AT a time when most of my peers were starting a new life, I was still mourning the death of my father. It was 1977, and I was just a young man of 25.
My father died unexpectedly in Hong Kong in 1976. He was only 49 years old. His untimely death prevented us from saying our good-byes. Words were lost along with so many plans and dreams our family still had.
I suddenly found myself burdened with the responsibility of filling in the great void left by my father—at home, and in our business. I knew from the start that his were big shoes to fill.
As the eldest child, I took on the presidency of Sterling Co.
With my father gone, I had to start from scratch.
Filling his father’s shoes
THE first few years were difficult and challenging. At that time, nobody even knew about Sterling notebooks, our company’s primary product.
I also had to struggle with naysayers, who believed that my father’s death would also spell the death of Sterling Co. They said: “Oh, Sterling is going to go down. The one who is holding the big flag is not around anymore.”
At the time, I must admit, my youth became my curse. But I forced myself to believe in what I can do—it was the only way I could honor the memory of my father.
I also vowed to do better than my father, because it was the only way I could make him proud.
Looking back, some would say that it may have been pure nerve that gave me the courage and ability to run Sterling Co. at a very young age. Some would say it may have even been the impulsiveness of my youth.
But earning the approval and respect of my father was one of my biggest motivations during the challenging times in my mid-20s.
No easy life
MY family and I did not have an easy life. Contrary to how people now perceive me, I was not born with a silver spoon. We were not poor but we were not rich.
When my father was still alive, we—my parents and I, along with my three other brothers—lived in a small apartment with no bathroom. We even had to go down several flights of stairs to my uncle’s warehouse just to use the bathroom.
Growing up, I’ve seen people who were rich. My classmates in college had Mercedes-Benzes with air-conditioning inside. They even had houses in Forbes Park, the kind that could easily pass for a castle compared to where I lived.
So, I said, one day I’m going to work hard and own a house and a car. I wanted to prove to my parents that I am worthy of their respect and approval.
Though my parents did not give me riches or luxuries that many of those I grew up with learned to take for granted, they gave me the best gift of all—a good education.
Entrep training
THEY also tried to mold me and my brothers into law-abiding citizens who had sympathy for the less fortunate. They kept us grounded and always mindful of where we came from.
My family taught me that the only way for me to achieve my dreams is through hard work and perseverance. I had to study and learn from my father as diligently as I could, and I did.
My father started my training as an entrepreneur when I was in high school. He taught me while bringing me along in his business travels all over the country and abroad. He taught me the value of money and quality products, as well as the art of negotiating. He taught me that there are risks that are worth taking, and that risk had its own rewards.
But my father was not content in giving me lessons from his business playbook, so to speak. He wanted to challenge me and test my business acumen.
Sell at a high price
One important challenge was in pricing products. Conventional knowledge taught businessmen to sell wares at a low price, and sell more. While my father believed in this, he challenged me to do the exact opposite—sell at a high price—but still sell more.
I was able to test-run my response to this challenge, when I decided to gamble on my college education. At that time, my father encouraged me to take up Economics, Marketing or Management, so that I can efficiently run Sterling Co. But I knew I needed a greater challenge.
I decided to take up Engineering, one of the most difficult courses at the University of the Philippines (UP). When I eventually earned my degree, I realized the folly of my gamble—Engineering didn’t teach you anything about reading balance sheets.
To make up for lost time, I had to go back to the drawing board and enroll in business courses at the Ateneo de Manila University. Many years later, I would supplement my business education by going to Harvard University and better my entrepreneurial skills.
My education is part of the hard work and perseverance that my father taught me. Unbeknown to me, his informal lessons when I was growing up was preparing me for a life of learning. It prepared me to accept that no one is too old or too successful to learn something new.
Life’s lessons
Learning for me is no longer just about business. Books taught me that. By reading books about successful businessmen, like Akio Morita of Sony; Konosuke Matsushita of Panasonic; Sam Walton of Walmart; Steve Jobs of Apple; and Jack Ma of Alibaba, I learned about their trials and tribulations. I learned about their business and what kind of executives they were. But most important, I learned about who they were as people, who had both weaknesses and strengths. These lessons have become invaluable to me.
The lessons I gained from my father—education—and all the books I read on other businessmen helped me accomplish tasks I would not have dreamt possible when I took over Sterling Co. in 1977.
Another source of strength I had at that time was my family—my siblings and my mother. One by one, my siblings finished their education and were able to join me in running Sterling Co.. Joseph, the second oldest, graduated from UP; Willy finished his studies at the University of Santo Tomas; and Gerry went to the University of California Los Angeles for his business courses.
Family support
My mother’s help was also invaluable not only to me and my siblings, but also to the business. Though she was widowed early at 46 years old, and the loss of my father really took a toll on her, her support for us and the business never wavered. She was there with us every step of the way, and we are always grateful.
When my father passed away, we told my mother, “Mom, please, just sit behind and give us your direction, and we will do what we can do in order to make this company grow—10 times, a hundred times bigger than father’s.”
We all worked hard. We had the same vision and shared the same passion. Yes, like most families, we had our misunderstandings, but we never allowed our differences to get the best of us. At the end of the day, we were family, and we had each other’s best interests at heart. Through my family’s help and support, I was able to keep Sterling Co. alive all these years.
Sterling notebooks
Our hard work paid off, and we were able to become the best paper products and stationery company in the country. But I knew that we could expand more if only we advertised.
Even before, when my father was around, I was already telling him, “Look, if we are going to be a consumer product, we really have to advertise. There’s no other way.”
