(Following is a critique of the ‘2011 Enterpreneur of the Year’ awards featured by VERA Files/Yahoo last Oct. 17)
By GIL ROY GORRE
I chanced upon a telecast of another beauty contest recently, and stayed on knowing that this one was not likely to get the sustained public and media attention that Shamcey Supsup got. Erramon Aboitiz, president and CEO of Aboitiz Power Corp., was named “Entrepreneur of the Year” for 2011, topped off with the “Master Entrepreneur Award.” He will represent the Philippines in the “World Entrepreneur of the Year Awards” in Monaco in 2012. One wonders if the United States will send Warren Buffet or whether Carlos Slim will don the colors of Mexico.
This is no knock on Erramon Aboitiz. He’s probably an excellent conglomerate overlord. It’s not his fault that by the time he was born his family had a business infrastructure that dominated large swaths of economic activity throughout the Visayas and Mindanao going back three generations. It is in fact to some credit of Aboitiz that his body language onstage during awards night betrayed some unease, as if conveying that Erramon Aboitiz and the Entrepreneur of the Year award are not comfortable with each other. One can just imagine the ribbing from fellow Basque progeny Jaime Zobel de Ayala, “Atta boy, Montxu, you won over that siopao franchisor and the tocino maker – way to go!”
The optics of the whole affair were a tad too unseemly to shrug off. The award to Aboitiz highlights his stewardship of the firm’s entry into power generation. Intriguing juxtaposition coming on the heels of news reports that the Philippines has the highest power rates in Asia, followed by another saying ours is the fifth costliest in the world. A Chamber of Commerce or Makati Business Club award perhaps would have been a better fit, then maybe a price rally on Aboitiz shares of stock, rather than taking the measure of entrepreneurship wattage beside small-scale franchise and light industry start-ups.
Then there’s the award to a Tantoco scion, who said he drew inspiration from Bienvenido Tantoco, Sr. The young namesake is said to have turned around the fortunes of the family’s supermarket chain. He might have pulled himself up by his bootstraps, but they were likely Armani boots. And however arduous his travails were on the road to financial recovery, it was cushy compared to those of the constantly overly-leveraged merchants all over our palengkes, the home-based garments and handicrafts subcontractors, department store consignor-suppliers and the like who are bereft of his pedigree and the cachet it brings.
This is not to say that size, or the lack of it, is the determinant of entrepreneurial achievement. But success has its qualifiers. Entrepreneurship, by word origin and common dictionary definition, emphasizes initiating and organizing, the stage at which the pursuit of profit is usually at its highest degree of risk. Thus there is a clear reference to one venturing into the untested or unknown with little or even nothing. Then, as in all tests of human endeavor, the degree of difficulty matters. A lot. Ali had to beat Liston. Pacquiao had to beat de la Hoya and then some. And Phil Jackson seldom figures in Coach of the Year talk; it mostly goes to the second- or third-placer mentoring eighth-place talent.
Against this yardstick, the program has a mixed bag of hits and misses over the eight years of its existence. The previous winners: Tony Tan Caktiong (Jollibee) who also won the World Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2004; Socorro Ramos (National Bookstore), Lance Gokongwei (Cebu Pacific), Senen Bacani (La Frutera Inc.), Wilfred Steven Uytengsu, Jr. (Alaska Milk), Amb. Jesus Tambunting (Planters Development Bank), and Tennyson Chen (Bounty Fresh Food Inc.).
Even for the strictly-business purists who tend to be squeamish about applying metrics beyond the profit-and-loss statement, there was something more fundamental at stake here, something essential to every businessperson: fair competition and an even playing field. How much farther could Prudencio Garcia have brought Mekeni Foods, or Francis Glenn Yu of SEAOIL, or Ronnel Rivera of Gensan Shipyard – to name a few of the “finalists” — had they access to a bit of the financial resources and organizational synergies available to any Aboitiz?
In this one the organizers lost sight of the entre in entrepreneurship. Once more they tagged people who were born on third base, and celebrated them for hitting a triple.
The cynic would be prone to tar the sponsor (Ernst and Young) like one would a cheap publication doing a cover spread on its biggest or prized prospective advertiser. It may not be this crass. But it is clear that as much as insight, values have been misplaced here, the token designation of a “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” notwithstanding. And what fitting irony that “Shine” was the theme for this year’s search, for the event continues to spotlight a microcosm of our economy, and indeed, Philippine society. It shows that those who need capital the most can avail of it the least; that the oligarchy may be less impenetrable, but it is firmly in place; and that with these and all, the inexhaustible resiliency of the Filipino still shines through.
(The writer was formerly editor-in-chief of Philippine American News and was Information Attache at the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles from 1989 to 1998. He is based in Cebu and Los Angeles, California doing some export business.)