Forbes Park is named after John Kerry’s granduncle

Don’t aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally. —David Frost

YANGON, Myanmar — This writer recently visited this fast-rising ASEAN economy with 50 businessmen of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce & Industry, Inc. (FFCCCII) and the Association of Young Filipino Chinese Entrepreneurs (AYFCE) from Feb. 20 to 23. Myanmar is still poorer than the Philippines, but their capital city Yangon has a nicer and less chaotic airport than our old NAIA airport! Last year, Myanmar also received more foreign direct investments than the Philippines.

Among the Filipino tycoons already positioning themselves here in this resource-rich nation are Lucio C. Tan, who has an Asia Brewery factory here for his Cobra energy drink and locally branded soft drinks; Carlos Chan of Liwayway Group, which manufactures his Oishi snack foods here; the family of the late Jose Yao Campos with Unilab; and Dr. Rolando Hortaleza and wife Dr. Rosalinda A. Hortaleza of Splash. Both companies are selling their products in Myanmar.

Lucio Tan is chairman emeritus of FFCCCII, while his son Michael “Mike” G. Tan is honorary chairman of AYFCE. The delegation stayed at Sedona Hotel, owned by Singapore’s Keppel Group, because AYFCE past president Stefan Tong is president of Keppel Philippines and helped make the arrangements. Tan’s executives hosted the luncheon for the Philippine delegation at the century-old House of Memories resto, while executives of FFCCCII adviser and Oishi/Liwayway boss Carlos Chan hosted a lunch at the Summer Pace resto of Traders Hotel. FFCCCII has donated thousands of public schools to poor rural barrios and advocates socio-economic reforms.

Among those who went to Myanmar were outgoing FFCCCII president Tan Ching as well as the candidates to be the next president next month at their biennial convention: Alfonso Siy of Fortune Net Group, Angel Ngu of Angus Aluminum, Henry Lim Bon Liong of Sterling Paper Group, FFCCCII vice-presidential candidates Cecilio Kwok Pedro of Hapee Toothpaste and Reynaldo Go of Columbia Candies.  AYFCE was led by chairman emeritus George T. Siy of Marie France/Facial Care, chairman Jeffrey T. Ng of Astoria Hotels/South Forbes/Cathay Land and AYFCE president Jovenson Ong of Dragon Fireworks, Inc. 

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One of the most media-shy yet wealthiest billionaires in the Philippines is the Araneta Group of Companies chairman and CEO Jorge L. Araneta, more famous for being the boss of Gateway Mall and the Smart Araneta Coliseum. This writer was assigned to sit beside him and his wife, Colombian-born former Miss International Stella Marquez Araneta at the wedding reception of a young tycoon.

We learned that after having been left behind by Makati and even Greenhills in the 1980s, the Araneta family eventually became more aggressive in redeveloping their once stagnant but strategically located Araneta Center in Cubao. Now the area has come alive again. Megaworld has partnered to develop 18 condominiums, a new 400-room Novotel will open next year, and the 31-story Gateway Tower is a modern office condominium with a lot of foreign BPOs.

The Araneta family, which includes Jorge and his sister Judy Araneta Roxas (mother of DILG Secretary Mar Roxas), owns 35 hectares of prime land in Cubao, Quezon City. Excluding all the malls, buildings and the coliseum, just computing conservatively based only on the BIR’s zonal valuation of P130,000 per square meter, their landholdings alone are worth P45 billion or over US$1 billion. Why are Jorge and his sister Judy not on the Forbes list of billionaires?

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5 Success tips from a young restaurateur

This writer chanced upon 48-year-old restaurant entrepreneur Enrico “Rikki” Dee dining at the Summer Palace resto of Edsa Shangri-la Hotel. He said he is now busy expanding his Central Malls from the two existing in Biñan, Laguna, and Dasmariñas, Cavite, with two new malls this year in Binangonan, Rizal, and Malolos, Bulacan. He is bullish about the positive growth of the Philippine economy and hopes for higher purchasing power for more people nationwide.

Rikki Dee is better known as the founder of the good-quality Kai, Mesa, Mangan, Cerveseria and Crocodile Grille restaurant chains. When asked for his success secrets, he said: “I guess it’s continuous hard work, not to be complacent, being focused on whatever endeavors you’re into, look for your niche, and luck.”

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Here in Myanmar, only Manny V. Pangilinan’s Smart has roaming access, not yet Globe Telecom of the Ayala Group. But their SingTel partners are said to be interested in investing and helping upgrade this country’s telecom services. Internet is surprisingly good.

What about Filipino households and faster Internet services, how many now have online access? PLDT executive vice president Ariel Fermin told The Philippine STAR: “There are 100 million in our Philippine population, or 20 million homes, of which 6 million homes are addressable. The total number of households with Internet at home now is 2 million, of which 75 percent or 1.4 million households are PLDT myDSL subscribers. There is still a lot of growth potential. PLDT is investing more to make services faster, better and more affordable. We need products at the right price points.”

