Management MVP

In a country enamored with acronyms, Manuel V. Pangilinan has the perfect one: MVP, which commonly stands for "Most Valuable Player", and in this basketball-crazy nation, that’s the top plum. And with the Management Man of the Year award that will be conferred on him by the Management Association of the Philippines on Tuesday, Manny Pangilinan is indeed MVP.

Manny Pangilinan likes to cite the example of Li Ka Shing, the richest man in Asia; Manny says he would see the man walking to his office in Hong Kong on Sunday afternoons "while others were enjoying the beach".

On a recent Sunday afternoon, while others were enjoying the Caracol festivities at the shopping center across the street, Manny Pangilinan was in his seventh floor office at the Ramon Cojuangco Building in Makati, reviewing the numbers of a five-year forecast for the flagship Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT). The building was dark, the air conditioners off; the main entrance was shuttered, and soapy water was everywhere as four workers cleaned the parking entrance.

Two aides met us at the reception area of the executive floor; one led us to the conference room, quickly turning on the lights and an air conditioner, the other went off to the inner sanctum of offices, from where Pangilinan emerges a few minutes later, his concession to Sunday a navy sports shirt, jeans and loafers, slightly tousled hair–and a warm and casual air that is a notable thawing of his reputed "icy" demeanor.

Pangilinan’s reputation as a workaholic is legendary. It is said he calls colleagues at all hours of the day and night–and any day of the week–to clarify or discuss things he happens to be working on, and once even reportedly held a meeting at a wedding reception. People say he is driven; he jokes that he has a "bad habit" of working even when there’s not much work, but quickly clarifies that "there’s really a lot of things to do". He once said that he works long hours to "compensate for a weakness... I don’t feel that I’m bright; I’m more the one who studies real hard and prepares."

This near-obsessive work ethic is part of the reason for Manny Panglinan’s success, and why he is the Management Association of the Philippines’ 2005 Management Man of the Year. The award, given out to only 26 individuals since it was established in 1967, recognizes "outstanding achievements of individuals, whether MAP members or not, who have exceptionally distinguished themselves in the practice of management". Pangilinan joins an august roster that includes Washington SyCip, Cesar Virata, Jaime Ongpin, Vicente Paterno, Jaime Zobel de Ayala, and Tony Tan Caktiong, among others.

He is being cited primarily for engineering the phenomenal turn-around of PLDT–where net profits for 2005 are expected to top P30 billion, the most profitable company in the country, from a measly P2.8 billion in 1999–"through a disciplined ‘convergence strategy’ consisting of consolidation, diversification and expansion". PLDT has also emerged as one of Asia’s "most recognized, admired, innovative and best performing telecommunications companies", judged Best Managed Company in the Philippines twice (2003 and 2004) by AsiaMoney and twice (2004 and 2005) by Finance Asia.

That’s significant success indeed, from the stormy start in 1998 when Pangilinan and the First Pacific group took over the telephone behemoth, saddled with huge losses and a subsidiary, cellular firm Piltel, deep in debt. With a series of bold and masterful moves–including absorbing the highly successful cellular company SMART into PLDT–Pangilinan engineered what is generally regarded as "the most amazing recovery story in Philippine corporate history", a story that will undoubtedly be studied and dissected for years to come.

While he can justifiably bask in this all too sweet success–he confides that the actual figures, particularly for 2005, are much better than the five-year forecast he had been reviewing, "much better than we had anticipated; the good Lord is kind," he says–Pangilinan says there is still a lot of things to do, particularly at this time when the growth rate of both PLDT and SMART are slowing down after the galloping boom years.

"New technologies open up new frontiers," he explains. "How to translate these new technologies into products and services at affordable prices that the Filipino consumer can use is a challenge before us."

Pangilinan is also being cited for "being an an exemplary Filipino capable of effective and ethical leadership and of competing with the best in the international business community". That should be personally satisfying for Pangilinan, for that is essentially the message he has been preaching in talks before students, youth and other groups across the country.

