RINCONADA NATIONAL TECHNICAL VOCATIONAL SCHOOL

Sto. Domingo, Iriga City

Top 10 Successful
Filipino
Entrepreneurs
2017
Submitted by:

Jonan Leonel B. Magistrado

7 – Saw

Submitted to:

Mrs. Sylvia S. Cambiado

Subject Teacher
 HENRY SY – SHOEMART

Shī ZhìChéng, (Henry’s Chinese name), was born on December 25, 1923, to an
impoverished family in Jinjiang, a town near Xiamen, China. The entire family left
China for good in 1936, so they could be with their family patriarch who was then a
proprietor of a thriving variety store in Manila. Henry remembers having to clear the
store’s counter, which served as his sleeping place, after helping his father run the
store for 12 hours. Unfortunately, World War II came and their family store was
burned down; but the war’s aftermath gave him the opportunity to earn income by
buying and selling post war goods including the shoes of some enterprising G.I. Joes.

The success of the shoe-peddling business later gave the young man from Jinjiang,
China, the idea of opening his own shoe store. This was how Henry Sy, Sr. came to be
the founder of the Philippine’s largest retailing company known as SM. The acronym
stands for Shoe Mart, the name of the small shoe store business he started in 1958 at
the “Avenida", which was Manila’s most popular commercial district during the post
war era.

Initially, however, the young businessman encountered difficulties in finding a local

shoe manufacturer who would cooperate with his ideas on the kind of shoes to sell. He
was quite determined and confident in pursuing his plans because they were mostly
based on his own research. He continuously learned from his customers, his
employees, and his suppliers and practically studied the growing needs of the
Philippine market. Henry never lost sight of his goals even as he succeeded with his
shoe store venture; he pursued a college degree in one of Manila’s top universities,
because education for Henry was a means to learn more ways on how to augment his
income. Today, after more than 50 years, the shoe store has evolved into becoming a
network of 44 large-scale shopping malls not only in the Philippines but throughout
Asia and lays claim to three of the world’s top ten shopping centers: the SM City-North
EDSA (ranked 3rd), the SM Mall of Asia (ranked 4th) and SM MegaMall (ranked 7th),
which are all located in the Philippines.

The malls have become typical destinations for family weekend recreation and leisure
regardless of social stature, since the stores are strategically scattered throughout the
country. Henry Sy, Sr. was listed by Forbes in its 2010 edition as the richest man in
the Philippines and was honored by the prestigious magazine in 2009 for being one of
the Filipino Heroes of Philanthropy.

Through the SM Foundation, solutions to social problems for health, education and
spiritual assistance have been extended to people in remote areas, by way of mobile
health and dental clinics, scholarship awards, and contributions for building public
schools, Catholic chapels and youth centers.
 TONY TAN CAKTIONG - JOLLIBEE

Tony Tan Caktiong was born on October 07, 1960 to a working-class family
from Fujian, China, who migrated to the Philippines during the post WWII era.
Tony’s father found work as a cook at a Buddhist temple in downtown Manila
and accordingly scrimped and saved so he could open his own Chinese
restaurant in order to provide for his family. His father’s hard work and
perseverance made it possible for Tony Tan Caktiong to earn a BS in Chemical
Engineering at the University of Sto. Tomas, the Philippine’s oldest university.

In 1975, Tony ventured into the food business by buying an ice cream parlor
franchise from the once famous Magnolia Ice Cream House. The parlor was
small and nondescript, which catered mostly to the well heeled shoppers of
Cubao. They were customers who could afford to buy cleverly concocted but
rather expensive cobblers, floats, milkshakes, banana splits, sundaes and
parfaits.

However, most of Tony’s regulars wished that the parlor had something else to
offer, other than ice-cream concoctions. Hence, the small nondescript store
started offering sandwiches, fries and fried chicken, which started to attract
the attention of other tired and hungry shoppers, movie-theater goers and
passers-by. The word fastfood was still unheard of at that time, but it was what
the small store had to offer at affordable prices.

