Earlier this year, Lorenzo listened to PresidentArroyo orate a commitment to generate one million jobs in the agricultural sector during her State of the Nation Address. Many ascribed the implausible pledge to hubris; there was after all an irresistible giddiness surrounding the historic event. Lorenzo took her seriously.
"I’m from the private sector," he says. "I have a history, like many other skeptics who are not in government, of doing nothing but sitting on our behinds and complaining about the issues. You have to be solutions-oriented. Filipinos are excellent talkers and planners, but how many of us are excellent in execution? This is the paradigm we want to communicate–do your share."
It seems like only yesterday Lorenzo was strolling along as chairman and ceo of Lapanday Holdings Corp. and chairman of Del Monte Philippines, Inc. The Wharton-educated 43-year-old oversaw companies that boasted 15,000 employees and provided work for 10,000 farmers. Lapanday had captured an astounding 36 percent of the Chinese banana market with its "Mabuhay" brand while Del Monte was profitably growing and processing tropical fruit for domestic and international markets. Work was demanding but held few surprises. A daily one-kilometer swim, art collecting, brisk walks and two-day weekends satisfyingly spent with his wife and four children, combined with his duties at work, comprised a routine that was comforting in its predictability. Until his epiphany.
"I was on President Arroyo’s shortlist made by the screening committee when she was looking at the portfolio for Agriculture Secretary. Since then, I have tried my best to provide inputs to the agricultural component of rural development as well as bringing people into a job creation mode," he says.
More accurately, Lorenzo has plunged into the task of creating one million jobs with the wide-eyed zeal of a Jesuit missionary disembarking onto a land of heathens, using his vast network of friends in high places and a delicate mix of cheerleading and browbeating to jumpstart the program. "You could say I’ve been moving 15-20 hours a day for the last three months meeting people and galvanizing them to enthusiasm and hope. The process is just beginning–I only have a staff of four helping me without a real budget. But since two-and-a-half months ago, there have been 19,702 jobs that have been created in the agriculture sector–it’s beginning to bear fruit."
The Lorenzo family hails from Mindanao and is dreadfully familiar with the ideological and religious conflicts that have plagued the region. As a boy growing up in Lanao in the ‘70s, Lorenzo witnessed Lapanday’s people wounded and killed as a result of the unrest. For him, the solution is simple–economic development. "At the end of the day, the Filipino is a simple person," he says. "That simplicity translates into the objective of a peaceful and better quality of life for him and his family. What does that entail? All the comforts we talk about but in a modest way."
"Be it in Lapanday or Del Monte, we’ve had the opportunity to gainfully employ people from the poorest of the poor, uplifting them and bringing in change agents at various levels of management along with certain technical skills, linking up all of these people to a market-oriented paradigm. When we produce food, it is for a specific market where we deliberately quantify who we are selling it to–we work backwards through the system, all the way to the concept. We actualize it by looking at the supply chain, reviewing every link for costs, quality, supply reliability, product innovation and customer service. We then benchmark ourselves against the best.
"It is this model that I’ve been looking at to communicate a system that works. In my case, I’m just applying what I know works in the real world. It will be a private sector-led effort. We all know that that tends to have a more sustainable, market-driven approach. It’s not just about paving roads or building basketball courts–it’s more of teaching a skill where a person becomes empowered to do something and is able to have a sustainable job. For me, that is the exciting part."
Lorenzo’s approach is to inflame the idealism of corporations, persuading them to work with cooperatives, ngos, lgus and common people–with the backing of state creditors–to produce income-generating agricultural products. It would seem that supply and demand would eventually bring these groups together in the venerable pursuit of profit. But in our imperfect system, the invisible hand of economics is so imperceptible only the ghost of Adam Smith can perceive it. The crucial ingredient, of course, is Lorenzo’s compelling powers of persuasion and his steeltrap grasp of what endeavors will make money and how these may be fast tracked.
Ben Loong of Parang, Jolo is a friend of Lorenzo and the younger brother of Parang Mayor Magdar Loong. The Loongs own a coconut farm that has been languishing because of depressed coconut prices. Lorenzo did not just see a half full glass of water; he visualized a different beverage altogether inside. With Lorenzo facilitating talks with Nestlé Philippines and Gary Teves of Landbank, Mayor Loong was able to parlay P5 million of his Internal Revenue Allotment into an aggressive P38 million intercropping program of planting superior robusta coffee under the coconut trees.
