A brilliant executive but God’s servant first

Ambassador Howard Q. Dee, 94, was proclaimed the sole recipient of the 2024 “RVR Award for Nation Building” on Aug. 20. Moments after he delivered his well-applauded acceptance speech and after he walked slowly to his seat adjacent to mine, he slumped. Though rushed to the ultramodern St. Luke’s Global Medical Center, he died the next day, Aug. 21, Ninoy Aquino Day. As chair of the board of judges of the award, I explained during the ceremonies why he was chosen unanimously. I didn’t realize that my address was a virtual eulogy for him. Here is a shortened version of my talk with the tenses changed from present to past.

FROM HEAVEN, THE LATE AMBASSADOR RAMON V. DEL ROSARIO SR. must have been smiling during the awards ceremony because our awardee personified to the hilt the twin beacons that he stood for—matchless excellence in business and extraordinary devotion to the less privileged.

Verily, our awardee had a brilliant record as former president and CEO of Unilab, the largest manufacturer of health products in the Philippines that competes favorably with multinational giants like Roche, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, and Merck.

However, more than being a top business leader, he was God’s servant first. He believed in and upheld the credo (to which I also humbly adhere) that though it is important to have the things that money can buy like food on the table, clothes on our back, a home for the family, and even a car, it is far more important to have the things that money cannot buy like integrity, honor, truth, trustworthiness and an enduring love for, and abiding faith in, our God.

AMBASSADOR DEE PIONEERED THE CONCEPT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, that is, business must not merely enrich the rich but must, in equal measure, uplift the welfare of the employees, and of the poor in general. Together with former ambassador Bienvenido A. Tan, he invited the top 50 tycoons in the early 1970s to form the core of the Philippine Business for Social Progress and asked them to set aside 1 percent of their net income before taxes to fund PBSP’s pro-poor programs. Today, PBSP’s more than 230 corporate members are led by its president, mega tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan.

After our awardee retired from Unilab in 1970, he founded, funded, and chaired the Assisi Development Foundation which aimed to empower and serve the poor, just as our Lord Jesus Christ did, without any condition or expectation of reward. Later, our honoree was inevitably involved in the promotion of peace and became chair of the government’s panel for the peace talks with CPP-NPA-NDF from 1993-1999.

Because of his outstanding contributions to philanthropy, his work for the Church, and his unblemished patriotism, former president Cory Aquino named him ambassador to the Holy See and Malta. In 2018, he received the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

TRULY, AMBASSADOR DEE HAD AN ENVIABLE RECORD as a business executive, diplomat, and a philanthropist but what impressed the board of judges was his founding and chairship of the ASA (Association for Social Advancement) Philippines Foundation in July 1994, to engage in lending small sums to the poor and the underprivileged. Normally, the banking industry avoids lending to micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) because of the historical difficulty in evaluating their creditworthiness, and in collecting small loans from them.

In contrast, in his 2022 chair’s message, Ambassador Dee reported that the ASA Philippines Foundation earned an amazing P5.9 billion, served over two million clients nationwide, had 1,683 branches all over the Philippines, and employed 11,401 souls!

As an aside, may I say that the Foundation for Liberty and Prosperity (FLP) is embarking on a program we call “Prosperity Fund” to invest in the equity of, and assist in managing, MSMEs to help the poor help themselves through private entrepreneurship. Note that the FLP will not duplicate ASA’s amazing microlending. It proposes to invest in the equity of and to help manage MSMEs, which, to my knowledge, is not being undertaken by any organization.

The two co-chairs of the FLP’s “Prosperity Fund” task force—former BSP governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. and recently retired senior justice of the Supreme Court, Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe—hoped to learn from our ASA the secret of loaning to and collecting payments from underprivileged customers with a manageable repayment rate of 93.97 percent.

For his extraordinary success in showing that the Filipino is trustworthy, credit-worthy, and Christ-worthy, Ambassador Dee fully deserves the “RVR Award for Nation Building.” This honor is carefully bestowed on only one Filipino every two years. Joining me in acclaiming Ambassador Dee were my fellow members of the board of judges: former agriculture secretary Senen C. Bacani, former BSP governor Jose L. Cuisia Jr., Jaycees Manila President Charles E. Gosingtian, Asian Institute of Management president and Dean Jikyeong Kang, mega-tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan, Phinma chair Ramon R. del Rosario Jr., PhilCement chair Victor J. del Rosario, and former ambassador Jesus P. Tambunting. Thank you, Ambassador Howard Q. Dee, for your enduring legacy. To God be the glory!

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