The role of managers, he says, is "to manage our companies well...to international standards, then we can demonstrate to the world that the Filipino can." He believes that the three things that make a good manager are competence, passion–"you have to love the job"–and integrity: "Mental honesty, and financial honesty–any whiff of financial misdeed, and you should be out; there’s no two ways about it," he says.

He cites "doing the right thing" almost like a mantra: "We don’t have to cheat or to steal," he insists. In remarks before the National Rizal Youth Leadership Institute in Baguio last month, Pangilinan said: "Success–enduring success–springs from basic, old-fashioned values...(that) are as fundamental as being honest and truthful, especially with yourself. When you are truthful with yourself, and with others, you are likely to do the right things in life."

And does this work beyond the corporate structure, say on a national scale?

"Absolutely," he says. "If every Filipino would do his or her job, even in an average way, and most of us would just be honest, we’d be far better off."

It sounds simplistic, and so does his prescription: hard work, and a willingness to take risks. "I’ve learned that what happens and how you perform in life depends far less on fate, and far more on one’s courage and character."

Despite his corporate successes, Pangilinan has not been tapped to sit as adviser or consultant for the government; observers say that is because he is seen as an "outsider", not "in" with the powers that be. That suits him just fine, for that is a role he is not looking to add on to his already full range of responsibilities:CEO and managing director of First Pacific Company Ltd., president commissioner of PT Indofood Sukses Makmur Tbk (the largest food company in Indonesia), chairman of PLDT, Smart Communications, Metro Pacific Corp., Landco Pacific Corp., Piltel, Makati Medical Center, Philippine Business for Social Progress, Ateneo de Manila University, the Hong Kong Bayanihan Trust, and many other organizations.

He does give the government some praise, saying he takes an optimistic view of the country–but gives a quick caveat: "I’m not being sipsip."

"The underlying fundamentals look okay," he says. "I wish we could grow much faster, better than we’re doing, but it’s not a bad job that the President is doing. We just don’t seem to appreciate that."

Part of the failure of government lies in not explaining the situation to the people. "There’s no rationale to talk about job creation or lower prices if these underlying conceptual economic factors are not present–if your interest rates are not low, if your exhange rate is not low, if your economic prospects are not sanguine," he says, in technocrat-speak. "These concepts do not mean much to the common man, but they are real. So the government has to explain–why is a low exchange rate better for you? and so forth. There must be a ‘connect’ with the people."

Despite having lived and worked abroad for 22 years, Pangilinan seems to have a pretty good "connect" with the country and people. He tells people that he is "one of millions of overseas Filipino workers... I had to adjust to new cultures, bury myself in work, acquire an intimacy with loneliness and longing, yet always hope to come home to a better life."

When he came back to Manila in 1998, bringing with him millions in investments of the First Pacific/Salim group that he headed, he initially chafed a bit at the attitudes and work patterns, ruing the fact that he had to socialize a lot more than he was used to or would like, and that he had to play politics a lot more.

Nowadays he seems more at ease. For one thing, "I’m not the new kid on the block anymore," he says, so much of the curiosity is gone. He eschews the socializing part as much as he can–"I’m not the life of the party definitely," he says–but he does allow himself a break every now and then. "I’m going to watch the game this afternoon," he tells us at the end of our interview when we kid him not to work too hard. Indeed, Pangilinan can often be seen at the games of his Talk ‘N Text pro basketball team, as well as the Ateneo Blue Eagles that he enthusiastically supports.

Badminton is his sport these days, after a serious injury ended his days on the squash court. He doesn’t join competitions–"It just puts more stress on my otherwise stressful life"–but he plays with members of the national team aside from regular court buddies. "It’s more challenging. You upgrade your game. I don’t like in-breeding; you have to enlarge the gene pool," he laughs.

At the end of the day, what is Manny Pangilinan proudest of?

"Being a Filipino," he says without hesitation. "I’ve never entertained the idea of giving up my passport"– even when a lucrative promotion entailed moving to London. "No way," he says simply of that decision. "I’m an Asian. I’m a Filipino."