ERNESTO “JUDES” ECHAUZ, the Group Chairman of Standard Insurance, has sailing flowing in his veins. But from the calm-to-ferocious seas where he steered his yacht Centennial III and most recently Centennial V, the tender-natured Echauz ventured into three other sports that has one common denominator—a bicycle.
Echauz’s Standard Insurance chartered through triathlon, cycling and duathlon, a support that yielded a bumper crop of medals from the 30th Southeast Asian Games in December 2019.
“We started supporting sailing, initially in big yacht racing, at the Manila Yacht Club in 1994. Thereafter, we continued supporting the Philippine Sailing Association [PSA] which was then based at the MYC in the other classes by being the major private sponsor in the 2005 SEA Games in Subic Bay,” said Echauz, who now heads the PSA.
The support prospered and endeared and Standard Insurance takes pride in the two gold medals Filipino athletes won in the fleet and match racing on Far East 28Rs keelboats and another gold in the men’s 470, a silver in the women’s 420 and a bronze in the men’s 420.
Two gold and one silver medal were also won wind surfing, which falls under the PSA disciplines.
The support was also highlighted by the Centennial Sailing Team’s success in international yacht racing. The team’s crew are mostly from the national team who in the last 10 made Centennial III, a TP 52 yacht, and the most recent, Centennial V, a Rachel Pugh 75 yacht, champions in the region.
So how did sailing and cycling blend in Standard Insurance’s program?
“My daughter, Magali, was an NCAA [National Collegiate Athletic Association] Most Outstanding Swimmer in her elementary years and started triathlon in her high school year,” Echuz narrated. “That’s when we bumped into cycling coach, Coach Bernie Llentada from the Philippine Navy.”
With Magali piling up victories from the Iron Kids to the Batang Pinoy and becoming a contender for the Youth Olympics, the elder Echauz took one look at cycling and behold, he was enamored with the two-wheeled equipment.
He sponsored the Philippine Navy cycling team that continues to dominate the Ronda Pilipinas with most of its riders making the national cycling team. And because of his love affair with the bicycle, he converted some of the Navy cyclists to do duathlon and later recruited some on the country’s top duathletes, including SEA Games champion Monica Torres.
The duathlon team Echauz said, was an offshoot of the cycling squad when we triathlete whom we have sponsored, to captain the national team. In the 30th SEA games, the team won the gold for the individual women, silver for the individual men and bronze for the team relay.
Running, too, was on the Standard Insurance program.
“We sponsor running among our company employees under our own running coach,” he said, adding a recent junior recruit for duathlon, Tara Borlain, is hitting the middle distance to prepare for the 31st SEA Games in Vietnam in 2021.
And then the pandemic struck. But for Echauz and Standard Insurance, life goes on, and so does sports.
“Sports activities with the elite athletes who are either our employees or from the Navy are integral to the company’s operations,” he said. “Annual budgeting are performed for training and competition, local and international, expenditures, which includes various allowances as well as for equipment.”
Except for the junior athletes who are below 18, Standard Insurance athletes follow the salary scale and benefits as either employees of the company or as enlisted personnel of the Navy and with both being able to avail of the company’s car plan.
Echauz didn’t divulge any figures as to how much it costs to support all these athletes, but taking into consideration the price of an elite level road bike that fetches no less than P250,000—excluding accessories like helmets, shoes, GPS equipment, among others—and multiply that amount to the Navy cycling team alone of 15 men and women, do the math and that equates to a lot.
Yet, the company kept the athletes—and employees in general—close to its heart during the pandemic.
“There has been no reduction of personnel, including athletes, although additional ones have been hired under our BPO operations since more international companies, especially those from the United States, have increased its outsourcing,” Echauz said.
“ When GCQ was declared for Cavite, some cyclists and duathletes [who are based there], started training already,” he said, adding power meters, a must in training of elite athletes, were even made available to the cyclists.
As for sailing, although under GCQ, the sport remains to be disallowed in Manila and Subic Bay, but Echauz said the PSA is preparing for offshore races with Far East 28R keelboats for the 2024 Olympics in France and the Rolex China Sea Race in April 2021.
“Out of more than 2,000 staff in the company and its BPOs, there are only a dozen mild positive cases,” Echauz proudly said.