized the marketing book of Philip Kotler. After AIM, for some time, he assisted the MacDonald’s group in real estate positioning of the fast food chain’s stores. Then, Lawrence took the SBEP (Senior Executives Business Economics Program) in the University of Asia & the Pacific in 1990. He is now a DBA candidate in the DLSU Graduate School of Business & Economics. For his business ventures, he has investments in Ladies Fashion Wear, Fashion Jewelry, Children’s Bags & Children’s Wear, Veterinary Medicine, Real Estate, Pharmaceutical Laboratory and Medical Transcription. He has two daughters who both graduated from Ateneo De Manila University Magna Cum Laude, and they are currently working with Proctor & Gamble and with Mitchell Madison Consultancy. For his past time, he has been into breeding and raising fighting cocks, Dobermans, race horses, flowerhorns & Japanese Koi. Recently, Lawrence has been attending the Chartered Financial Analyst review classes prior to taking the tough international CFA exams. We wish him success and good luck.
MBM 1980 55 Vic Bocaling is the cool and diplomatic licensed mechanical engineer and production management guy from De La Salle Taft. A Dean’s Lister, too. A regular face in the Saturday evening masses in the AIM chapel, together with his wife and children. Now, he is the Country Head for the Swedish Match in Manila. He has stayed for over 20 years in that same corporate group. He is also co-handling global responsibilities for the same conglomerate, with his directives reaching far as Europe. He travels a lot now, because of his expanded job. Vic is one of the “glues” that keep our MBM Cohort together, even via e-mails to the Cohort’s CORE group and Gel. Gerry Bacarro was a quiet and unassuming boy in class. But he was ready to talk and was prepared to present with hard substance, when called to talk in the case room. Now, he is now the Regional President for the South Asia Region of Pfizer Group (i.e. think of Viagra and Norvasc). Like Ramon Lim, he is also a ‘promdi’ (from Ozamis City, Misamis Occidental, Mindanao, South Phil.), but has acquired the proficiency in and the eloquence of the English language from the Loyola Heights Jesuit campus. Gerry joined Pfizer after MBM graduation, then went to Warner Lambert, and then rejoined Pfizer, when Pfizer acquired Warner Lambert. All told, close to 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry. Before he became CEO of Warner Lambert Philippines, he was Regional Marketing Director for Latin America /Asia /Africa /Middle East. He was CEO of Pfizer Philippines from 2000-2008. He was also given the monicker “Legitimate Drug Lord” by our entrepreneur and restauranteur classmate, Philip KC Ng. Gerry is one of the key business managers who supported the Gawad Kalinga movement from its infancy until today. Philip Huang, after graduation, joined a startup Visa Credit Card company, but was forced to leave the firm, when his father passed away. Ever since then, he has been handling the family business, until an opportunity came up for participation in the stock brokerage industry. Currently, he is the President and CEO of a Singaporean-owned stock brokerage firm that is doing business in the Philippine Stock Exchange. Philip has been also involved with the Rotary, YMCA and Y’s Men which accounts for his regular trips. As a classmate, Philip used to be very quiet in the case room, but was a dynamite of a man, when tasked to show his analytical wares in the case room. He was a very helpful classmate. He is one of the two Philips that
56 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians started to bond our Cohort together to this day. He is a silent operator who makes things move, especially for our Cohort. Philip is still one of the active “glues” that keep our Cohort together, and regularly calls up Gel. Roger Py was a straight-to-the-point engineering guy in and out of the case room. And was a helpful classmate to all. He was an entrep man at that time in AIM. He used to joke with us that his father forced him to take the MBM schooling. Today, he remains in the footwear business carrying the following brands: GIBI Shoes, Florsheim and Timberland. He is also the Director General of the Philippine Footwear Federation Inc. His other positions include: Council Member & Member of the Trade & Industry Committee of the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce & Industries Inc.; and Director of the Marikina Filipino Chinese Chamber of Commerce. His community advocacy is articulated at present by being the Deputy Fire Marshal for Eastern Metro Manila of the Association of Volunteer Fire Chiefs & Firefighters of the Philippines; and the Fire Chief of the Marikina Filipino Chinese Fire Brigade Volunteers. He was very active in the relief and rescue operations during the height of the onslaught of and in the aftermath of Typhoon Ondoy in late September 2009. His flood rescue involvement was very commendable, much beyond any Boy Scout or Ranger or 911 stature. To this day, while even in business, he is always on ALERT status over fire and super heavy rains. Bobby Cruz was another unassuming, humble student. He came from the Ateneo de Manila. He retired from PNB, as a ranking senior officer, in December 2008, after twenty-eight years. In his last email with Gel, he said that he might take a consulting project, just to keep him busy. He, his family and his house suffered from Typhoon Ondoy’s heavy flooding in Marikina in September 2009. Winston Kawsek has always been a successful entrepreneur. Now, he runs a restuarant-entertainment business in Makati. A practical mind, with a De La Salle trademark. A very generous fellow. Yet simple in language, demeanor and attire. Let it be known to all that in 2005, our Silver Jubilee year, Winston Kawsek took the lead role in getting the MBM ‘80 Cohort together for the Alumni Grand Homecoming. He also started the class fund-raising so that MBM ‘80 could donate to the AIM Scholarship Fund and other AIM projects.