Soon after, customers started filling the store beyond its capacity as they
patiently waited for their turn to be served. By 1978, Tony added six more ice
cream parlors around Metro Manila, but the ice cream treats were no longer
the attraction. Taking inspiration from America’s fast-rising McDonald’s food
chain, Tony and his family decided to transform the ice cream parlors into
fastfood outlets.

They strategized with their new venture by coming up with a unique name and
symbol. Since Tony personally felt happy by working busily as a bee to produce
honey, which in Tony’s case was money, he and his family decided to work on
the busy bee concept. Hence, they came up with the large red and yellow bee
with an effervescent smile on its face and called it "Jollibee".

The once nondescript ice cream kiosk became Jollibee Food Corporation and
braved the arrival of the McDonald’s fast food chain in the Philippines in 1981.
Jollibee came out unscathed as it became the first Philippine food chain to
break the one billion peso sales mark in 1989. The groundwork for global
expansion was laid out when it became the first food service company to be
listed in the Philippine Stock Exchange, for which capitalization funds started
pouring in.

The rest is history, as Jollibee now owns its former competitors in the local
fastfood chain business, Greenwich Pizza, Chowking (oriental dishes), Red
Ribbon and DeliFrance bakeshops and lately Mang Inasal (chicken specialty
house). Today, these fastfood chains are found in different parts of the world
along with Jollibee's globally recognized trade name.

Tony’s management and leadership style garnered the recognition not only of
the Philippine’s local award-giving bodies but also that of the “World
Entrepreneur Award in 2004, in Monte Carlo, Monaco" He is the first Filipino
entrepreneur to receive the prestigious award.

In return, Jollibee Foundation was established in 2005, to specifically address

the social responsibility of the company. The foundation provides assistance to
its employees and communities on a nationwide scale regarding matters of
education, housing, leadership and social developments, environmental
conservation and responses to disaster problems in times of calamitous events.
 CECILIO K. PEDRO (LAMOIYAN CORP.)

Cecilio K. Pedro is another Filipino businessman of Chinese descent but his

story is not the typical rags-to-riches tale but about turning adversity into
triumph. He earned his business management degree at the Ateneo de Manila
University, one of the more prestigious private schools in the Philippines.

He once headed Aluminum Container, Inc. which was the major supplier of the
collapsible aluminum toothpaste tubes that were formerly used by local
manufacturers of Colgate-Palmolive, Procter and Gamble and the Philippine
Refining Company (now Unilever). However, technological innovations and
the environmental concerns over aluminum materials prompted the
multinational companies to make use of the plastic-laminated toothpaste tubes
as an alternative. As a result, Cecilio’s aluminum factory closed shop in 1985,
but this didn’t stop him from exploring other ways to put his factory equipment
into good use.

Cecilio K Pedro decided to compete with the multinational giants by producing

locally made toothpastes and hit them where it would hurt the most --- the
selling price. He founded the Lamoiyan Corporation, which became the
manufacturer of the first locally produced toothpastes “Hapee" and “Kutitap"
(sparkle). They were sold in the Philippine market at 50 percent lower than the
selling price of the well known foreign brands.

Although Colgate countered by dropping the price of its toothpaste products 20

percent lower than their original price, Cecilio Pedro came up with another
innovation that gave him a further edge in the local market scene. He
developed multi-flavored toothpastes for children that came brightly packaged
in tubes and boxes adorned with “Sesame Street" characters. Today, the
market for the budget-friendly toothpaste brands has expanded to neighboring
countries like China, Vietnam and Indonesia.

However, the low-priced toothpaste was not the only strategy that took
Lamoiyan Corporation to the pinnacles of success. The company was lauded
for having the “Most Outstanding Program for Equal Employment Opportunity"
by providing work opportunities to the country’s hearing-impaired community
members.

Lamoiyan's employment program includes free housing for more than 30 deaf-
mute staff, while the company’s managers are required to learn sign-language
as a means of communicating with the hearing-impaired staff. Since the
founding of the Lamoiyan Corporation, about 180 deaf-mute students have
received a free college education through D.E.A.F. which stands for Deaf
Evangelistic Alliance Foundation, founded and chaired by Cecilio K. Pedro and
officially recognized by the Philippine government’s Department of Education
and Culture.

