The tamaraw is a rare mammal endemic to the Philippines, with only 327 of them found only in Mindoro. The tamaraw is the mascot of Far Eastern University, which is celebrating this month the government-declared Tamaraw Month. An important event held the other day was the unveiling of a 350-kilo bronze sculpture of the animal under a huge tree on one side of the UNESCO-honored campus quadrangle — a donation of a distinguished alumnus, Menardo Jimenez, commerce class ’52. Former FEU president Lydia Echauz and current chair Lourdes R. Montinola at brief ceremonies, likened the donor to the tamaraw, for their common traits of fierceness and gracefulness, intelligence, loyalty and industry, simplicity and rarity.
Rare indeed is the donor of the sculpture (carved by Peter de Guzman), whose life story is contained in a small volume titled “A Simple Life, The Values and Wisdom of Manong Nards,” l put together and published by his wife Kay Gozon Jimenez and children Butch, Joel, Laurie and Carmen, and a dedicated staff. The tribute relates the story of the remarkable rise of a bookkeeper to respected, prominent and wealthy Filipino who credits his success to love of and obedience to God, hard work, of being thankful, generous, sincere, and simple in spirit.
His origins are not destitute, his parents having been landed politicians in Dasol, Pangasinan. His father, Don Marcelo, a three-term mayor and philanthropist who is remembered by the townsfolk for building roads and donating parts of his properties to be used as rights-of-way for travelers. His mother, Dona Emiliana or Meliang (Lola Baing), was vice mayor of Dasol in 1938 and later became the first female mayor in the country. She was a woman of strong will, was a good and understanding mother to nine children, the eighth of whom was Nards. In July 1947 along with his brother-in-law former Congressman and DENR Secretary Juan de G. Rodriguez, Don Marcelo founded Bay View High school in Dasol. Nards was among its first batch of graduates in 1949. The school is now called the Don Marcelo Jimenez Memorial High school, with an average of 650 students annually.
After graduation, at the age of 17, Nards set out for Manila, and enrolled for a commerce degree at FEU. He finished the course in two and a half years, the teaching system being trimestral. Very early, he learned the value of money and to work for it. While in the grades, he would shine shoes during fiestas; he created a paper route and distributed local dailies and Bannawag and Liwayway magazines to houses all over town. He also rented out comic books. When he went to Pasay, he fixed a brother’s old unused bicycle and took it to Dasol where it was rented out and gave Nards extra pocket money.
At the tamaraw sculpture unveiling, Nards, 78, said it was in FEU that he learned the principles of accounting, business and finance. Three things he would encourage students and alumni of FEU to remember: learn, earn and return. “What I learned, I applied in my work as a bookkeeper, in my chosen profession as a certified public accountant, and later in my various positions in the business world as an entrepreneur, as a board member, as president and CEO and chairman of the board in a number of the Philippines’ top corporations.”
From bookkeeper he was promoted to accountant at an abaca-exporting corporation, but he was very disappointed when the job of the general manager who had retired, and which he thought would be his, was given to another employee. But talk about poetic justice; after six months, for some reason, Abacorp closed down. Shortly after, Nards was working for a mining company at a salary ten times bigger than what he received at his previous job. After some time, he and a friend organized Alindeco, which to this day is one of the country’s largest abaca exporters and the only one with an ISO certification. When God closes a door, He opens a window, is how Kay puts her husband’s not getting a job, but getting something better.
Manong Nards, which is how he is called the Pangasinanse style now, was now financially stable, but there was more in the offing for him. This was his acquisition, along with partners of GMA-7, a television company on the brink of bankruptcy which after some time, through Nard’s wise management, became more than a billion-peso undertaking. This was on account of his and his partners’ delivering responsible programming with a balanced mix of entertainment shows, public affairs, public service, educational and spiritually-uplifting programs. With his formula, GMA-7 became successful not only because of its high-rating shows, but also because of the trust and respect it earned from viewers and advertisers who saw that GMA-7 did not compromise the value of its programming for ratings.
Aside from entertainment shows that clicked, including those of Kris Aquino, Mel & Jay and “Eat Bulaga,” Manong Nards’ belief that the public should always be informed of what was happening in the country made GMA-7 invest heavily in news and public affairs. The “Straight from the shoulder” show of Louie Beltran, Cheche Lazaro’s “The Probe Team,” the shows of columnist Teodoro “Teddy” Benigno and Oscar Orbos and Mel Tiangco and Jay Sonza were top-rated and won for GMA-7 international awards for investigative reporting.
When GMA-7’s competitor claimed higher ratings as well as the greater share of ad revenues, Manong Nards was not bothered. JJ Calero, well-known advertising man said, “Manong Nards was happy with what he was doing. He did not need to be No. 1. His contribution to media went beyond the numbers.’ And TV host Winnie Monsod said, Manong Nards was not in favor “of tabloid programming that emphasized sex, crime, violence and gore. Striving for No. 1 is a race to the bottom, because the bottom line is money. There was a trade-off between scandal and profit, so he was happy just being No. 2.”
Manong Nards states his management style simply: “God entrusted me to lead for over 26 years. Amidst a world where ethical standards are on a steady decline, GMA has been able to excel while maintaining its commitment to responsible broadcasting. In the battle of the networks where the fight is for No. 1, responsibility is what sets us apart from the competition. When we proclaim that we exist ‘in the service of man, for the glory of God,’ we mean every word of it.’”
His daughter Laurie talks about her dad’s frugality; he would insist on using a BIC ballpen till it ran out of ink and the back page of a used bond paper. Second daughter Carmen writes about her father’s willingness to forgive people who had hurt him. Another trait is his being a simple man, who still lives in a 40-year-old house, rides a simple four-cylinder car or a pick-up truck, not a Mercedes Benz, and insists that his wife and two daughters wear simple, not branded clothes. He likes to help the needy. His passion, though, is collecting paintings, some of them very expensive — but these are for investment purposes.
He is like Midas, turning projects to gold not by chance, though, but by sheer industry and vision - and trust in God. Rated as one of the richest men in the Philippines, Manong Nards has investments in pricey high-rise structures, including the P20-billion mixed use vertical community along C-5 in Quezon City. He is a partner in a sugar cane bioethanol plant project in Negros Occidental. He has built commercial buildings named after his wife, Carolina. His large mango plantation in Pangasinan produces the sweetest exportable mangoes, and a zoo and ecologically inspired garden is drawing out-of-towners and the people of his native Dasol.
Manong Nards’ greatest treasure, he confesses everywhere he goes, is his family. Kay chimes in: “The measure of God’s blessing in our lives is too immense to describe.”
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My e-mail:dominitorrevillas@gmail.com