MBM 1980 57 After the 2005 Homecoming Night, Winston hosted the dinner in Jade Garden for the local and visiting members of our Cohort. During that dinner, pledges from class members were discussed as well as plans for our 30th Year in 2010. We want to express our heartfelt thanks to Winston—a hundred times over, for taking the first bold step in showing a vision for and in reuniting our MBM ‘80 Cohort. We know that Winston, in his good heart and generous soul, will pardon all those who could have mistook him in a different sense. To this day, Winston is still a successful entrepreneur. Danny Labordo was a simple guy in class. For a while, he was involved in a real estate and an IT-related group. We hear that he is also now an entrepreneur. We wish he can send us his latest data liners. Ricky Lacson is a city entrepreneur and a civic advocate in Bacolod. He finished college in the USA and came back to finish his MBM in AIM. He was one of the two guys who got the first With Distinction final mark in Development of Enterprise or Entrepreneurship in AIM’s MBM history. A first in AIM’s history at that time, together with another break-out Cohortmate of ours, who does not want to be named. Ricky was one guy in class who showed promising traits of becoming a good, international career diplomat (like an ambassador) because of his height, good looks, good schooling and a cultured background; but he had decided to go into private business. He says that staying in the province than living in a polluted city like Manila will make one live longer—a very sound advice for us. Ricky’s family had moved out of the sugar planting business. He had converted their sugar farm in 1995 to a subdivision. It is known now as Town & Country and is located in Talisay City, which is right out of the northern boundary of Bacolod City, towards the airport in Silay City. He had been into prawn and shrimp production with leased farms in Manapla, Negros Occidental and Calatagan, Batangas. Ricky’s firm works closely with Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group of Thailand, the leading prawn and shrimp feed producers of the world and one of the largest prawn and shrimp produce exporters of the world. Anyone interested in Ricky’s products can just give him a text, a call or e-mail. He is also very active in Gawad Kalinga in Negros Occidental. Ricky feels that GK is our way to modernizing the Philippines. It is the leading
58 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians organization in social engineering. Something that our country has to do right now, before we can go forward. Negros is in the heart of the country, and any one of us or other Alumni, who would like to help out in his work there, will be welcomed. Mac Hermoso was another unassuming classmate, and a man of few words, but ready to discuss when called. Mac has always been an entrepreneur. He was practically the donor of the genuine leather materials used as attractive covers of our Yearbook copies. He is Chairman of a private development bank. He became a Rotary District Governor. Still unassuming as usual. He is also one of the “glues” that keep our Cohort together. Mon Diaz has a son who recently graduated from AIM’s MBA program in December 2009. This is the first time that a member of MBM ‘80 has an offspring graduating from AIM’s MBA line. Mon was a Magna Cum Laude in accounting and an AIM scholar. In the first year, he loved to sing sonatas at night to relax, while using the staircase, but to the howling reactions of classmates as he passed by each floor. Right after AIM, he worked for two years with an Ayala subsidiary. He is a CPA. He later left the country with his family and worked for ten years in Jakarta, Indonesia and Los Angeles, USA, as head of the finance division of an Indonesian conglomerate specializing in Leverage Buyouts and Acquisitions. He came back to the Philippines and worked as Visayas Operations Controller and General Manager of Pepsi Cola in Tanauan, Leyte. He also engineered the merger of Isla Communications with Globe Telecoms as Islacom’s CFO. He became Dean of the College of Business, Economics and Accounting for Foundation University in Dumaguete City. He currently