Cecilio K. Pedro was awarded with an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy in

Technological Management by the Technological University of the Philippines in
recognition of his corporate and social achievements. Dr. Pedro ingrained his
own belief through the company’s corporate motto: "Making the difference for
the Glory of God".
 ALFREDO YAO - ZEST-O CORPORATION

Alfredo Yao's story is yet another rags-to-riches tale of a self-made

businessman who rose from poverty through hard work and determination. He
had to face life’s hard realities at the age of 12 when his father died; his mother
tried to support Alfredo and five other siblings with her earnings as a sidewalk
vendor.Through the help of a relative, he was able to finish his elementary and
high school education. However, he was unable to complete his college
education at the Mapua Institute of Technology, which he attended while doing
odd jobs at a warehouse of a packaging company.

Through a cousin who was working with a printing press, Alfredo Yao learned
the ropes on printing cellophane wrappers for candies and biscuits and went
on to venture into operating a printing press business. The business thrived for
about 20 years until Alfredo Yao saw the potentials of the "doy packs", then the
latest European packaging technology. Initially, Alfredo's first intention was to
offer the “doy-pack" packaging to some local juice manufacturers, but since
there were no takers, he ventured into the juice manufacturing business
himself.

In 1980, Alfredo Yao started concocting fruit juices in his own kitchen and
launched the Zest-O orange drinks in the same year. It became an instant hit
as every mother saw the practicality of putting the light but tightly-
packed orange drinks in their kids’ lunch boxes. Kids loved it that their chilled
fruit drinks stayed cold and fresh till snack time.

Today, Zest-O drinks come in 12 variants and command 80% of the market for
fruit juices. It has expanded its business to China, Australia, New Zealand,
Korea, Singapore, the U.S. and Europe and has helped revitalize the fruit
growing industry in the provinces, particularly the Philippine’s native orange
variety called "dalandan". The doy packs are being recycled by local cottage
industries into handbags and are now being exported to other countries.

Aside from expanding the business by producing other ready-to-eat and ready-
to-cook food products, Zest-O Corporation now owns the former Asian Spirit
Airlines, which CEO Alfredo Yao aptly renamed as Zest Air.
SOCCORO C. RAMOS -National Bookstore

The matriarch of National Book Store, the Philippine’s largest chain of

bookstores, which retails not only all types of books, but also greeting cards,
office supplies and craft materials, was born as Socorro Cancio on September
23,1923 in Sta. Cruz, Laguna. Socorro’s mother brought her and her elders
siblings to Manila when she was ten years old. Her elder sisters helped
augment the family income by working in a candy and bubble gum factory. The
young girl, however, was able to get odd jobs during summer by peeling off the
paper of discarded cigarettes for recycling purposes, and she was paid five
centavos for every pack of cigarette given to her.

At the age of 18, her brother married one of the children of an established
bookstore owner in Manila; hence, she was able to land a job as a salesgirl in
one of its stalls. There Socorro met Jose, the son of the bookstore clan, who
was to become her husband. However, it was a relationship that her parents
forbade. Technically, Socorro’s brother and Jose were related as in-laws, which
made Socorro and Jose’s love affair seemingly improper. The young lass was
sent back to Laguna in order to cut short the affair, but the strong-willed
Socorro went back to Manila on her own and married Jose.

The young couple braved their parents’ anger, which eventually died down
when Socorro's first-borns were twins. Jose took over a branch of his family’s
bookstore, which he and Socorro renamed National Book Store. As if fate was
against them, World War II struck and the Japanese occupation prevented
them from selling most of their books, since they were often regarded as
questionable.

The war raged on and their bookstore was destroyed when Manila was declared
an “open city" to America’s bombing attacks in order to drive away Japan’s
Imperial Army. The post-war era saw the couple relocating their National Book
Store to “Avenida", which worked out well because business started picking up
in no time at all. Three years later, a storm tore off the roof of their
establishment, which left them with nothing but worthless goods to sell. The
couple didn’t give up but instead tried to rebuild from scratch once again. This
time they had a more definite goal. Every cent earned by the business was used
to pay for a nine-story building, where the first official National Book Store was
located.

