The following is the address of Aurelio "Gigi" Montinola III, president of the Management Association of the Philippines, delivered at the organization's inaugural meeting via Zoom on Jan. 12, 2021.
Present at the online event were guest speaker and inducting officer Secretary Carlos Dominguez, guests from government, the diplomatic community, the academe and media; leaders of Philippine business groups and joint foreign chambers; “MAP Management Man of the Year” awardees; MAP past presidents; outgoing MAP President Francis Lim and other MAP members.
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I am honored by the trust of the MAP membership, appreciative of your vote of confidence, and inspired by your continued commitment to MAP’s mission of promoting management excellence for nation-building.
I wish to thank Atty. Francis Lim and his 2020 Board of Governors for an excellent job in a pandemic year. Let us all give Francis another warm round of applause, please.
With the support of MAP’s membership, we in the 2021 MAP Board of Governors commit to do our best to pursue MAP’s Mission, reinforce MAP’s main Goals, and build on MAP’s previous Accomplishments.
Looking back at 2020
First, a look back at 2020.
2020 was unexpectedly a year of severe and multiple crises.
We had and have a health crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world and the Philippines like a giant sledgehammer. Global statistics show over 20 million COVID-19 cases, over 350,000 deaths everywhere, comparisons with the 1918 Spanish Flu, and fears of a deadlier second wave.
By end-December, the Philippines' Department of Health indicators showed that 439,796 cases, a 92.77% recovery rate, a 5.28% active rate (25,024 cases), and a 1.95% death rate (9,244 deaths).
Sadly, an ASEAN Post's graph shows the Philippines as second-worst in Asia, with the dubious distinction of the longest lockdown in the world.
Who would have thought that “Staying Alive” would be the best option in 2020?
We had and have an economic crisis.
Global Source Partners report a 10% drop in GDP in the first three quarters of 2020, and Oxford and Haver point to our worst recession ever.
ASEAN analysts' GDP growth expectations for the Philippines went from one of the highest at the start of the year to the lowest in ASEAN by end year.
Worse, The Economist, in its December 15 issue, opined that the Philippine economy will be “the most vulnerable to COVID-19’s long term effects from 2019 to 2025.”
Fortunately, thanks to the able stewardship of Secretary Sonny Dominguez and Bangko Sentral Governor Ben Diokno, we remain financially strong as a country. In fact, Fitch Ratings reaffirmed yesterday the Philippines’ BBB Investment Grade rating with a stable outlook.
Who would have thought that EBITDAC (Earnings before Interest, Depreciation and Coronavirus) would become an appropriate accounting measurement in 2020?
We had and have an environmental crisis.
Cries for climate change have been upgraded to climate crisis and even climate emergency, as we enter a critical decade to reverse carbon emission deterioration or face an unlivable planet. Unfortunately, the Philippines is ranked third worldwide in disaster vulnerability, and the yearend floods of typhoons Rolly and Ulysses were living testaments of the effects of climate change on our country. Appropriately, the MAP selected Federico “Piki” Lopez as its Management Man of the Year 2020 for his role as a clean energy champion.
We had and have an education crisis.
We are facing a learning crisis that threatens the growth trajectory of the nation. pre-pandemic, our students were already falling behind in reading, math, science, and 21st-century skills. Three outside international assessors ranked us last (PISA 2018, 78 economies, and TIMMSS 2019, 64 economies) or bottom half (SEA-PLM 2019, 6 participating ASEAN countries). What more in pandemic 2020, when schools were downgraded to remote learning, unequal WIFI and 2.7 million unenrolled students?
We had and have a social justice crisis.
The Social Weather Stations (SWS) reported that in a nationwide poll conducted from November 21 to 25, 48%, or 12 million families rated themselves as “poor,” and another 36% “borderline poor.”
Unfortunately, inequality reigns, as the poor and the small businessmen have been hit hardest by the health, economic, environmental, education and social justice crises described earlier.
Looking forward to 2021
Fortunately, our silver lining is that we have a strong and smoothly functioning Management Association of the Philippines Board, committee chairmen and 1,000+ members.
MAP’s 2020 board led by the dynamic and articulate Atty. Francis Lim had a superlative output-driven year: more activities, more members, more fund raising, more national issue statements, and more influence in the business and national community.
Your 2021 Board’s Mission and Vision is to take this to the next level with a main theme of “The Great Reset: Leading for the Common Good.”
Considering with the five crises mentioned earlier our main thrusts will be to:
- Safely reopen the economy,
- ESG (environmental, social justice, and governance), and
- Member benefits via best practice sharing.
We have organized ourselves with 9 capable and dedicated governors handling 26 Committees clustered into three main groups:
- Safely reopen the economy with 11 committees
- Shared prosperity and ESG with 3 committees
- Internal/member benefits with 12 committees.
Our committee chairs are a carefully chosen mix of some experienced, some fresh thinking chairpersons who will lead for the common good.
