In the fog of war against drug lords and bad oligarchs launched with savage fury by President Duterte as soon as he took office last June 30, one of the biggest victims has been businessman Roberto Velayo Ongpin, 79.
Among the 100 super oligarchs that have ruled politics and business in this country in the last 100 years, only Bobby Ongpin has been singled out by Duterte with the contempt and criminal intent that should be reserved only for the worst and most vicious criminal offenders of the land.
The irony is that Bobby, a good friend of 40 years, is not at all an oligarch, not an oligarch imbedded in government, and certainly not a businessman who did or has done damage to the country and the Filipino people. Ongpin made whatever money he has and built whatever businesses he runs today the old-fashioned way—through hard and honest work. Balzac’s dictum, “Behind every great wealth there is a great crime” can hardly be applied to him. Bobby is a genuine Filipino and a true patriot.
Bobby descended from Roman T. Ongpin (1847-1912) of the street that bears his name and statue in Binondo. Roman was a nationalist businessman and revolutionary who financed the Katipunan revolt against Spain and opposed American rule in the Philippines.
Bobby Ongpin and his late brother Jaime (Cory Aquino’s finance secretary) were born poor. They succeeded through dint of scholarship (they were educated by the Jesuits before going to Harvard), and hard work.
Bobby was the youngest and longest-serving chair and CEO of SGV which he built into the largest professional services organization west of the Mississippi. He served for seven years as trade and industry minister of Ferdinand Marcos during which time he helped stabilize the peso against the dollar, manage foreign reserves, control galloping inflation (running at 44 percent per year), and resurrect the economy during the worst economic crisis in the country after the 1983 Ninoy Aquino assassination. After People Power 1986 (which he actually helped trigger, but that is another story), Ongpin moved to Hong Kong and funneled badly needed foreign investments into the Philippines. Venerable and true patriots are words that should be associated with the Ongpin name, not “bad oligarch.”
Bobby Ongpin is not the typical ultra rich local oligarch, Chinese, Spanish or half breed, who accumulated wealth through drugs, through smuggling, through denying the average Filipino worker his due wage, through monopolistic or oligopolistic business practices whereby a premium public good is priced prohibitively, or a valued service is so badly rendered and retailed at a very high price at the expense of the hapless Filipino consumer and public.
How come, for instance, despite the vaunted talent and techno-savvy of the Filipino, the country has among the world’s slowest internet, among the highest telco rates, and among the highest electricity prices? Answer: Bad oligarchs and their capture of government regulators.
Why doesn’t Duterte talk to (I am not saying shame them) the owners of these telcos and energy companies and tell them point-blank—“lower your prices, improve your service or I will order you to report to Camp Crame!”?
How come, despite the financial wizardry of the Filipino, the fact that more than P2 trillion of private deposits are lying idle at the central bank, and the huge pool of savings in this country (the savings rate is P4.8 trillion or 30 percent of the P16 trillion GDP or economic output), the Philippines has among the highest lending rates in the region and among the worst anti-small business practices? Answer: Bad oligarchs and their capture of government regulators.
Did you know that only four banking oligarchs control 90 percent of the Philippine banking system? The local banking system used to be the largest in Southeast Asia. Now it is the smallest, thanks to oligarchic rule. Oligarchy also explains why more than 40 million Filipinos do not have a bank account. Each of the top-tier banks makes an average profit of P1 billion a MONTH—money that can employ 10,000 jobless Filipinos full time for A YEAR. Assuming a 12 percent tax rate (six times the average tax rate of an oligarch), each of the big banks can improve employment easily by 10,000 jobs every year by foregoing a tenth of their profits.
Why doesn’t Duterte talk to the banking oligarchs and tell them “lower your interest rates, give loans to businesses at zero interest or I will order you to report to Camp Crame!”?
Did you know that P3 trillion of private bank deposits are checking accounts for which the banks do not pay any interest to their depositors? If the banks were to lend 10 percent of that P3 trillion to SMEs, P300 billion in loans could go to small businesses—sari-sari stores, barber or tailor shops, small food and garment shops and other entrepreneurs who currently are at the mercy of loan sharks.
Using his phenomenal persuasive powers on the true oligarchs of this country, Duterte can achieve financial inclusion and poverty reduction faster than lightning. The Philippines is unique in Asia, and in fact, in the world, for being the only major country that failed to halve its poverty in the past 20 years (from 26 percent to 27 percent). Why? Rule by the oligarchs.
Comes now my idol Digong Duterte going hammer and tongs on Bobby Ongpin. Why? Because he has allegedly captured the online gambling business through the listed company Philweb, of which RVO owns 53 percent.
Duterte thinks online gambling is bad. But Philweb’s business is not online gambling. It is online gaming, which no one can access through one’s computer at home or in the office. One has to visit Philweb’s gaming shops to play and bet. It is no different from one visiting a casino to play at the baccarat table or manipulate the slot machine.
So if online gaming is bad, why doesn’t Duterte padlock state-owned Pagcor (the country’s biggest gambling operator) and close down the casinos, which happily are also owned, by who else, the oligarchs?
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