Socorro Ramos’s hands-on approach in negotiating with local and foreign

publishers as well as suppliers gave the bookstore its low purchasing and low-
selling power. She became acquainted with writers, book lovers and other
personalities who could provide her with information about the changing times.
After several decades, National Book Store has become an institution with 108
branches dispersed throughout the country.

Through the company’s foundation, they have provided assistance to the

underserved sectors of different communities by way of a mobile library, which
brings books and school supplies for different socio-civic donation programs.
MARIANO QUE - MERCURY DRUGSTORE

Mariano Que initially worked as an employee of a drugstore during the prewar

era but like most typical successful entrepreneurs, Que found his opportunities
after the war and during the advent of the American occupation. The
destruction of the prewar establishments left everyone starting and rebuilding
from scratch, and those who had a wider perception of the people’s needs
seemed to had the greater advantage.

Mariano Que saw the demand for sulfa drugs, since most of the Philippine
pharmacies hardly had enough resources to go by. Using his prewar experience
as a drugstore employee, Mariano invested in 100 pesos worth of sulfathiazole
tablets and peddled them in single doses so they could be affordable to the
poverty-stricken sector. He rolled over his profits until he had enough money to
build a wooden pushcart. That way, he could peddle a wider assortment of
pharmaceutical products.

Other peddlers imitated his marketing and selling strategy, but Que made a
difference. He had a reputation for selling only quality and unexpired medical
products, and soon enough he had a steady clientele. By 1945, Mariano had
saved enough resources, which enabled him to set up his first store, aptly
called Mercury Drug. The Roman god Mercury carried the caduceus symbol,
which was largely associated with the medical profession.

Despite the store’s establishment, Mariano invested in motorized vehicles in

order to provide drug delivery services to his valued customers. He also
expanded his store hours to 17 hours a day, 7 days a week, since he
recognized that the need for medication may come unexpectedly. In 1952, the
stores were open 24/7, which made the drugstore become a valuable part of
the community.

In 1960, the Ayala Group of Companies offered Mariano Que a space to lease in
the shopping center that was about to be developed in the heart of Makati.
Thus, the second Mercury Drug opened, this time as a self-service pharmacy.
The rest is a history of more innovations and technological adoption of
computer-guided controls and biological refrigerators. These improvements
allowed the drugstore’s expansion into other life-saving medications. The newer
branches of today are superstores as they carry more than just medicines but
other consumer products from food to household to health and beauty items.

Mercury Drug created a reputation that every Filipino household could rely on;
and there was a store in nearly every town and city accross the country. Today,
there are about 700 Mercury stores, some of which are under franchise. All
these fulfilled Mariano Que's goal of making safe medication available and
accessible to every Filipino community. Today, Mariano's daughter, Vivian Que
Azcona, continues to uphold his company's visions and missions.

In return for their customers’ unwavering loyalty, Mercury Drug celebrates

their annual anniversaries by holding a free clinic to the indigent, for which the
appropriate medications for their illnesses are likewise given for free.
CORAZON D. ONG - CDO Foodsphere, Inc.

Corazon D. Ong is a dietitian by profession who used her knowledge to create

affordable processed meat products that could compete with the already well
known and established processed meat brands. Initially, it was only a hobby
where she could put to good use her creativity and skill in culinary arts. She
came up with corned beef, hotdogs, meatloaf, hamburger patties and ham, an
entity that she later sold as a home business.

She founded CDO Foodsphere in 1975; as the product’s reputation for

affordable quality became widespread, the demand for CDO products likewise
increased. The creative homemaker understood every mother’s need for quick
lunch fixes for their children but convenience should also come in affordable
packages. Corazon likewise understood the taste preferences of Filipino
children but her knowledge of ingredients and their nutritional values gave her
product the advantage.

