St. Thomas More has been celebrated as “A Man for All Seasons.”  I have a friend and business colleague who just passed away at the ripe old age of 96 who should be given the honorific title of the “Man for the Common Good.”  His name was Cesar A. Buenaventura (CAB). Cesar should be considered as a role model of a Filipino who used all his talents as an engineer, top business executive and public servant to work unselfishly for the common good of Philippine society.  I want to hold him up as an example of a civic-minded Filipino who spared no effort to promote what he considered was for the common good of all Filipinos first of all in his capacity as the first Filipino CEO and chair of the Shell Group in the Philippines.  This is where I worked with him at close range when I joined the Board of the Pilipinas Shell Foundation in 1982 and served as an Independent Board Member for more than a decade.

              The Pilipinas Shell Foundation was the brain child of Cesar who understood clearly how the common good is defined as a social order which enables every member of society to attain his or her integral human development, a definition that was enshrined in the Philippine Constitution four years later.   Although Cesar was not formally a member of the Constitutional Commission that was convened by then President Cory Aquino, he was a close advisor of a good number of us members of the Commission.  He was in the inner circle of the advisors of President Cory, together with Jimmy Ongpin and Jess Estanislao, among others.

              Since its foundation in 1982, Pilipinas Shell Foundation has touched more than 15 million lives through its diverse programs that respond not only to the needs of Shell’s worksites and host communities, but to the rest of the country, especially in the most impoverished regions.  Guided by its vision, PSFI aims to build the capacities of the most vulnerable sectors of society by closely working with its partners, stakeholders and the Shell companies in contributing to the country’s sustainable development.  At all times, the organization upholds the Shell core values of honesty, integrity and respect for people.

              Among the many CEOs I have known as a business consultant, Cesar stood out as having the clearest understanding of the most important service that both business and civil society can render to the poorest of the poor in the Philippines (about 16 per cent of the population of about 115 million).  This vision of his is found in a column of Manuel L. Quezon III who quoted from his memoirs: “We need to do two things (for our youth).  These are nutrition and education.   Both, in turn, seriously hinder the ability of a child to learn, which becomes a permanent liability in life.  The statistics are alarming and constitute a national emergency.  For children fortunate enough to avoid stunting and wasting, there remains the next challenge, receiving a good, relevant education.  Instead of surrendering to despair, many institutions and individuals are rising to the challenge and working to reverse these trends.  The challenge before us is to scale up these efforts in a massive way before it’s too late…”

              These twin ideas of Cesar have done much to mobilize the private sectors and some government agencies to put up food banks and feeding clinics to address the undernourishment and malnourishment of Filipino children, especially among the poor households.  There are an increasing number of efforts to channel soon-to-expire food among food manufacturers and surplus food among restaurants to orphanages, public schools and other institutions promoting the welfare of children.  Indeed, I myself with other friends of Cesar, put up in 2017 the Philippine Food Bank Foundation that is preventing the stunting of tens of thousands of children, especially those in orphanages and in the public schools and parishes with feeding programs catering to children. It was also Cesar’s insights into the type and quality of education that has to be given to the youth that inspired both business and academe to provide Enterprise-based learning to students interested in acquiring relevant technical skills instead of academic degrees that do not correspond with the real demand of the labor market.

              I also worked closely with Cesar when back in 1981, a group of executives and economists started to silently protest against the then prevailing crony capitalism being practiced by the  authoritarian government of the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.  Again from his memoirs:  “Back in 1985, Jimmy Ongpin zeroed in on what we collectively believed we represented:  the ability to  rise base on competence.  This is the Filipino dream.  A nation that not only believes in but also upholds merit is a notion capable of confronting any problem because it will find a right solution… On the other hand, when an entire people starts feeling that you can only go so far, because the top places are reserved for a few, on the basis of mere inheritance, sheer brute force, or corrupt bargains, then you have a society in danger of self-destruction…”

              This was a silent protest against martial law by people in business led, among others by  the late Jimmy Ongpin, then CEO of Benguet Corporation.  It was Jimmy who coined the phrase “Crony Capitalism.”  This silent protest evolved into the establishment of the Makati Business Club whose incorporators included Cesar Buenaventura.  The MBC was founded by a group of business people who, instead of protecting their legitimate vested interests as trade and industry chambers do, actively work for the common good even if the causes or policy measures proposed go against their self-interest.  This what the Makati Business Club continues to do (now with the son of Jimmy Ongpin, Rafael, as Executive Director).  What is more, the MBC has inspired business people in other regions to do likewise:  organize business clubs transcending the individual vested interests of their respective members, like the Iloilo Business Club and the Baguio Business Club.

              For the record, members of the Makati Business Club like Cesar, Jimmy Ongpin, Jess Estanislao and the late business journalist and economist Jose Romero Jr. silently introduced the late Corazon C. Aquino to the media and world leaders that paved the way for her eventually running for President and actually leading the Philippines as President of the Republic from 1986 to 1992.  I was a witness to this whole process that led to the EDSA People Power revolution because I was busy giving economic briefings to various sectors of Philippine society, i.e. the military led by the likes of Colonel Honasan, the church led by Cardinal Jaime Sin and a host of business chambers of individual corporations.  I painted the economic scene as objectively as I could:  despite my usual optimism, there was no other way I could describe the Philippine economy but as one that was bankrupted by the corruption and business incompetence of the cronies.

              Just one last word about Cesar:  he had the advantage of being an engineer by training.  He earned his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from U.P. and his master’s degree in civil engineering, major in structures, from Leehigh University in Pennsylvania in 1954 as a Fulbright Scholar.  This gave him the ability to go against the grain in the typical Philippine organization in which many leaders have non-technical backgrounds which make it difficult for them not to be influenced by the unfortunate flaw of Filipino culture, the “pwede na” syndrome.  In my business dealings with him, he always insisted in perfection in little things.  He had eye for the smallest details.  He was a perfectionist, which unfortunately is not common among many business leaders who often settle for the mediocre.  May there be more men and women working for the common good among our business leaders and may we overcome that flaw in our culture that tolerates less than perfect work, especially in the smallest details.  For comments, my email address is bernardo.villegas@uap.asia.