JUNE 5, 1989 was the day Oscar Lagman’s column, “Musings,” was first published in BusinessWorld. It was a short, hard-hitting piece explaining why Filipinos were shocked by the conviction of Oliver North over the Iran-Contra scandal by listing a series of our own scandals which had failed to upset us. For the next 36 years he would muse mostly over the ins and outs, the scandals and the hopes of this country’s political life. On Feb. 3, 2026, Mr. Lagman’s final column for BW was published, a hard-hitting piece lamenting the Supreme Court’s decision on the impeachment of Vice-President Sara Duterte in which he urged the Catholic bishops to have their flock denounce the Court for not upholding the Constitution.
Mr. Lagman passed away on Feb. 16, 2026.
For years one would read a small note at the bottom of his columns: “Oscar P. Lagman, Jr. has been a keen observer of Philippine politics since the late 1950s.”
Born on May 30, 1938, in the late 1950s he was a student at the College of De La Salle where he was a BSC major in Accounting and an AB major in Humanities, fields that stood him well in his subsequent careers as a corporate executive, an entrepreneur, a business consultant, and a management professor.
His keen mind was sharpened by further education: he received an MBA at the University of San Francisco, certificates in Population Administration from the University of North Carolina, in Environmental Management from the Centre d’Etudes Industrialles Geneva, and in Managed Care at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
His work through the decades was wide ranging. Starting out as a research associate with a polling company (Robot Statistics Manila), he got into advertising (J. Walter Thompson Manila, J. Walter Thompson New York), accounting (John F. Forbes, CPA, San Francisco), health insurance (Blue Cross Health Insurance Manila), property development (Gateway Property Holdings Manila), and consulting (SGV Consulting Division Manila, Director; Head of Healthcare Consulting). All this while also being an entrepreneur, opening a chain of ice cream stores (Coney Island Ice Cream), a drugstore (Peerless Drugs), a healthcare venture (The Healthcare Alternative which serviced employee healthcare plans), and also got into communication skills training.
Still, he never lost his focus on education, teaching in the Asian Institute of Management, at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business and Ateneo Graduate School of Hospital Administration, at the Far Eastern University, Makati Graduate School of Business, and at his beloved alma mater, De La Salle, where he taught at the Graduate School of Business and at the College of St. Benilde Graduate School of Hospitality and Tourism.
As his daughter Maysie Lagman wrote on his Facebook page, “Dad was a passionate La Sallian who ‘remained on campus’ for decades after he graduated. He never really left La Salle.” Aside from teaching there, he would, in his senior years, “brave the crowds and steep bleacher steps of Araneta Coliseum” to cheer on his alma mater during UAAP games.
It is in a way not surprising that Mr. Lagman met “the love of his life,” his wife, Cecile, when he was a professor at the AIM and she was his travel agent. They married in 1974 and had three children. — AAH