Before proceeding, please allow me to introduce the current 2021 Board that you Members have elected to head the MAP in 2021:
- Atty. Noel Bonoan – vice president – vice chair/COO of KPMG RG Manabat & Co, and a former Department of Finance (DPF) undersecretary
- Mrs. Marivic Españo – treasurer – chair/CEP of P&A grant thornton and 2020 PICPA Awardee
- Mr. Romy Bernardo – asst. treasurer – managing director of Lazaro Bernardo Tiu and Associates, and former DOF undersecretary
- Ms. Maan Hontiveros – secretary – managing director of CEO Advisors Inc, and founding president and former CEO of Philippines Air Asia
- Atty. Danicon Concepcion – governor – president of University of the Philippines, and former assemblyman and congressman
- Mr. Fred Pascual – governor – lead independent director of SMIC, and former UP president
- Mr. Babes Singson – governor – president/CEO of Meralco Powergen Corp., and former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) secretary
- Mr. Wilson Tan - governor – chair/country managing partner of SGV & Co, and 2009 PICPA awardee
- Mr. Gigi Montinola – president – chair of Far Eastern University and former president of the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP)
As you can see, you have elected a proven representative set of the competence and track record of MAP members in general, and we governors hope that we will be able to live up to your expectations.
2021 activities will revolve around
- 12 monthly General Membership Meetings and Three Major Conferences on Diversity, Annual CEO, and Next Generation themes
- As needed, national issue statements, coordinated with former Presidents Francis Lim and Riza Mantaring, and where appropriate, co-signed with other business associations.
- Committee-initiated education webinars to share best practices
- Membership and fellowship events to encourage networking and camaraderie
We would like to start on time and keep all activities at two hours maximum.
We foresee a first semester of mostly Zoom meetings, but we hope to return to limited face-to-face events, particularly for the major conferences in the second half of the year.
As always, our indefatigable Executive Director Arnold Salvador and his hardworking MAP Secretariat will be managing the logistics and communication for MAP events.
Initial 2021 MAP policy directions
As we are eager to hear our guest speaker and inducting officer, allow me to close with a few initial thoughts on some policy prescriptions that we will push.
Health is wealth, and we thank Secretary Dominguez and the government for significantly funding vaccinations for our front-liners and the less fortunate.
To help our members safely reopen their businesses and the economy, MAP itself will focus on how best to secure vaccines for its (smaller) member companies who are not included in the current government priority lists.
We will also advocate public transportation that provides mobility that is essential for the economy and society to function properly and be productive.
For the economy, our main immediate goal is to push for the passage of the CREATE Bill which will reduce corporate income taxes to 20% for smaller businesses, establish 10-year sunset periods for specific incentive industries, and provide a much-needed P250 billion stimulus to safely reopen the economy.
MAP is joining at least 30 business organizations in signing within this week the joint statement of support for CREATE and the joint letters to House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco and Senate President Vicente Sotto urging them to act quickly on the enactment of CREATE.
For the medium term, we will push certain policy recommendations of a MAP-UA&P (University of Asia and the Pacific) study commissioned in 2020. In particular, we wish to promote ease of doing business government digitization efforts and improved public information communications and technology (ICT) connectivity.
For the environment, we will work toward an appropriate policy prescription. MAP supports the development of a natural capital accounting bill to measure physical units of terrestrial and marine resources of the country, as well as three environmental projects in Occidental Mindoro, Laguna and Batangas.
We shall also balance these with data-based analysis of our energy security and water security situation.
For education, we will collaborate with PBED (Philippine Business for Education Development) to highlight the learning crisis that the Philippines is in today, particularly at a time of unequal access among our learners, and the lack of a clear plan to bring our students back to school safely. If not urgently addressed, we may end with a South African university message that closes with the sobering words, “The collapse of education is the collapse of a nation.”
But most of all, we should push out of our comfort zone and pay equal attention to social justice issues, and to lead for the common good.
We need jobs—wholesale and retail trade, agriculture and fisheries, and construction make up 50% of total jobs, and we have to reopen and revive these sectors to alleviate poverty.
We need food—particularly for the 48% self-perceived poor families, either through public sector Bayanihan Act stimulus programs for the poor or private sector revival of business, economic, and payroll activities.
We need values formation—to work on changing attitudes and behaviors of filipino youth and the common man on the street, in order to achieve a meaningful and sustainable change in society.
Conclusion
In closing, I would like to appeal to the 1,000+ strong MAP membership to support your board, and to share member best practices to help each other and our national community.
We are a vibrant, purposeful and well-meaning national private sector association, and together, we can make a significant impact on the health, economic, environmental, education, and social justice front. We are also a constructive partner of government, and a helpful supporter of value-adding non-governmental organization causes.
Gloomy forecasts pave the way ahead, but let’s prove our critics wrong, and bet on ourselves, the MAP and the country!
Let’s embrace our MAP 2021 Theme of “The Great Reset: Leading for the Common Good.”
We need your collective wisdom and proven execution skills to help us to safely reopen the economy, to push ESG (environmental, social justice and governance) initiatives, and to generate member benefits through best practice sharing.
Mabuhay ang Bayanihan MAP! Many thanks, and good luck to all of us in 2021!