The SyCip Magic: passionate attentiveness to matters great and small

There is no question that Washington Sycip was an awesomely great man who has made a great difference in people and institutions that were blessed to have been touched by him. How did he make things happen? His manner was modest and courteous, and his speech measured and soft.

Although I had met him casually at a work-related cocktail party, I only got to know him better when he called me after reading my column on Dr. Justino Arboleda and his inability to obtain funding from the UCPB in order to meet increased demand for his soil erosion control technology (coconet), for which he had won a BBC World Entrepreneur award some years earlier.

“I want to help this man,” he said.

Coconet could provide value-adding opportunities and jobs for low-income coconut farmers around the country. The technology would also help enhance and conserve the environment. And he did. Arboleda was able to get a loan from Planters Bank with the intercession of Mr. Sycip who sent his SGV accountants to help straighten out Arboleda’s books and called his friend Jesus Tambunting who owned the bank.

His intense commitment to help reduce poverty was also expressed in his personal donation of the equivalent of $1 million to CARD, Inc., the microfinance NGO founded in San Pablo, Laguna and led by Aristotle Alip who eventually won a Ramon Magsaysay award. Sycip’s donation came with conditions: that the money was lent to poor mothers who went into livelihood in order to help send their children through school. The repayment rate, Mr. Sycip told me, was 99.9% current. “You see,” he said, “the poor are better borrowers than the rich.”

He went beyond giving money.

CARD, Inc.’s field people in San Pablo told me that Mr. Sycip would go to their areas to check on their progress and to look at the produce (handicrafts and other cottage projects) of their borrowers. He also bought some.

Milwida “Nene” Guevara, CEO of the NGO Synergeia told me while in tears, how Mr. Sycip had given of his time, talent and material resources, and mobilized support from his network of business associates to enable her institution to help strengthen basic (elementary) education in public schools around the country. He also went beyond mobilizing resources. Sycip also traveled occasionally with Synergeia’s team of trainers to the provinces, including places such as Datu Paglas in Maguindanao. On advice of Sycip, Synergeia’s approach was to work with mayors and governors, who had special education funds, and ran school boards, and inclusively, with the locally based government bureaucracies such as those of the Departments of Education, Social Welfare, and Local Government. The focus was to enhance capabilities of the public school teachers, and to motivate all participants to work together to help the teachers succeed in providing effective education to the children, and to enable them to stay in school. Sycip believed that the way to address poverty was to educate our people. He was concerned about the high drop-out rate of our children only half of whom went beyond grade 4. In Datu Paglas, he also bought woven mats from the community as another way of helping reduce poverty.

Mr. Sycip would constantly reiterate his belief that the Filipino has great potential; and only needed to get a proper education. This is why he led the establishment of the Asian Institute of Management in cooperation with Harvard Business School, De la Salle, and the Ateneo with some funding support from the Ford Foundation. He also mobilized support from his friends and business associates. One of them was the late Stephen Zuellig who donated P200 million to the AIM school of development management. AIM celebrates its 50^th year in 2018. This will be a time of reckoning on where it will go in the future without Washington Sycip who could mobilize his local and global networks for technical and material support.

A veteran from SGV, the multinational firm which Mr. Sycip founded as a one-man operation and later expanded with his childhood and best friend Fred Velayo shares some traditions at SGV. There are several levels of professional development. Entry level, which is referred to as for those “Aspiring.” Continuing Personal Development (CPD) when you were encouraged to attend various training seminars and professional enhancement courses. And at a later stage, Lifelong learning, when you were encouraged to broaden your perspectives and skills as a human being. This could include learning philosophy, art, music, history, anthropology, and other liberal arts. An SGV partner had to be a highly educated and cultured person.

My AIM classmate, Rose Manahan, who visited him a month before Sycip passed away, said that she waited outside his office while her old boss talked to solar energy entrepreneur Leandro Leviste, the young son of Senator Loren Legarda for two hours! Environment conservation and protection, as well as economic costs were among Sycip’s numerous areas of interest.

An institution builder, Sycip’s insights and wisdom were highly sought in the Philippines and overseas by a broad array of organizations. He was on the board of more than 30 of them, including the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, as well as of Estee Lauder international.

Sycip’s father, Albino, who headed China Bank, did not send Mr. Sycip to elite schools for his basic education. He and his two older brothers Alexander and David went to the Padre Burgos Elementary School in Sta. Mesa, which was near their home, and to V. Mapa High School on Mendiola. Both schools were reputed as excellent public schools. Perhaps this is why he appreciated what a good public basic education can do.

I was privileged to have a more than nodding acquaintance with Mr. Sycip. I found awesome his constantly intense attentiveness to matters at hand, including seating arrangements. At a dinner in his home, he took the trouble to pull my chair for me! At a group meeting in his office, his ever dependable secretary, Sylvia Sanchez, made sure participants were properly seated and that his place had been pre-determined before he came into the room.

He wasted no time in getting to the point and asking sharp questions to get at the facts so he could come up with his assessment and counsel. He was totally focused on the matters at hand. Beware of being half-prepared or late; because he would also let you feel his displeasure without delay.

Wasting no resources in time, treasure, or resources and using them well were among his core values. At SGV, I have been told, when pencils were still in use, you had to submit your used-up pencil to ask for a new one. Sometimes, two used-up pencils were taped together to extend their lives. Backs of used paper, except for old financial statements which were shredded, had to be recycled and reused. How he hated waste of time, talent, and other resources. This must be why he always multiplied their value. And yet, when it came to rewarding professionals in his employ, SGV partners are among the wealthiest professionals in the country and overseas.

Amidst her tears, Nene Guevara laughingly narrated how Mr. Sycip remarked when he bought an indigenous woven mat in Datu Paglas that it cost only P80 when the one he bought in an Intramuros fair had cost P100! He later said that it was fair because when he got home and he compared the two mats, he found that the more expensive one was larger!

Sycip’s biography is entitled Only a Bookkeeper.

But it is obvious that he was great at asset valuation, big and small, and made sure these were used well and to the hilt! At his advanced age, Washington Sycip still worked at his office from 7 a.m., arriving ahead of his secretary from Monday to Saturday. And he died with his boots on. This, I guess explains why he was awesomely great!

Teresa S. Abesamis is a former professor at the Asian Institute of Management and an independent development management consultant.

tsabesamis0114@yahoo.com