Business lessons from 'Rosario' & 'Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last Na 'To)'

With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.

—Chinese proverb

Congratulations to two movies that won the still-ongoing 2010 Metro Manila Film Festival’s Best Picture Award and Second Best Picture Award: Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last Na ’To) starring “Comedy Queen” Ai Ai de las Alas and Rosario starring Jennylyn Mercado, based on the true story of business tycoon Manuel “Manny” V. Pangilinan’s maternal grandmother and directed by actor Albert Martinez. Congratulations also to Kris Aquino for her Dalaw film’s strong No. 3 performance at the box office, and the No. 1 box office success of the film by Senator Bong Revilla and Vic Sotto.

After watching Rosario and Ang Tanging Ina Mo at the Podium and TriNoma malls, respectively, here are some business lessons I suggest we learn from them:

• Give ex-presidents, incumbent government officials and even National Artists decent pensions. Look at former Philippine “President” Ina Montecillo, played by Ai Ai de las Alas, she had to go through so many ribbon-cutting ceremonies, with not a few of them inane events. Her best friend Rowena (played by Eugene Domingo) has to assist her in asking for honorariums.

Ex-presidents and others in government who did not enrich themselves through corruption, like Ina Montecillo, should be taken care of with high and decent pensions! Government leaders, bureaucrats and even our National Artists should also be paid higher, market-driven salaries so there will be no excuses for plunder or graft.

In Rosario, that poignant beginning scene of the elderly and retired Jesus (Dolphy) being reminded by his wife that his meager P3,000-per-month pension couldn’t even cover his medicine costs, I was thinking — how many millions of government and even private-sector employees nationwide suffer the same fate?

Those retired generals who allegedly nearly bankrupted the military or police pension funds, when will they ever be made accountable and be punished? Can we restudy and drastically overhaul the existing pension fund systems of government, the military, police and private employees, especially those of teachers? There’s no need for our leaders to be ingenious or original — this is not rocket science. Just research and copy the positive aspects from the successful pension fund systems of nations like Singapore!

• Don’t do estate planning when terminally ill; plan ahead. Ina Montecillo was shown going to the bank to instruct that her savings be equally distributed in her children’s respective names, only after a doctor had already diagnosed her with a terminal or incurable ailment. What if this widow and head of a big family had died earlier of an accident or other unexpected causes? Her poor heirs would have had to go through a court procedure or other intricate procedures to claim her bank deposits.

Also, Ang Tanging Ina Mo never showed Ina Montecillo going to a realty broker or lawyer to seek help in transferring the title of her house to the names of her kids. Why? Her death would have caused her children huge government estate tax costs, plus the need to go to court for costly and quite cumbersome extra-judicial settlement to transfer the title’s ownership to her heirs.

What about any provisions for life insurance or medical insurance, Ina Montecillo seemed to have none of those, too! If a person is already critically ill, one can no longer avail of life insurance protection. All of us are mortals; we should financially plan ahead.

• Don’t send your kids to the West too early, or they’ll come back too Americanized with liberal moral values and possibly not be obedient to parents, like the case of the New York-bred Rosario. My opinion is that it seems ideal to send kids abroad to study in the West only after age 18, when their basic character has already been formed. Young people can study technical matters such as a master’s in business administration (MBA) degree like MVP did at Wharton, but it is best that young people learn their fundamental Asian moral values from parents and family at home.

Comedy Queen Ai Ai de las Alas stars as a former Philippine president in Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last Na ’To).

• Women should choose boyfriends or husbands with their heads as well as with their hearts. This is what Lea Salonga recently shared with this writer as advice on the secrets to a good marriage.

It is sad that not a few smart and even highly educated women in the world have been victimized by sweet-tongued suitors who often turn out to be emotionally immature and socially irresponsible, like the case of Rosario’s boyfriend Alberto, played by Dennis Trillo.

In Ang Tanging Ina Mo, the beautiful Severina “Seven” Montecillo (Shaina Magdayao) stubbornly and wrongly disobeys her caring mother as well as other relatives to marry an absolute and hopeless weirdo as her husband because of irrational, starry-eyed “love.”

• People should think out of the box and be resourceful, not like the Rosario character played by Jennylyn Mercado, who didn’t listen to the pragmatic advice of her admirer Carding that she try work as a piano teacher. That would have assured Rosario a more stable and higher income than doing the laundry for the limited number of neighbors inside that decrepit tenement apartment! Not only can being a piano teacher help with potentially higher regular income, this type of work could help widen the social networks of Rosario for other opportunities! Explore one’s passions and hobbies for possible income sources; be resourceful, think out of the box.

• Teach kids to value family more than money. Look at the many kids of Ina Montecillo in Ang Tanging Ina Mo, they’re often depicted as noisily squabbling over mundane matters such as the unpaid and mounting debts of unsuccessful overseas Filipino worker Juan Montecillo (Marvin Agustin) owed to his younger and more upwardly mobile brother Dimitri “Tri” Montecillo (Carlo Aquino).

Their mom is still alive and they’re already quarreling over small sums of money. What more upon the death of their single parent? Wouldn’t all hell break loose in a possible full-scale court battle among her heirs for what each kid would deem to be their “rightful inheritance”?

How many business families in the Philippines and worldwide had been tragically torn asunder due to money issues, mainly because I believe many parents and clan elders don’t teach the overriding importance of family unity, the need for give and take, the values of humility and perseverance to their kids. Money is not everything on this earth; our human lives are very short; we should be kinder to others and most especially to our own siblings and kin.

• Pursue things that really matter more than just money and power. Whether it was ex-President Ina Montecillo who wished to leave a good reputation as an honorable national leader and good mother to a harmonious family, or whether it was the formerly wealthy debutante and 1920s Carnival Queen Rosario who tried to atone for her sins by reaching out to her daughter, we are starkly reminded by these two Tagalog movies that what really matters on this earth and in our short human lives are not just money, power, glitz, glamour or fame.

I believe what matters most in this world are our relationships with our Creator, our family and loved ones, true friends, good health, good music and the arts, literature, service to others, integrity and the priceless wealth of honor. 

May we spend more of our most valuable resource of time in the pursuit of those things that really matter and that will truly endure forever.

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