Dr. Cecilio Pedro, founding president and chief executive of the Lamoiyan Corp., has an uncanny knack for turning adversities into opportunities.
Being a devout Catholic, he credits his success to the Divine Providence. “Fighting multinationals was very tough. At first, everyone thought I was crazy. They told me, how would I survive this? True enough, it’s by the grace of God that I’m still here in the toothpaste industry after 20 years. God is good,” he says.
Sometimes, things are not what they seem. His full name may appear all too Filipino, but he is of Chinese descent, and his middle is Kwok.
Born in 1953, he took up Business Management at the Ateneo de Manila. As a young boy, Pedro sold pens to his schoolmates, an early manifestation of his flair for business.
He owned Aluminum Container Inc., a major supplier of the collapsible aluminum toothpaste tubes once used by local manufacturers of Colgate-Palmolive, Procter and Gamble and the Philippine Refining Company (now Unilever).
Pedro put up Aluminum Container with P20,000 he borrowed from his father. However, aluminum as a raw material ran into serious environmental issues, forcing the multinational companies to use plastic laminated toothpaste tubes instead.
The transition put Pedro’s aluminum firm to the ground, and he closed it in 1985. But not for good because he eventually used the old plant as the base for Lamoiyan which gave birth to his own brands of toothpaste named “Hapee” and “Kutitap.” Lamoiyan, by the way, is the Cantonese name of his grandmother.
Not a few people thought Pedro had gone nuts for going against the big boys in the toothpaste industry. What they didn’t know was that Pedro was born a fighter, thus, the toothpaste war erupted.
Pedro knew it was a David against Goliath contest, but he devised a strategy that would hit the enemies where it hurts most—he brought down his prices at 50 percent less than the big competitors.
Lamoiyan also developed different fruity flavors of Hapee with an eye on the children as major consumers. It also put the toothpaste in smaller packs and sachets to meet the demands of various markets.
The firm commissioned then rising star Lea Salonga as its first celebrity endorser to drum up mass popularity. In time, Hapee captured 15 percent of the domestic market.
Lamoiyan also went into diverse products like dishwashing pastes and fabric detergents.
Meanwhile, the owner pursued his other interest—philanthropy. Having a soft heart for the less fortunate, Pedro hired hearing-impaired people and enjoined his employees to learn how to communicate with the deaf.
He also founded the Deaf Evangelistic Alliance Foundation (DEAF) which provided scholarship to the deaf community and introduced them to Christianity, standing by the company’s motto, “To make a difference for the glory of God.”
Pedro’s endeavors did not go unnoticed. In the ‘90s, Lamoiyan and Pedro mustered a number of awards, among them the Most Outstanding Toothpaste Manufacturer (1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997 and 2002), Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) for Business Leadership (1991), Company of the Year by Agora Awards (1992), Apolinario Mabini Award for Employer of the Year (1993), and Most Outstanding Program for Equal Employment (1993).
In 2004, the company expanded its operations to cover China, Vietnam and Indonesia. In 2012, Hapee toothpaste was exported to the Middle East, Papua New Guinea, Russia and Hong Kong.
