Panlilio in MAP, Ongpin in MBC

Two of the country’s most prestigious business clubs have announced the names of the persons who will assume top positions in the organizations in the new year.

One of them, Maya Bank chairman and PLDT Inc. director Al Panlilio, will replace KPMG R.G. Manabat & Co. vice chairman and CEO Emmanuel “Noel” Bonoan. The latter was elected incoming Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) president in November 2024.

A lawyer and certified public accountant, Bonoan was Finance undersecretary under then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Bonoan, who had been MAP vice chairman, has withdrawn from the post amid controversy regarding his personal life. That issue emerged only after his election as MAP head was announced.

Meanwhile, the influential Makati Business Club (MBC) whose members, like the MAP’s, are a veritable who’s who in Philippine business, has accepted the resignation of Roberto Batungbacal after 10 months as MBC executive director.

Formerly country manager for leading material science company, Dow, Batungbacal will be replaced by Rafael “Apa” Ongpin, nephew of the late businessman and former Minister of Trade and Industry under President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., and Roberto V. Ongpin.

Writer, print and media broadcast personality, and entrepreneur, Ongpin’s selection as executive director of one of the country’s most influential, high-profile business clubs strikes a deep chord within his family.

His father, Harvard-educated executive Jaime V. Ongpin, the first Filipino president of then one of the country’s leading gold mining companies, New York Stock Exchange-listed Benguet Corporation, was among the incorporators and members of the Board of Advisers of the MBC along with then Citibank country manager James Collins; PCI Bank president Antonio Ozaeta; SGV & Co. group chairman Washington Sycip; then Ayala Corp. chairman Jaime Zobel de Ayala; and then Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. chairman and CEO Cesar Buenaventura when Enrique Zobel (EZ to those close to him) founded the club in 1981.

Buenaventura, who was the MBC Board of Advisers’ first chairman, recalled that EZ, Ayala Corp.’s first chief executive officer, gathered a few business friends and associates to air his deep concerns about how large sectors of the economy were being controlled by a few Marcos cronies.

EZ felt that the financial sector was headed for disaster with government-owned financial institutions granting behest loans beyond prudent practice to a chosen few.

“It simply was not enough to sit back and complain; we felt that to be relevant, we should be constructive in our criticism,” said Buenaventura, and thus was born the MBC, which was originally intended as a Forum for Constructive Ideas. However, it was decided that the club would address public policy issues beyond business.

An executive board was set up with EZ as chair, and a Board of Advisers was formed. The core group then invited the top 1,000 corporations to join the club and, said Buenaventura, “to our surprise, many of them, including multinationals, responded favorably.”

The business community had found its voice, which grew louder especially when the economy plummeted following the assassination of staunch Marcos critic, former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.

Among the strongest of voices from the business community was Jaime Ongpin’s. Because of his stature as head of a major NYSE-listed company, he attracted the attention of the foreign press who dubbed him “the leader of the business opposition to Marcos.”

No matter that his brother was in the Marcos Cabinet, Ongpin was the first to speak out against Marcos’s crony capitalism, inspiring many others to follow suit. The MBC contributed to the eventual downfall of the Marcos regime. Corazon Aquino became president and Ongpin was appointed Secretary of Finance, a position he held until his untimely passing on December 1987.

And now, over 43 years after its founding, an Ongpin returns to the MBC.

Apa Ongpin went to Phillips Exeter Academy in the US for high school, graduated with a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies and Communications at the Ateneo, and earned an MBA at top business school, INSEAD.

He had been a broadcast journalist with ABS-CBN, executive editor of Asian Dragon magazine, a member of the board of trustees of the Beacon School, president of Quicksilver Satcom Ventures, senior consultant for Gatessoft Corporation, and has held executive positions at Alphaland and PhilWeb.

In accepting the position, Ongpin said it was an honor to be working with the titans of industry who comprise the MBC Board of Trustees. But, he said, “The biggest footsteps I will have to follow are my father’s. He was a co-founder of this organization 43 years ago, and I believe he somehow guided me to this opportunity. I hope to make him proud of me.”