Panelo: Gokongwei’s corporate foresight will be missed

The Palace today expressed its deep condolences to the family, the surviving wife Elizabeth, children Lance, Robina, Lisa, Faith, Hope and Marcia, as well as the friends and colleagues of Mr. John Gokongwei, Jr. who passed away Saturday night at the age of 93.

Presidential spokesman Sec. Salvador Panelo said Gokongwei, was a visionary and pillar of the Philippine economy.

“Our people recognize Mr. Gokongwei’s amazing journey as a self-made industrialist, respected business leader, and generous philantropist. A grateful nation respects the man for the indelible legacy he made in the fields of business, entrepreneurship and philantropy, ” Panelo said in a statement.

“While being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the demise of his father when he was 15 removed the family from luxury and wealth. He had to work to provide for his family. He sold soaps, candles, and threads to earn money. From thence begun his journey of hard work, discipline, creativity, perseverance, accumulating vast business knowledge and acquiring entrepreneurial acumen in the process, until he built a giant of a business empire, ” he added.

The palace official said the cornstarch plant Gokongwei built in 1957 grew into various business enterprises that made him one of the leading pillars of the business industry.

The taipan then founded the Gokongwei Group of Companies covering a wide range of sectors from food manufacturing (Universal Robina Corporation) to real estate (Robinsons Land), air transportation (Cebu Pacific), retail (Robinsons Retail Holdings Incorporated), banking (Robinsons Bank), and petrochemicals (JG Petrochemicals), among others.

Together with his siblings, Mr. Gokongwei established the Gokongwei Brothers Foundation where he donated 20 billion pesos, considered the biggest philantropic endowment in Philippine history, to fund student scholarships and faculty research and build definitive learning facililities such as continuing schools for young engineers, preschool buildings and children libraries, Panelo noted.

“John Gokongwei, Jr., left a legacy to the Filipino nation and the coming generation worth emulating.”

“In a speech before his alma mater San Carlos University, he gave us a glimpse of the secret of his success and exemplary character: “I always tell my children, grandchildren, colleagues: ‘Love your work. Work hard for it. Love your family. Love your country. Never stop learning. And always look back and be grateful where you came from.”‘

The nation will miss the foresight and corporate expertise of Mr. Gokongwei who successfully chartered unfamiliar territories in business to successfully launch new ventures and create an empire that made substantial contributions to the country’s growth and development, Panelo said.

“Mr. Gokongwei was an exceptional and ideal Filipino. He exemplifies the traits that should endow us: industrious, disciplined, indefatigable, creative, generous, always hungry for knowledge, grateful and never forgetting his origins, and most of all, a loving person to his family and his country,” he said.