Al Yuchengco, Mariano Que & Bobby Aboitiz: 3 Tycoons, 3 Visions

The recent demise of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) chairman emeritus, Malayan Insurance taipan and Yuchengco Group of Companies (YGC) patriarch Alfonso “Al” Yuchengco at age 94, Mercury Drug business empire founder Mariano Que at age 97 and the Aboitiz Group of Companies’ former key leader Roberto Eduardo “Bobby” Aboitiz at age 67 saddened many people, because these outstanding yet starkly different tycoons were preeminent leaders in Philippine economic development and in philanthropy.

Third-generation scion outshines forebears as entrepreneur, diplomat, philanthropist, activist

The late Ambassador Al Yuchengco was not only one of the country’s most accomplished business titans and top wheeler-dealers who championed Philippine progress, he also served with distinction as Philippine ambassador to China, Japan and the United Nations, was an active civic leader and philanthropist who supported many charities.

As a businessman, Yuchengco excelled as a leader by hiring the services of some of the Philippines’ brightest minds like former Prime Minister Cesar Virata, the late Roy Navarro, etc. This taipan worked hard and also at the same time knew how to enjoy life.

Yuchengco was also a very filial son, mentioning to me once that one of his great inspirations in aspiring for success was his loving and supportive mother Maria Hao Tay. He told me that he had in 1953 commissioned the National Artist Carlos “Botong” Francisco to paint a huge portrait of both his parents, this very large artwork used to hang at his parents’ mausoleum before it was eventually transferred to his family’s Yuchengco Museum in Makati City.

Chinese Commercial News publisher Solomon Yuyitung told me that unlike most business people who are understandably non-political, Al Yuchengco was non-traditional in opposing the strongman President Ferdinand Marcos. Yuchengco was a financier of the subversive Light A Fire Movement for the anti-Marcos opposition and he later also served as active chairman of the Bantayog ng Mga Bayani Foundation which honors activists who sought to topple the martial law regime.

Unlike most of his business tycoon peers who are either first-generation immigrants or mostly “rags-to-riches” entrepreneurs, he was born into a rich ethnic Chinese business family in Manila. Yuchengco was one shining example of a wealthy scion not dissipating inherited wealth, but building upon it with ingenuity, guts and vision.

Although late in his career, he faced a crisis with the collapse of various Philippine pre-need firms due to unforeseen disruptive changes in industry conditions — causing the fall of his Pacific Plans — Yuchengco survived and his business group continued to thrive.  

Al’s grandfather Yu Tiaoqui was a late 19th century immigrant to Manila from Ao-khi Village in the rural county of Nan-an (pronounced as “Lam-oa” in Hokkien), under Quanzhou City, Fujian province of south China. Lam-oa was also hometown of the legendary Ming Dynasty General Zheng Cheng-gong.

Like most migrants, Yu Tiaoqui worked for another trader before eventually going into business himself in the lumber and tobacco leaf trade in Calle Gandara of Binondo, Manila. Yu Tiaoqui’s son Enrique Yuchengco became his successor, adding construction, insurance, rice milling and real estate to the family’s businesses. Enrique’s son and heir was Alfonso Yuchengco.

Back to back from the Yuchengco business at Gandara Street just an estero away and along Calle Arranque (later T. Alonzo Street) was the former 19th century lumberyard of Dy Han Kia which, by the early 20th century, was continued by his grandson Lee Tay as the Lee Tay & Lee Chay, Inc. The Lee lumber family CEO’s brother-in-law, 94-year-old Mariano Chua Capistrano, told me that his Far Eastern University (FEU) schoolmate Al Yuchengco used to be chauffeured to school in a Packard luxury car in the pre-war years.

Dy Han Kia’s nephew, pre-war lumber tycoon Dy Pac, would be one of the godfathers in Al Yuchengco’s grand wedding to pre-war Philippine Chinese Chamber of Commerce president and China Banking Corp. chairman Dr. Albino SyCip’s daughter Paz SyCip, while Al’s eldest child Helen Yuchengco would years later marry Dy Han Kia’s great-great-grandnephew and pre-war “Lumber King”/China Bank founder Dee C. Chuan’s grandson, the respected banker Peter S. Dee.