Today, CDO Foodsphere is a highly-recognized supplier of meat toppings for

Yum! Restaurant International, a known operator of global Quick Service
Restaurants (QSR) , which includes Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell and Long John
Silver . Locally, CDO supplies the meat toppings to nine out of ten QSRs
operating in the Philippines. The clamor for CDO products stems from
numerous awards and recognitions that the processed meat products have
received, owing to their quality and excellence.
ENGINEER GREGORIO G. SANCHEZ, JR.
LACTOPAFI

Gregorio G. Sanchez, Jr. is a civil engineer by profession formerly engaged in

civil construction works. He served as a Provincial Board Member in Cebu City,
where one of his concerns was the malnutrition among the pigs being raised.
On his own, he went into research and performed experiments using only pots
and pans and a small tank as his equipment. His persistence finally led to the
development of a food supplement that would smother the bad bacteria in
livestock, which he called “LactoPAFI Probiotic Bacteria.

The success of the probiotic bacteria developed by Engineer Sanchez later on

gained global recognition as a superior bacterial strain for its ability to restore
good bacteria to the body. This gave the engineer greater confidence for
developing a health drink (LactoVitale) and personal care products like soaps,
shampoos and toothpastes with LactoPAFI as an important ingredient. As a
result, his LactoPAFI products are now being exported to Norway, France,
Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan and the U.S. The US FDA issued its
approval of the product in 2005 while locally garnering recognition for product
excellence from different award giving bodies.
ERNEST L. CU - SPI TECHNOLOGIES INC.

Ernest L. Cu transformed a simple data entry service company into becoming

one of the country’s largest outsourcing service providers. His company’s core
business sources are mostly contracts for generating projects, which involve
customer service relationships and IT services. The CRM services became quite
successful, which spurred the growth of telemarketing services.

The demand led to the establishment of the first call center in the Philippines
in 1999, which was initially called as “e Telecare International". The center is
largely focused on providing U.S.companies' outsourcing needs. The call center
company later changed its name to eTelecare Global Soltions in 2004.

Cu’s company greatly values the services of the human resources behind his
company; hence he acknowledges that his most immediate social responsibility
is to provide a lucrative source of livelihood to its more than 6,000 employees
and their respective families.
 DIOSDADO BANATAO
COMPUTER CHIPS

Diosdado Banatao was born to a rice farmer in an upland faming barrio in

Cagayan Valley and to a plain housewife; hence, one would have hardly
envisioned him as a Filipino version of Bill Gates,. As a child, he used to walk
barefoot just so he could acquire an elementary and high school education.
Determined to pursue a college education, he went to Manila, took up electrical
engineering and eventually graduated cum laude.

Due to his excellent academic performance, he was able to land a job as a pilot
trainee of Philippine Airlines. This paved the way for a job offer as a design
engineer coming from Boeing Co., which brought him to the U.S. Thereafter, he
pursued and completed a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science at Stanford University.

It was while working with some of the leading-edge technology companies that
Diosdado Banatao had the opportunity to design the first single-chip 16-bit
microprocessor-based calculator. In 1981, the inventor Ethernet was looking
for a more efficient method of linking computers and Diosdado was assigned by
Seeq Technology to do the task. This was how Diosdado Banatao came to
develop the single-chip controller that provided the data-link control and the
transreceiver in the first 10-Mbit Ethernet CMOS.

Diosdado saw the opportunity of setting-up his own company by designing chip
sets; in no time, he was able to raise $500,000 as seed capital to put up
Monstroni 1985. His company’s determination paid off after they successfully
developed the first system logic chip set that lowered the cost of building
personal computers that were more powerful. He then went on to build another
company called Chips and Technologies, which created another chips set for
enhancing the so-called graphic adapter.

In less than a year, Diosdado’s company realized sales of $12 million in the
first quarter alone, thus creating a tremendous response from investors when
the company went public. In 1996, Diosdado sold the Chips and Technologies
Co. to Intel for $430 million.

Diosdao Banatao went on to invest, oversee and sell companies by assuming

the role of master investor and master capitalist. In all these successes,
Diosdado never forgot his roots and Filipino heritage. His “Banatao Filipino
American Fund" provides assistance to Northern California students who are of
Filipino heritage, to help them build a future by pursuing a college degree in
engineering. The elementary school he attended in Cagayan Valley is the only
public school in the region with the most modern computer system.