MBM 1980 59 owns and runs Orchids Heights in scenic Valencia, Negros Oriental, which is a resort and vacation destination, with nineteen exclusive residential units. We put here his web site (www.orchidhts.com). Leo Echaus is in Bacolod. He is now the General Manager of the First Farmers Holding Corp. It is basically a sugar mill and is now going into energy with the new high pressure boiler that it has acquired. In the case room, Leo was a man direct to the point, with no fuss. Nap Liloc was the “cool hand Luke” in the Cohort. Relaxed. A very friendly Cebuano-speaking classmate, but with a good Xavier diction in English. He loved SMC beer on week-ends, with his can group mates. A practical thinker, too. After AIM, Nap went into the consumer pharmaceutical marketing field joining such companies as Johnson & Johnson, Boeh-ringer Ingelheim and Sara Lee. Nap joined the Indonesian food giant INDOFOOD and was assigned to Nigeria as General Manager to set up its joint venture company, DE-United Foods Plc, and put up its manufacturing plant/ facilities there. He returned to the Philippines in 1999. Later on, he joined Macondray Plastics Inc. as General Manager based in Davao City, where he continues to stay. Bobbit Suarez spent more than 20 years with Corn Products (CMC), Unilever & Dole Philippines in sales & distribution. He is retired and is now doing consulting work. Gigi Zenarosa is SVP in PNB, Trust Group. He has been in PNB for over 20 years. Eddie Yap, the Cebuano and production-oriented engineer in the class, who had the habit of walking quietly back and forth at the back of the case room, while listening to a classmate’s presentation in front, has been with the Gokongwei Group of companies, now known as JG Summit, since he graduated from AIM. Aside from Ruben Rubio of SGV, Eddie is the other executive classmate who has stayed in one corporate group for about 30 years already. Eddie started in URC in Manufacturing and Logistics (buying equipment and setting up plants and distribution warehouses), and then he became Purchasing Head of URC in 1992. Since the early 2000s, he assumed the position of Group Head of Corporate Procurement for JG Summit. Cito Alejandro, the Ateneo point-guard partner of Bong Layug in our champion basketball team in AIM in our time, used to be President of UFC (the Pinoy catsup manufacturer), then became President of ABS-CBN for a
60 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians while, and is currently, President /CEO of Del Monte Philippines. Nolo Quezon Avancena, after AIM, worked for about two years in State Investment House, Inc. in Binondo. He also did two years with Bank of the Philippine Islands in the mid-eighties. He admitted in an email that he is not cut out for corporate work. After BPI, Nolo has been an entrepreneur. He has had a meat retail business (Tenderbites) for 19 years. He has been involved in social development work for 20 years. Currently, he is President of the Foundation for Enterprise Management Innovations, Inc. (FEMI). The organization is engaged in assisting SME’s grow their businesses -through credit and training-so they can generate additional employment for poverty alleviation and nation-building. Nolo wrote us further: “No, I am neither rich, powerful, nor super successful but I am fine.” Here is one guy who never made a hoot on nor bragged that the famous and historical late Manuel L. Quezon (the Philippine President of the Philippine Commonwealth) was his grandfather. We found that out ourselves from somewhere. Monty Salgado, an Atenean and one of the more practical and direct- to-the-point classmates, has retired. He has been recently busy attending to their family’s properties in Luzon, since the passing of his parents. We trust he will be around. In the Cohort in AIM, Monty was always a staunch supporter of causes and class activities, although at times he was known to be a teaser among classmates. There is this poignant story about Monty in our second year….a fellow classmate lost his wallet in the dorm. The missing cash contents were worth two weeks of food allowances of the fellow from his parents from the south. Upon learning of the incident, Monty volunteered to quietly help that classmate. From his Dasmarinas Village residence, he brought food daily to that classmate in the dorm for two weeks. Monty has been such a good soul, even with his tae kwon do black belt demeanor. He also helped a number of friends in Marikina in the aftermath of the Tyhoon Ondoy onslaught last September 2009. Lito Gamboa, another simple but bright classmate, left us after MBM year 1, and accepted a good job that he could not refuse. That job in 1979 was with Summa Finance in the Philippines, the same conglomerate that Mon Diaz had worked with in Indonesia. Lito left that company and now, he still
MBM 1980 61 devotes his energies to their family business which is in sugar trading. He is married to Alita Pulgado, a classmate of Maritess Del Rosario-Bo-ot in UP- Diliman for college.
