Behind many self-made entrepreneurs are great mothers

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall. A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.  — Oliver Wendell Holmes

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. — Ephesians 6:1-3

Since May is the month the world pays homage to mothers, I couldn’t help but think about the many successful entrepreneurs who have had the good fortune to have grown up with great mothers, or mothers who gave unselfish love to and believed in their kids.

I believe there is a preponderance of evidence showing the correlation between having a good mother and the higher probability of success of children in the long-term future.

Here are some:

The late Juanita Marquez Lim Gokongwei, daughter of pre-war Iloilo Chinese community leader Pedro Marquez Lim, was the widowed mother who raised business genius John Gokongwei, Jr. and successful brothers like James Go when their father died young. I heard stories from Chinese community elders that she was an outstanding mother.

I remember the first question she asked me many years ago when I first met her at their then Makati home was whether I had received Chinese-language education. I replied in the affirmative and conversed with her in Hokkien.

Another good mother in the Gokongwei family is Elizabeth Yu Gokongwei, whose humility and good moral values she helped pass on to her kids, none of whom became disobedient or problematic unlike not a few rich kids with crazy dysfunctional lives.

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Former Divisoria seafood vendor Curita “Curing” Bamba is the outstanding and courageous mother who raised self-made realty billionaire Senator Manny Villar into a fine gentleman and good family man. As a boy who grew up in Manila’s Tondo district, Villar already assisted his mother in her trading business and learned the basics of entrepreneurship. Manny Villar became a disciplined, accomplished and hardworking entrepreneur.

Manny Villar’s wife Cynthia Aguilar Villar is also a good mother, with none of her well-educated kids turning out to be spoiled brats or dysfunctional despite their vast wealth and fame.

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Alfredo Yao of Zest-O juice, Zest Air, RC Cola and Philippine Business Bank weeps whenever he recounts to me the greatness and boundless love for family of his widowed mother Soledad Yao. He was only 12 years old when his father died. He told me that his hardworking mom used to be a sidewalk vendor and the police would sometimes go after small vendors like her. 

His mother was Fred Yao’s inspiration and guide. When she died recently, both President Noynoy Aquino and former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo paid their respects at her wake.

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Manny V. Pangilinan last year bankrolled the film Rosario, based on his mother’s mom, not only to pay tribute to a remarkable lady with a colorful yet sad life, but because he had been a very filial son also to his mother when she was still alive.

MVP also funded a retreat house, named after his mother Soledad Velez Pangilinan, for Catholic nuns in Tagaytay. His many successes reflect well on how she brought him up.

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Business leader Lucio C. Tan is known for honoring his father Tan Yan Kee with a foundation in his honor and other charities in his dad’s name. However, he also had a very outstanding mother named Chua Kheng Ha, who was his lifelong mentor.

I have heard anecdotes that when his mother was still alive, some businessmen or civic leaders who wanted to seek Tan’s favors or charitable donations would cleverly seek out his late mother for assistance. This writer heard that much of Lucio Tan’s legendary generosity in philanthropic donations was a direct influence of his late philanthropist mother.

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I heard people tell me that SM Group founder Henry Sy’s good mother was from a humble Filipino Chinese family, while his dad was an immigrant from Fujian province. His own wife, the religious and also humble Felicidad Tan Sy, is also a successful mother to amazingly hardworking and self-effacing children, none of whom became spoiled brats or arrogant.

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Dr. Alfonso Uy, the flour and sugar milling tycoon of Iloilo and honorary president of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce & Industry, Inc. (FFCCCII), is a very filial son to his mother whose inspiring and gutsy life story he once recounted to me. Even with his success and his wanting to invite her to live with him in their comfortable home in a nice subdivision in Metro Manila, his immigrant mother still preferred the simple life of daily work in Iloilo up to this day.

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The landmark Tytana building in the best prime location in Binondo district of Manila was named in honor of the outstanding immigrant mother of Metrobank Group boss George S. K. Ty.

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When the world’s biggest PVC plastic industrialist Y. C. Wang of Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics came to the Philippines during the term of President Fidel Ramos, I had the privilege to be invited as his interpreter for several days here because he spoke only Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese (which is actually the same as the Hokkien language of Fujian province) and a little Niponggo. He even mailed me management books he had authored as gifts.

I remember that Wang Yung Ching spoke fondly of his revered mother, who lived with his family then. He said that his daily routine was to wake up early mornings to jog or swim, then he’d go visit his mother for breakfast every day. Wang died in 2008 at age 91. One of his children is University of California, Berkeley-educated daughter Cher Wang who owns the famous global cellphone brand HTC made by her HTC Corporation.

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All the buildings he owns and all his daughters from various wives have the name Dominga, which was the name of the late widowed mother and lifelong inspiration of “rags-to-riches” realty and insurance tycoon Ambassador Antonio Cabangon Chua. 

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The late King Paoguat Typoco was the strong-willed and benevolent mother of the realty tycoon Tan Yu, who was known to have even knelt in front of his mother as an adult in order to apologize whenever she was displeased or upset over something. He obeyed his mother without question.

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The late Calbayog City Mayor Reynaldo Uy of Samar was not a tycoon, but a self-made rural doctor and former student activist who studied in Far Eastern University under my older cousin the famous cardiologist Dr. Dy Bun Yok. It is tragic that he fell victim to political violence, for he was an effective and pro-masses leader who was good to the people of Samar.

Mayor Reynaldo Uy was my client in one of the earliest houses I built and sold in May 1999. It was a small, simple but elegant house in Quezon City. I will never forget him recounting to me his life story of hardship since his dad died early and it was his great mother who raised him.

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Not all tycoons and successful entrepreneurs had happy experiences with their mothers. One tycoon who had a sad relationship with his mother is the world’s wealthiest investor, Warren Buffett. He revered his father, a stockbroker who became a four-term US Congressman, but he had a sad relationship with his mother. She was an ideal housewife to the outside world, but she would reportedly “verbally lash” out at the young Buffett and his elder sister for hours, until the kids cried.

Buffett later recalled that upon his mom’s death, he cried not because of sadness but “because of the waste. She had her good parts, but the bad parts kept me from having a relationship with her.” 

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