Can modernization of Philippine telecommunication services like the Internet keep up with the expected faster economic growth? Ariel Fermin, the new head of PLDT Home Business who used to be president of the Chowking and Greenwich fast-food chains of the Jollibee Group, said they’re investing in better technologies such as the new Fibr internet connection to push “video-on-demand.”

PLDT Fibr Internet connection has tied up with Clickplay.ph, the country’s first online movie-streaming website led by 28-year-old Ateneo graduate Sherwin de la Cruz.

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There’s a phenomenon almost as hot as the record-breaking Philippine stock market — the Philippine Stock Exchange index climbed 13 percent this year through Feb. 18, bringing unheard-of gains since October 2008 to 285 percent — it’s the dizzying climb in Metro Manila real estate prices and most especially in the exclusive residential villages.

The ultimate prestige address for business, politics and even diplomacy in the Philippines is still Forbes Park — straddling the Philippines’ postwar Makati financial district and the new booming Bonifacio Global City of Taguig City.

Aside from old landlord clans, politicos and top entrepreneurs, the two subdivisions of North Forbes and South Forbes also have residents like boxing champion, Congressman Manny Pacquiao (whose wife Jinkee is reportedly now running for Sarangani governor instead of vice governor), ports king and Solaire casino resort billionaire Ricky Razon, and others.

Also Forbes residents are GMA-7 top shareholders and self-made billionaire brothers-in-law Atty. Felipe Gozon and Cocobank chairman Mernardo “Nards” Jimenez, and their rival, TV5/First Pacific/Smart/PLDT/Meralco/Philex boss Manny V. Pangilinan, whose half-hectare property is bounded by three streets and not yet finished.

A Makati banker told this writer that a new resident of Forbes Park is HSBC Philippines’ first Filipino president in 137 years of operations here in the country, Jose Arnulfo “Wick” Veloso. He reportedly moved in recently to the home for the bank’s CEO.

A young businessman said Citibank Philippines CEO Sanjiv Vorja also lives in a house in North Forbes originally bought by the bank before and which was donated to the University of the Philippines, and which Citibank then leases back at a low rental rate for the use of its Philippine chief executive. Foreigners cannot own Philippine land.

Developer Ayala Group named this exclusive subdivision after the 1909-1916 American governor general of the Philippines, investment banker and diplomat William Cameron Forbes — the granduncle of new US Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry.

Governor General Forbes also brought polo to the Philippines in the 1900s, which led to the creation of the elite Manila Polo Club on McKinley Road (named after US President William McKinley, who led the takeover of the Philippines as a US colony and the annexation of the then-independent Republic of Hawaii, both in 1898). Also in Forbes is the Manila Golf & Country Club.

The Boston-based Forbes family (not related to the owners of Forbes magazine) derived its fabulous fortune from its forebears, who pioneered in the China trade, especially from the controversial 19th-century opium trade in China by the Western powers during the First and Second Opium Wars.

Secretary of State and 2004 Democratic Party presidential candidate John F. Kerry’s great-grandfather Francis Blackwell Forbes and Philippine Gov. Gen. William Cameron Forbes’ grandfather John Murray Forbes were cousins and opium traders. Kerry’s maternal grandfather James Grant Forbes was born in Shanghai, China. Another trader who became rich trading opium to 19th-century China was Warren Delano, the maternal grandfather of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Eleven Forbes family members engaged in the US-China Trade between 1789–1891; thus the present-day Forbes House Museum, which is located atop Milton Hill and overlooks Boston’s skyline as well as Boston Harbor in Massachusetts. First known as the Museum of the American China Trade when it opened in 1964, this museum has memorabilia from President Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and a replica of Lincoln’s log cabin birthplace.

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Congratulations to the outgoing Xavier School president Fr. Johnny Go, SJ for his outstanding and selfless leadership of this school, which is based in San Juan and last year opened its new 15-hectare Nuvali campus in Santa Rosa City, Laguna.

The land for Xavier Nuvali was a donation by Ayala Land, with the Xavier community led by Fr. Johnny Go gaining donations from SM founder Henry Sy, San Miguel CEO Ramon Ang, PCCI leader Ambassador Francis Chua, Sterling Bank boss Ben Tiu and others. One of the reforms under Fr. Johnny Go is the continuous improvement of Mandarin language standards in order to be globally competitive.  

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A young Makati executive e-mailed me complaining about House Bill 4972 authored by Northern Samar Congressman Emil Ong and supported by Benguet Congressman Ronald Cosalan on the mandatory five percent profit-sharing scheme, which the businessman said ”is ill-conceived and will scare away local and foreign investors.”

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