The Pinoy SGV Scholars
Ruben Rubio was a Dean’s Lister. He rejoined SGV and became a course developer and lecturer of the Audit Training Group. In 1982, he joined the newly formed Tax Compliance Group (TCG), which is part of the Tax Division of SGV, as a Tax Manager. In 1987, he was awarded the most outstanding award (Sycip Award) for his effort in developing the methodology for tax audit, a diagnostic approach in evaluating health conditions of clients with respect to compliance to tax laws, rules and regulations. In 1989, he was admitted to the Partnership, the first member from the Tax Compliance Group to become a Partner. In 1991, he became an International Partner of Andersen Worldwide (at that time, SGV was still affiliated with Andersen Worldwide). From an initial headcount of six, the practice grew to over a hundred staff with eight Partners. Currently, Ruben heads that Group, which was renamed as Tax Reporting and Operations Group (TROG). He is also the Country Head for Human Capital Global Mobility Compliance of SGV. Within Human Capital, he is developing a new practice area where US income tax returns of individuals are prepared in the Philippines pursuant to a global engagement of Ernst and Young (EY) and using an Ernest Young Technology platform.
62 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians On the personal side, Ruben is married to Bernadette Guevarra, with a daughter and three sons. His eldest daughter is taking up her masters in marketing at the University of New York (a graduate of Ateneo de Manila University). His eldest son is working currently with Pacsports. His second son is an undergraduate at the Mapua Institute of Technology. His youngest son is a fourth year student at the Ateneo de Manila High School. His youngest boy wants to take up law. Ruben is an avid golfer. Only in his first year of golf, he already achieved a hole-in-one. Albert Toribio returned to SGV, after graduation. Then, he retired from SGV and joined a private company. He is now the CFO of Zest Air, the former Asian Spirit. In class, he was sharp in managerial accounting and finance. He was the other basketball point guard in our MBM 1 team, together with Ernie Que. According to Gil Palad, unfortunately, Albert’s house was inundated by the flood that Typhoon Ondoy brought in last September 2009, and a week later, it was gutted by fire. His Zest Air boss made him and his wife stay in a condo (owned by the same boss) at Vito Cruz, corner Roxas Boulevard, Manila. Art Falco went back to SGV after AIM to serve his eight-year sentence (he says jokingly). He was sent to Seoul in 1981-1982 to help the operations there. He resigned from SGV in 1989 and plunged head on to the prawn business. It was successful but (he keeps joking) he not last long enough to become a millionaire. He returned to the corporate world. He quips further that it is hard to go back to corporate employment especially if the business is not yours. He had been a CFO of three publicly listed companies, real estate development, and telecommunications. He is also active in a foundation (Tapaznon Foundation, Inc., which extends medical and dental missions, including cataract operations, scholarships. Gil Palad was also one of the SGV scholars in our Cohort. After completing the service contract with SGV, he decided to foray into private accounting and then joined Electrolux Marketing, Inc., PepsiCo, Inc., Kimberly Clark Philippines, Inc., and the Ergo Group. Now semi-retired, Gil has been doing financial and management consultancy since 2005. He and his dear wife had a close call this year….but they are now recuperating fast from their house-burning episode in Manila. Thanks to the “newsy and ever-caring attitude” of Noel De La Paz and Ben
MBM 1980 63 Rubio….that timely help from many Cohortmates was extended to Gil and his family. Fred Severino, after graduation, went back to SGV to serve his schooling contract. Then, he joined Security Bank as a First VP / Comptroller. Her retired in 1992. Now, after a triple heart by-pass in 1995, he is semi-retired, but does arms-length supervision from his Batangas orchard over his ventures in Manila via high tech cel phones and the wireless laptop. He is now healthy and he says he is feeling like Benjamin Button, a strange case. After retiring from the bank, Fred has been an entrepreneur dealing with export/import operation,; has been running a chain of independent and branded gas stations; and he has been in the forays of recycling of textile waste products and construction projects. He is also involved in livelihood assistance projects for low income families. But because of that heart by-pass surgery, Fred had opted to stay semi- retired from active life. He spends most of his time in his farm/resort in Nasugbu Batangas. It is in this mango orchard where he directs his ventures’ operations electronically and wirelessly. He still collects firearms (long and short), collects and rides big bikes (speed and cruisers) and also collects a few American V8 vehicles. He also cruises with his yacht and goes fishing when time permits. He loves to play with his dogs (the mastiff is the largest and the shitzu is the smallest). In his farm, he raises horses, cows, carabaos, goats and chickens. Fred remains happily married to Jane, and they have one adult son, one adult daughter and one adopted child.
