Herminio Famatigan Jr. recalls being stranded on a deserted road in Mindoro many years ago. He was then in grade school, and the bus he was riding with his father had broken down. As they stood by the side of the dusty road waiting for the next bus—they had no idea when it would arrive—his father made an odd request.
“Tulaan mo naman sila [recite a poem for them],” he was told, gesturing toward the dozens of other passengers standing under the sun with their bags, bored and desperate for relief.
Famatigan was hesitant—he did not know those people. But he could not say no to his father, so he recited the first poem that came to his head. “I know it was in English, but I can’t remember it now. What I remember was the look on those people’s faces.”
The fellow passengers looked enthralled at his oratory, “even if they likely did not understand a word of what I recited,” he says. He glanced at his father, who was just beaming.
“He’s my hero,” Famatigan says of his father, a humble government employee who took the bus every day from Marikina to Arroceros, looking distinguished in neatly pressed, long-sleeved barong Tagalog. The man always carried a covered biscuit tub every day, however, much to the speculation of the neighbors. He didn’t like biscuits all that much. The truth was, the box contained kanin-baboy. To augment his meager income, the elder Famatigan gathered food leftovers from various offices near his workplace to feed the pigs he raised in his backyard.
With this he sent all five children to school.
They all did well. Famatigan, for instance, rose from the ranks in the banking industry after earning an economics degree from UP in 1980. He capped his banking career, first as CEO of a development bank which they had turned around, sold, and which became the savings unit of a universal bank. With this under his belt, he soon found himself CEO of the Philippine office of a regional bank.
For over three decades, as he rose through the corporate ladder, Famatigan learned precious leadership—life, really—lessons. “If I had a strength, that would be my self-awareness,” he says, so he chalks up experiences, failures and victories, and draws lessons from them.
Over the years his best learnings are the following: For one to succeed, one must have compelling vision. Engaging others is the best way to interact. The best argument should always win, even if it comes from the most junior fellow in the room.
Realizing the universality of these lessons, he became interested in sharing them with others.
He immensely enjoyed giving motivational talks to fellow bank employees, engaging them not as a lecturer would a listener, but conversing with them and drawing out insight from their own experiences.
“As a leader, I always knew that my goal was to minimize the obstacles to success of the people on my team.”
After more than 30 years in banking, Famatigan tried two more executive roles in other industries. Alas, he quit both of them after just a few months, “because I joined for the wrong reasons and because I did not feel I was making a difference anymore.”
It was then he finally decided to pursue what it was he truly wanted to do, something that was enriched by long years in management positions—talk.
Sure, his voice and diction make it easier for him to get people’s attention and listen to him. “It’s strange, because I am a product of the public school system, and we really did not speak English at home. And yet people always ask me if I went to an exclusive school or lived abroad.”
It’s also the way he engages people in conversation. He eschews the divide between speaker and listener. “As you get more senior, the need for people skills over technical skills becomes greater.”
Most importantly it is the core of what you say. “At the end of the day, I want to tell people that there is nothing that cannot be learned, and that your success will be determined by that fire in your belly, how hungry you are.”
Famatigan now prepares to give his first training on leadership and self-empowerment to his corporate clients—friends, really, who know of him and attest to his ability to get people to be more deliberate about their own journey just by sharing his.
Most people at his level would be thinking of retiring and winding down after putting in decades of hard work. Famatigan, at age 58, is just getting started—and nothing will stand in his way. “This is my One Thing now,” he says.
His father would have been even prouder.
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