"With the help of technicians from Nestlé, it will go into Nescafe Classic Instant Coffee–a guaranteed market," says Lorenzo. "As a country, we import 16,000 metric tons of coffee. Instead of importing, they’re willing to buy on a contract-growing basis the coffee from this Jolo farm at a premium over the market price. 460 people have been hired to date. 180 hectares have been planted on already, to be expanded to 1,000 hectares. As this generates success, the neighboring farms and co-ops will allow them to expand it to a 5,000 hectare area, not just belonging to the Loongs.
"Not only did we create jobs, but we are addressing economic development in the birthplace of the MNLF. We can tell our Muslim brothers in Sulu that this is a land-based solution for them and its success is in your hands. We are giving them assistance in credit market access. We are helping them with the right technology, and if they work at it, they will be the ones rewarded for their efforts."
Meanwhile, another project is enduring a more potholed road to success. Henry Lim often pondered over why the Philippines is still not self-sufficient in rice and why the country’s yields are significantly less than neighboring countries. He traveled to Hunan Province, China to meet the father of China’s hybrid rice program, Professor Yuan Long Ping, who was handpicked by Mao Zedong in 1949 to address the biggest problem after the revolution–how to feed one billion people.
China’s yields are at an impressive six tons per hectare while the Philippines’ is a paltry three to 3.4. Lim was able to convince six of the professor’s protegés to come to the Philippines, bringing with them the high-yielding hybrid seed variety from China.
After years of cross-breeding to achieve a variety which is aromatic, acceptable to the Filipino palate and acclimatized to the country’s tropical conditions, the entrepreneur proved last October on 38 hectares in Laguna and another 70 hectares in Davao Oriental that he could produce a spectacular 7.5 to 8.9 metric tons per hectare.
"In the last four months, we’ve moved heaven and earth to get this going," says Lorenzo. "Henry Lim’s concern was that he could not get government to adopt and help propagate the specific seed use. What I first tried to do was convince the Department of Agriculture and the President that this makes common sense. We need to be able to feed our people instead of perennially importing 650,000 metric tons of rice every year because we always have this shortfall. In my mind, what was necessary was that government bought the concept and that some of the budget for the rice program is ear-marked for these specific varieties. We will be able to convince farmers that they will have a hefty income per hectare–just through peer experience, it will take on a life of its own. I want to tell government that here is a solution that works, I want to be able to replicate it, and I’m willing to gamble on Henry Lim and make this work. If we succeed in 2002, sunud-sunod na ‘yan."
Lorenzo’s position carries a cabinet posting without a line portfolio. Although it has not radically hampered his efforts, there is some creeping frustration. "Put yourself in my shoes. I’m saying the right things but I have neither the carrot nor the stick. I just do it. I use my extended credibility. I do have the support of the President and her office so I have access to key people in the government," he says.
Some have claimed Lorenzo’s companies will benefit from the job creation program he is advocating so passionately. He brushes off the innuendoes, claiming that to accelerate the process, direct intervention on his part is necessary. "I’m very careful not to overstep my mandate," he says. "People are claiming I’m a bit pushy but maybe that’s what it will take to get us out of this state of self-denial and complacency."
Lorenzo hopes to build institutions that will outlast him–it is a matter of linking up with successful concepts and people and replicating it across the country, he says. Cynics will insist that creating one million jobs by 2004 is a pipe dream and whatever Lorenzo is smoking it is clouding his judgment. But there are already nearly 20,000 newly employed Filipinos who are disinclined to debate whether the figure will be reached. What is important to them is that the endeavor has begun–and that they are already beneficiaries.
"I may have created islands of success and prosperity but it is in an ocean of mediocrity and poverty," Lorenzo admits, belying criticism that he is swimming in fantasy. "To become a catalyst, I need to get people to create their own islands of prosperity. Share your model. Share your prosperity."
Or as Luis Lorenzo, Jr. has done so dramatically, get off your La-Z-Boys.