64 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians The Military Scholars
Assistant Secretary Cesar Bello opted to retire from the military service but remained with the Department of National Defense, serving in different positions until he became an Assistant Secretary. He was a Class President in our first year. After reading his cases for the night in the dorm, he would pick a novel from his shelf. He said reading a novel made him relax. We do not know why but he had a phobia about being dunked into the pool. Police Director (then, a Major in the Philippine Constabulary) Vic Batac was the coolest, unassuming but very confident classmate. After graduation, he proceeded with his progressive, albeit colorful and bumpy, military and police careers, and still managed to retire as a Two-Star General in 2005. He has been fully supported all throughout his interesting life-journey by his loving wife, Nene, who has been the pediatrician of the children of a number of our classmates. They boast of four daughters, three of whom are also doctors of medicine. The youngest however, chose to take up management engineering and is now in the banking industry. Gen Vic (as our Cohort calls him now, like a Big Brother, too) has not totally cut off his chords with the PNP as he is presently the Executive Director and a Trustee of the Philippine National Police Foundation, Inc, the organization that he helped to organize and launch back in 2000 to harness the community to help equip and support the Philippine National Police and to help the lowly policeman. This was after his very rewarding two-stage stints with Philip at Ergo. In addition, he has been dabbling in the security service industry, printing and publications, and third party logistics, just to keep himself busy .... and during his free time or whenever invited, he plays golf. He is also one of the “glues” that keep our Cohort together. Rudy de Castro, the PAF helicopter pilot, had migrated to Canada in the late 80s. Rudy wrote us recently: “I am enjoying my retirement now as most people in their 60s do. I play golf a lot—-when I mean a lot I mean even during winter when there’s snow on the ground and at sub-zero temperature. Sounds crazy but there are a lot of such people here. During the summer (and during winter, too) I fly my remote controlled airplanes and helicopters. I would say I have more planes and helis than one Wing in the Air Force. I have been in Canada for twenty years now with three kids. Judith is a
MBM 1980 65 Bachelor of Science graduate selling drugs ( pharmaceutical ones). Pong (Jr.) is a licensed civil engineer and King is a mechanical engineering graduate. That’s the life I made in Canada. Oh, my wife….Fe is working in a nursing home as a charge nurse. She supports my golf and flying hobbies.” Tony Siapno retired as a Rear Admiral in 2002, after 38 years of military service, dedication and duty to God and country. He is remembered as an MBM classmate who was diplomatically eloquent in case room discussions. He now is into real estate brokerage. After graduation, he continued his military career and occupied various positions until he was designated as the Chief of Naval Staff of the Philippine Navy, where he earned his first star Later, he was elevated to the General Headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo where he earned his second star as Rear Admiral, being the Deputy Chief of Staff for Education and Training. Finally, he concluded his military career, also in Camp Aguinaldo, as Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. He became a Management Consultant at the Public Estates Authority for a few months and later decided to actively practice as a Licensed Real Estate Broker, a job he continues to perform to this day. He plays golf every now and then.