After my father passed away, I allocated a big budget for advertising, a move that I think has really paid off. I think everybody who’s 50 years or younger will really know about Sterling notebooks now.
I think we were the first one to advertise notebooks during that time. I spent P2 million in 1977 advertising our notebooks. At that time, nobody dared to do advertising on trimedia. We did it in television, movie houses, print ads and radio just to advertise Sterling notebooks.
I worked hard toward my goal to be the best paper-product company. I’m happy to say, Sterling Paper can already be considered an icon among paper products. All of our product lines are good.
We did very well from those challenging days of the late 1970s and 1980s. But the changing times caught up with us. Technology has made our greeting cards, some stationery and photo albums, outdated. We decided to expand and innovate.
Expansion
WE branched out into packaging, and later on became the biggest paper-cups manufacturing in the Philippines. We have also taken up publishing.We do a lot more now compared to what we did when my father was alive.
But, just like my gamble on my college education, we decided to branch out and explore businesses outside of paper and paper products. We have already included call centers and subdivisions to our business portfolio.
But the change I have made to Sterling Co. that I am most proud of is selling hybrid rice.
Way back in 1997, I didn’t even know how much 1 kilo of rice is sold in the palengke. At that time, Vice President Joseph Estrada was my friend. He used to tell me he wanted to put agriculture as his top priority when he became the president of the country. He said we should learn from China.
“China is such a big country with a big population, yet, they can be self-sufficient in food,” he said.
Doña Maria
I did my research and found out that China’s rice self-sufficiency really came from one person, Prof. Yuan Long Ping. He is a national treasure of China, he was the one who introduced hybrid rice to the Chinese. He was able to produce rice hybrids with two or three times the normal yield.
So, I went to China and visited him. We struck a special bond of friendship, and he was so gracious to pass on his technology of hybrid rice to the Philippines. But the hybrid rice of China cannot be used in the Philippines, because they belong to a temperate region, and we belong to a tropical region. We had to develop our own hybrid rice locally.
It took me more than three years to develop a rice variety—from 1998 to 2000. I had this good technology, but I could not come up with a good hybrid variety. I could not stabilize the parental line for my rice variety. The seeds I gave to the farmers sometimes had high yield, sometimes had no yield at all. So it was dangerous to release the seeds during that time.
However, we met a tragic accident in 2000. We opened our department store in Olongapo, but when we headed back that night, we were hit by a container trailer head-on.
In that accident, I lost my mother, who was sitting on my left side, and my younger brother, Willy, who was sitting on my right side. The driver died the next day. I was seriously injured—I had five broken ribs and hemathorax. The blood vessels in my lungs busted. I even suffered from vertigo, lost my sense of balance. I thought I was going to die. But I survived the accident.
Two months after the passing of my mother, in the middle of the night, my lead scientist Prof. Zhang Zhaodong was sleeping, when his bed suddenly moved. He said he thought it was an earthquake.
But he was surprised when he opened his eyes. He saw my mother, Doña Maria, standing in front of him.
My scientists, who all came from China, were very attached to my mother. She used to take care of them when they were sick.
That morning, my mother informed Professor Zhang he should go out in the field early in the next morning to take a look at all the rice flowers.
Professor Zhang argued with my mother, saying that he had already inspected all the flowers, and none of them had stabilized. He considered the current batch a failure, and was ready to start over again.
But Professor Zhang said, when he woke up the second time, he rushed to the field. Walking along the pilapil, he heard a small voice. And he saw right there on lot No. 8, the flowers had stabilized.
Exactly two months from that tragic accident that took away my mother and brother, January 17, 2001, we came out with our first variety of hybrid rice, the SL-8H.
Rice may be a “political commodity” or the country’s food staple but to me, it is so much more. By selling hybrid rice, I am helping farmers nationwide uplift their lives. Perhaps, I see myself in them and their struggles. They need help and just like the the help I received from my family and my education, I want to extend the same help to them.
I have seen farmers in Japan drive an SUV or Land Cruiser. Recently, we are seeing Filipino farmers driving Monteros and Fortuners. But millions more need help and support. These developments encourage me that I am treading on the right path.
To encourage more farmers to continue planting hybrid rice and as a treat to poor families nationwide, I launched my own rice-bucket challenge using our Doña Maria Rice. I gave 5,000 buckets of rice to 5,000 poor families all over the country. Last year, I think, I personally gave 7,000 to 8,000 buckets of rice. I also challenged my top managers to do the same.
I even challenged MVP (Manny V. Pangilinan), who graciously accepted my challenge. He even asked other bossings to do the same. We have our dealers, farmers’ cooperative, who also gave out rice. So we reached almost 40,000 or 50,000 buckets of rice given all over.
I’m determined to do this every September of every year. I’d also like the legacy of this rice-bucket challenge to pass on to the next generation to make sure that even those poor people in the urban areas can savor our Doña Maria Rice.
Legacy
I want to be remembered as someone who was able to lift the standard of living of the farmers in the whole of Southeast Asia. I’m more determined now to make use of this hybrid-rice technology and give prosperity, not only to the farmers in the Philippines, but also to the farmers in other countries, such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam, even as far as Africa, Nigeria and Somalia.
Most of all, I want my legacy to be remembered through this poem I wrote:
One seed can calm a tribe and
stabilize a nation.
One seed can change one’s life.
One seed can determine one’s destiny.
One seed can lead to prosperity.
As narrated to Mary Grace Padin
Image credits: Nonie Reyes