Corporate history in a tapestry of a nation’s checkered story

“Firebringer”
By Raul Rodrigo
Eugenio Lopez Foundation, 2001



The engine of socio-economic growth, private industry, is hardly mentioned in a nation’s — or world — history. Our historians preoccupy themselves with political events and people that make them, if not political movements and leaders that drive them.

Review history books — and these are filled with the sounds of the drums of war, the voices in parliament, the screams of gunfire and of street parliamentarians, and the deadly cadence of soldiers on the march. History, in general, does not pay attention to industrial breakthroughs or corporate revolutions: these are left to corporate biographers and industry chroniclers — tidily apart from the “real” history of humankind.

On hindsight, however, you know that much of the advancement of the human community as we know it is due to the discoveries and innovations driven by industrialists — or inventors funded or employed by industries. General Electric gave us the incandescent lamp, Ford gave us the car assembly line, Kodak popularized the camera, Xerox triggered the paper revolution through copiers, etc.

Once you take a long considered look at the impact of these inventions, you know that they are more powerful than army tanks, mightier than foot soldiers, and more eloquent than the most stirring speeches in parliaments around the world. Corporate histories, in fact, become even more interesting, if they are interwoven into the larger epic of global or national life.

This is the case of “Firebringer” — subtitled “Forty Years of First Philippine Holdings” – an epic story of the Lopez Family’s role in the business and corporate world. Whether they wanted it or not, the Family’s corporate involvements, were intertwined into the tapestry of the Philippines’ socio-political history — marked by political turbulence, corporate upheavals, unceremonious exiles and dramatic comebacks.

It is rare enough that a corporate giant like the Lopez Group was, at times, embroiled in the political upheavals of the time, principal of which was the takeover of the Meralco Securities by a once powerful man in the Marcos regime. It is rarer that its top heirs and executives were taken prisoners, and then staged a dramatic escape — then lived to tell the story on television, print media — and in a blockbuster movie.

This is the narrative stuff of “Firebringer,” whose book jacket explains it as “another name for Prometheus, the Titan who brought fire down from heaven as boon to mankind.” It is actually a takeoff from a Greek myth where once man lived without fire — and thus was consigned to coping with darkness at night and surviving, yes, without cooked food by day — to say the least.

This book tells the story of First Philippine Holdings — with huge ventures in power generation and distribution, property development, electric utilities, agribusiness, manufacturing — and, yes, broadcast media. Firebringer is also the story of the patriarch of the Lopez family, Don Eugenio Lopez, who founded First Holding’s forerunner, the Meralco Securities Corporation (MSC), and his sons and heirs.

As corporate history would have it, MSC was actually the holding company formed in 1961 by Don Eugenio, who, as the book says, declared his faith that Filipinos could run a power company like the Meralco “at a time when most Filipinos didn’t think they had what it took to acquire and run a world-class company.” His son, Oscar Lopez says that it was his father’s “vision, audacity and competence” that completed the Filipinization of Meralco acquired from its American owners.

The book is both history and biography, proving a sage’s view that history is actually biography. Firebringer is history punctuated with riveting accounts of hostile takeovers, buyouts, mergers and acquisitions, ambitious financing packages, backroom negotiations, and grand projects with epic proportions. It also presents a cast of characters (young then) who initiated and forged agreements and who implemented ambitious projects like laying pipelines cutting across provinces and less than friendly communities.

Firebringer is also a story of many more “firebringers” — young men schooled in the leadership style of the Lopez patriarch — and who became leaders of this country or who now occupy the helm of top corporations in the country as “captains of industry.” Stories are told of how Don Eugenio recruited promising young men to work for the company when they were yet in their early 20s and who fulfilled their potential by rising to become CEOs of some of the country’s top 100.

Don Eugenio wrote years before taking over Meralco “that human values are superior to material values… that our success should be measured not by the wealth we can accumulate,” but by the amount of happiness we can spread to our employees.” Heartwarming accounts about the patriarch pepper the pages of this book — handing a check as bonus or a letter of promotion.

He also had a knack for people’s names. The book narrates that, when Filemon T. Berba, Jr., a very new employee at MSC, and other MSC executives were at the airport to meet Don Eugenio. “There was no reason he should remember me. But when he passed by me, he held out his hand and said: ‘O Berba, how are you?’” Jun Berba cannot forget that in his lifetime. He muses now: “If that doesn’t grab your loyalty, nothing will.” Berba, now with Ayala Corporation, is now dubbed the CEO’s CEO.