The Korean
Johnny Chang Yoon Jeong was the acknowledged Finance expert in our Cohort, especially in our first year. After graduating from AIM, he returned to Korea to join a local pharmaceutical company, an affiliate of the global pharma group, Eli Lilly and Co. He also worked with Beckton Dickinson Korea (BDK) and became its CEO and Country Manager. Way back in the past, Johnny had asked to be moved to taking a high position in Manpower Development (HRD). One day, in Seoul, he met and treated Gel Tamayo to lunch. During that lunch, Johnny confessed that he hated HBO in our MBM first year, and he loathed Gel and Lory when the two were “going high” in their behavioral analyses of HBO cases. Johnny said he almost fell down, felt bored, and wanted to go to sleep in many HBO classes. Then, during dessert time, Johnny surprisingly intimated to Gel that he believed that HBO should stressed more in business schools, as he was
66 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians deciding to handle Manpower Services in that big organization in Seoul. What HBO revelation from our Finance and Accounting wizard in that, according to him, as a senior executive moves up the corporate ladder in a big organization, his principal concerns should be understanding, motivating and managing people in the organization, if he wants people to move effectively and cooperate. At present, Johnny is the CEO and the Representative Director of Yungjin Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd which has a $100 million annual turnover. He wrote us that it is highly likely that he will retire in March, 2010.
The Malaysians Leow Kee Peng was ranked no. 1 overall among our With Distinction classmates. After AIM, he spent 13 years with Johnson &Johnson in Malaysia, Singapore and Australia. He then joined RJ Reynolds International in 1994 and stayed there for seven years as the Malaysian GM, the Greater China VP (based in HKG) and the Russia VP (based in Moscow). Finally, he joined BriteSmile, Inc. (a dental company) for six years as VP for Asia Pacific. He liked the dental business so much, he started his own business of distributing dental products to dentists in 2006. He now owns Galla Dental Corp. in Malaysia and SA Dental Supply in Singapore. Leow is married to Angela Lee. Philip KC Ng, in his younger days was better known as the undefeated men’s overall NCAA hurdles champion and the 100-meter sprint champion from De La Salle Taft. He is an engineer by degree from De La Salle. Philip KC is also one of the original “glues” that keep our MBM Cohort together. He regularly contacts Gel Tamayo (the Cohort’s chronicler). Philip’s Malacca Restaurant along Jupiter Street in Makati, with its excellent and value-for-money Malaysian and Asian fusion cuisine, has been our Cohort’s meeting place in 2009. After graduating in AIM, Philip Ng went entrepreneurial, starting with men’s fashion, moved on to importing European cars and eventually becoming the official Porsche agent in the Philippines. In 1986, he ventured into Office chairs, brand named Ergo, starting with importation, and then manufacturing in 1990, building the most sophisticated furniture factory in the Philippines, using computerized cutting and drilling and robot welders. By then the furniture line expanded to system furniture and metal cabinets.
MBM 1980 67 Philip’s ventures currently include: real estate development, distribution of interior construction materials, Interior Design software and restaurants. His areas of operation are Singapore, Malaysia, China and USA. He is happy with his ventures, and he says gratefully, “Not by my ability but blessings from the Lord.” He travels a lot for business meetings abroad, especially in Mainland China and the USA. He recently finished a course on TQM in Japan, under a grant. From that short study in Japan, Philip tells us that there should be no stopping with studying, even in our age, especially if one is into manufacturing or services that ought to embrace innovation to remain competitive globally. Philip is married to Maria Lourminda O’Connor and has 3 children: Tim is in his 2nd year studying Film in CalState Northridge in California; Jasmine is in her third year, doing Multi Media Arts in College of St. Benilde (La Salle) in Manila; and the 9 year old son, Michael, is studying in the British School. Nik Yaacob was one of our more serious classmates. He was a Dean’s Lister in our second year. He had retired as Chairman and CEO of Sime Darby after many years at the helm. Sime Darby is one of ASEAN’s biggest companies. Su Thai Ping reportedly had retired but was rehired. He just entered into the renewable energy business based in Malaysia. We wish he can send us his updated data liners. Man Fuk Lim, joined the banking industry in Malaysia and stayed in it for the past 29 years. He is currently with a Malaysian bank called AMBANK as General Manager of its Business Banking Division. He married in 1990 and has three teenage sons. Lim Chin Hock first taught in Quantitative Analysis in AIM after MBM graduation. Then, he returned to Malaysia. At present, he is on a yearly contract as a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at TAR College. He had retired from the corporate world since six years ago, due stress syndrome as he wrote us. He said further that his doctors had told him that he could run faster than a speeding train to continue in the corporate world, for as long as he would not just jump off the tracks. He adds that his sons are now grown-ups and working, too. His current work allows him flexi-time, and, when lectures/tutorials are finished, he simply goes home. Thus, no more stress and no more admin problems to worry about. Lim is not sure to join us in Manila for the 30th MBM Jubilee reunion. He
68 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians needs to finish marking the examination scripts and to attend the Board of Examiners’ meeting before he can leave for Manila for the February 2010 homecoming dates. He has been recently assigned to teach in the CIMA revision classes, starting at the end of February 2010 in TAR College, and he needs to juggle all these dates. In his last email, Lim expressed his desire to express his regards to all Cohortmates, especially after 30 years of silence. Who knows, he will simply pop in during the AIM Grand Homecoming Week in February.