Apart from Al Yuchengco’s strong-willed and capable daughter Helen Yuchengco Dee becoming his successor, another talented daughter Yvonne Yuchengco runs the family’s flagship non-life insurance giant Malayan Insurance. A niece of Ambassador Al Yuchengco and a daughter of his sister Vicencia, Vivian Yuchengco, is one of the leaders of the Philippine Stock Exchange.

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‘Drugstore King’ was one of the country’s most low-key yet immensely successful tycoons

The late undisputed “Drugstore King” of the Philippines Mariano Que of Mercury Drug, Tropical Hut fastfood chain and Fortune Bakeshop was looked up to in business circles for his business prowess, his inspiring “rags-to-riches” life story and for helping to modernize the Philippine retail industry, especially with his over 1,000 drugstores and also convenience stores.

Que was similar to many traditionally low-profile, self-made ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs, such as his long-time friend the late “Pharmaceuticals King” United Laboratories (Unilab) founder Jose Yao Campos; or the country’s No. 1 paint producers Pacific Paint (Boysen) Philippines founders Jimmy Ongking, Vicente Ongsue and Ung Han Leong. They all shied away from the media or social limelight, worked extremely hard, saved money to keep reinvesting in their businesses, introduced pioneering innovations, had simple lifestyles, donated generously to charities and painstakingly grew their businesses through the decades.

I recall one of the rare public appearances of the media-shy Mariano Que was at the May 4, 2007 launching of the book The Green Cross Saga by the then-ousted founder of Green Cross rubbing alcohol Gonzalo Co It at the Centennial Hall of the Manila Hotel, Que was accompanied by his successor daughter Vivian Que Azcona. Another VIP guest at the book launch was National Bookstore chain founder Socorro C. Ramos. I don’t think Que or Ramos were taking sides in the bitter court battle of Co trying to contest ownership of the Green Cross business, but I believe they were there as true friends of the ousted founder because genuine friends are those who stand by a person when he or she is down and out.

Like Socorro Ramos who used to work as a sales clerk at the pre-war Goodwill Bookstore in Avanida Rizal in Manila before starting her own similar business, or Lucio Tan who started as a high school student working part-time for his tuition at the Bataan Cigar & Cigarette Factory led by his grand-uncle So Lee Kuy (which led Tan to later start his own Fortune Tobacco), Mariano Que learned the basics of selling medicines at a drugstore.

Que started once as a humble employee at pre-war Manila’s biggest drugstore enterprise owned by Dr. Jose Tee Han Kee called Farmacia Central, it was located at No. 248 Calle Rosario (now called Quintin Paredes Street), Manila and just across Ongpin Street from the historic Binondo Church. Dr. Tee was father of the late Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee.

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A tycoon who was passionate about philanthropy, big bikes and planes

Cebu and the Philippines lost an exemplary business and civic leader with the passing of tycoon Roberto Eduardo “Bobby” M. Aboitiz, a prominent official of the Aboitiz Group and president of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI).

Filipinos of Spanish Basque heritage, the Aboitizes are into power, banking (through Union Bank), real estate and other businesses. His son, the fifth-generation and Boston University-educated Tristan Aboitiz, is vice president of the family’s Pilmico Foods Corp., one of the country’s top flour mills.

The late Bobby Aboitiz was one of the most down-to-earth tycoons I have ever encountered and he had a good sense of humor, too. Once during a trip years ago to Cebu on a weekend, I texted if I could visit him; I was surprised when Bobby Aboitiz said he could meet me at his office that Sunday morning. He was wearing jeans, and we spoke at length and shared many ideas about business; then afterwards, I was even more surprised to see him drive off on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Apart from riding big bikes on weekends with friends, Bobby Aboitiz also loved planes and aviation.

I distinctly remember Bobby Aboitiz telling me that more than just achieving business success, one of the most important challenges for entrepreneurs is how to ensure long-term viability and sustainability of the family business as well as how to effect smooth and orderly succession to the next set of leaders. He also told me that he once met fellow Cebuano and self-made business taipan John L. Gokongwei, Jr. and he passed on the name of the topnotch foreign consultancy on family succession planning which their own family had consulted.

Due to good leaders like the late Bobby Aboitiz, the century-old Aboitiz Group has flourished as one of the country’s most progressive, enduring, family-owned and controlled conglomerates.

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