As bringer of fire, the Lopez Group has been positioned as one being a channel of man’s greatest blessings like “fire.” After all, fire represents the benefits of modern civilization like electricity, information via broadcasting, and telecommunications. More than these, it has gifted our country with corporate leaders who knew how to survive and thrive in times of peace and conflict, in eras of certainty and discontinuity.

The Will of a General, The Tact of a Diplomat

“The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell”
By Oren Harari
McGraw-Hill, 2002



The professions have their own stereotypes – fair or unfair. Doctors “act” like God over life and health of their patients. Lawyers “lie” for their clients. Generals motivate their men with tongue-lashing. Diplomats are a paragon of tact and, yes, diplomacy.

So when generals become Presidents and “chew” their men and cigar – or both – we forgive them for a hard-to-break habit. On the other hand, when ambassadors lose their cool, we don’t forgive them – because that’s “out of character.”

Is a “tactful general,” therefore, a contradiction in terms, a paradox?

Consider the world’s current interest -- one trained in soldiery, but who can shame the finest smooth-talking diplomat: Colin Powell, American Secretary of State.

What makes this charismatic African-American tick, one considered by two U.S. Presidents to be a “presidential timber”? Has he become a sensation simply because he is a blend of contradictory qualities?

The book, “The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell,” zeroes in on the qualities of this man who again took center stage right after the September 11 tragedy that “forever changed Americans’ view of themselves.” The author, Oren Harari, is quick to say that this is not a biography but a “battle-tested leadership book.”

True enough, we are introduced to the paradoxes of leadership, a phenomenon that continues to drive scholars to enumerate in tidy terms what a leader should be – especially in the 21st century. But human qualities cannot actually be placed in neat formulas.

That’s true – even truer – for Powell. With Jamaican parentage, schooled in America, and navigating the corridors of power, Powell is a living paradox. The book, with its three sections, calls Powell a “provocateur” in one breath, and then cites him for his “strategy and execution” than next. Of course, the juxtaposition is not contradictory; just intriguing.

Behind the cool façade, for example, is a gadfly. Powell does not retreat from ruffling other people’s feelings, if it’s unavoidable. “Colin Powell is perfectly prepared to make people angry, even really angry, in pursuit of organizational excellence,” Harari reveals.

Still on this startling subject, the book reveals more about Powell: “Making people mad was part of being a leader.” What! Powell continues: “As I had learned long ago … an individual’s hurt feelings run a distant second to the good of the service. Trying not to offend anyone … will set you on the road to mediocrity.” That explains Powell, the tough leader.

“Good leaders don’t evade or cover up anger; they lead it,” annotates the author. “Powell will tell you that when leaders press for new directions, new behaviors, and new performance expectations, peoples’ comfort zones will be invaded, and they’ll get angry. And that’s precisely what’s supposed to happen.”

As a leader you can be forceful but not blunt. The book tells of an anecdote when, looking out the window from an aircraft, Powell thought he noticed an unfamiliar terrain below. No, said the pilot, he knew exactly where they were.

Powell immediately challenged him. In polite and forceful language, he ordered the pilot to turn the plane around and get them out of there. As it turned out, the plane had been flying over enemy territory!

Powell was instrumental in building a global coalition to support the inexorable move of the U.S. to bomb Afghanistan. He pursued his strategy over the objections of the “hawks” in the White House. Surely, he turned on his charm and his used his diplomatic skills to the hilt.

It doesn’t mean, however, that he vacillates. The book has ample stories to paint a decisive no-nonsense leader of Powell. One story is Powell’s urgent call to the headman of Pakistan who was initially ambivalent about whether to back the U.S. or to be neutral. That was within 48 hours of the September 11 attack. Powell’s message was terse: “General, you have got to make a choice.”

He always wants to get to the bottom of things. He once told his people: “This particular emperor expects to be told when he is naked.” (A story was told that an Emperor had no clothes, but no one was brave enough to tell him – until a child came along – to reveal such “naked truth.”) On another occasion, Powell said: “Untidy truth is better than smooth lies that unravel in the end anyway.” Many executives can identify with Powell’s “must” that even “bad news” is welcome. He has no use for fiction.

A three-word statement captures the crucial role of a leader like Powell. He said once: “Command is lonely.”

The author, equally eloquent, says that leaders do go through their “midnight moment of loneliness – that long moment of self-doubt, second-guessing and deep anxiety that is reserved for leaders” on the brink of a crucial decision. Dear readers: You don’t have to be the Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary to able to be up close and personal with Colin Powell. This book is the next best thing – if not better.