The Singaporean
Chew Eng Seng is a brilliant math-oriented guy, an engineer who was always in his element when presenting his numbers in the MBM class. He returned to Singapore to work in microelectronics industry after AIM. He did a leveraged buyout and co-founded MPI which got listed in Nasdaq in the early 90s. He moved on to start his own entrepreneurial venture with main focus in China. He founded SPS group with subsidiaries in aviation and semiconductor business. He remains an entrepreneur and a great friend of China. He was recently awarded the National Friendship Award by the Mainland Chinese Government in the recently celebrated 60th Anniversary National Day. He just started a new venture called Plurality, which reputedly has the most advanced microprocessor in the world and thus, has taken a lead role in the continuing evolution of the computing and mobile communications industries. Chew tells us that he has greatly benefited from the education atAIM that bridged his career from engineering to general management to global entrepreneurial ventures.
The American
Gary Anderson is a look-alike of Robert Redford (or is it the other way around?). He was the lone American classmate who stayed on to finish MBM with us. He was a patient fellow. He was not afraid to ask questions, and even wrote comments in his WAC, which was off-tangent from the main issues. He replied back: “But real life is like that, Sir.” Gary wrote us from the USA, and he said that he got a lot more than
MBM 1980 69 his degree at AIM. He married Para (formerly AIM staffer, Paraluman “Lulu”). They will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary on January 2, 2010. Gary and his family returned to southern California in 1980 and have lived in North Tustin since 1994. He was in corporate management, then construction, and is now a partner in Vantera Partners, a boutique investment banking firm in Newport Beach, California.
The Indonesian
Shodan Purba was a brave Indonesian student, who was not also afraid to ask questions, even if his English was at times broken. But he often made sense with his curt queries. He would distribute those special chili flavored cigarettes that would crackle at the tips when lighted. We do not know which business he is in now. We wish he can send us his latest data liners.
The Taiwanese
Rev. Fr. Beda Liu was a mild and approachable person in and outside the case room. Often smiling and ever humble. He was a highly respected individual in our class. He simply grinned when other guys cracked green jokes. He remains as a priest in the Lord’s vineyard to this day. Jeffrey Shih Kun-Lung opted to join the cement industry but has recently retired to tend to his own orchard in southern Taiwan. He was the reason that we as a Class were able to get so many classmates together in the previous Wasabi Resto of Philip KC Ng for dinner some three years ago.
The Hongkongese
Lucius Lai King Pui, a BBA graduate from the University of Singapore, was a friendly chap in the Cohort. He loved to play ping-pong after classes. He was good in math in AIM. Lucius is now management consultant and a professional trainer at the Academy of Management Consultancy in HK. He served as senior training manager for the largest motor manufacturer in the Mainland, senior adviser in the Management Development Centre of Hong Kong of Vocational Training Council, and the director of an education
70 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians institution offering degree programmes in management in Macao. Lucius has conducted a wide variety of management courses including training the management trainer and various topical programmes including management techniques and project management. He also played a major role in introducing effective manage-ment approaches e.g. the National Vocational Qualifications in Management and the Cambridge Career Award in Project Management. He had been the administrative executive of a garment factory, the station manager of worldwide leading courier company, operations manager of the largest commercial security company in Hong Kong, assistant general manager of a regional multi-billion dollar off-shore trading company for branded products, director and general manager of a SME facility company. His areas of expertise include consulting and teaching in supervisory management, operations management and organisation development whereby he undertook a number of key research and development projects, e.g. the Successful Supervisors Series (a highly popular self-learning programme), the Managerial Capability Framework (a comprehensive competency management framework for self development) and the Middle Manager Series (a collection of training manuals for management workshops). Lucius took another course under the Oxford U circuit that gave him the certificate for a “Qualified Development Adviser, Summative Assessor and Internal Verifier”—-in the University of Oxford’s Delegacy of Local Examinations for the National Vocational Qualifications in Management. John Lai and his family migrated to Canada in 1990. His kids have grown up now, but he still goes to work every day. John goes back to Hong Kong once a while to visit his parents and brothers and a sister. He hopes one day he can meet some of our classmates in Southeast Asia, when he drops by Taipei for business meetings.
The Pakistanis
Shad Quraeshi went back to Pakistan after graduation. He had settled in Karachi and now heads the Emirates Global Islamic Bank Ltd. Asim Mehtab left us after our first year in AIM.
MBM 1980 71 The Canadian (also a Pakistani, with dual passports)
Naqi Azam Naqi Azam had retired from Citibank Group in Europe. He is a University of the Philippines-Diliman graduate with a BS in Business Economics. During his 13-year stint at Citibank, he worked in senior positions as an international staff (crème de la crème) in Greece, Saudi Arabia, New York and London in operations//technology, treasury and training. He has now dual nationalities ( Canadian and Pakistani ). In the mid 90’s, he became an entrepreneur, successfully owned, established and sold the Dow Jones-Telerate franchise in Pakistan. He had served in it as CEO. He was also an adjunct professor of treasury and management at the prestigious Institute of Business Administration (University of Karachi ). He is a Canadian licensed football coach and has successfully established two football clubs (Aurora and Shazam). In 2007, he became a management and financial advisor to a media and technology conglomerate in Pakistan . Currently, he is busy doing his own project financing packages in the Gulf/Asia Pacific region. Because of his many travels in a month, he jocosely muses that he is like an international pilot. He has three children: son, Rafi who is a graduate in International Hotel Management from Royal Roads University Victoria, Canada; daughter, Sonia, is finishing a degree in Communication, Culture and Information Technology (CCIT) at University of Toronto; and the youngest son, Sami, age 14, who has made the first level cut at Sporting Lisbon in Portugal. This is the same club where the famous soccer star Ronaldo started his career. Sami is also the top midfielder in the province of Ontario. An intimate group from our Cohort had a dinner for him in Malacca Restaurant last Sept. 25, 2009, the night before the notorious Typhoon Ondoy struck Manila and the whole of Luzon.
Too Bad, We Miss The Following Classmates
In spite of the modern technology of group e-mails, contemporary IT and other telecom modes, we could not contact directly these classmates. We wanted to ask them to send us their latest “data liners”. We do miss them: Madhavan Poduval, Nibby Shah, Badruddin Inayat Ali. Leung Ching
72 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians Tai, Chung Chin Se, Mon Palma Gil, George Taberrah, Tong Ojerio, Ben Escano, Dewi Soedarmono, Alan Mangorsi, Chito Nepomuceno, Mon Vargas, Michael Antony, Lam Hee, Goh Kim Khai, Rosley Abdullah, Lope Uy, Dodjie Marfori, Emil Reyes, Danny Labordo, Henry Brimo, Shodan Purba, Torch Torres, Gen. Cesar Bello, and Henry Lo.
No Final Good-Byes Yet
Before we take our “ritual bow” as Pearl Jubilarians in the Grand Homecoming Night, we wish to quote in a good light a German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer: “Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed; in the second, it is opposed; in the third, it is regarded as self-evident.” As we end this “pass-in-review” along life’s memory lane, let us remind ourselves with the friendly advice from a handful of the die-hard class “glues” that try to keep our MBM 1980 Cohort together: “Life is short but has a lot to offer. Do the bonding”. But we look forward to another thirty years or more to celebrate several MBM 1980 milestones, and to see our contributions in AIM bear more fruits. We have no intentions of fading away. Not yet. We remain to “romance the future” with AIM. We still believe. Mabuhay. Maraming salamat po.
MBM 1980 73 74 The Thirty-Year AIM Jubilarians