MVP cites hard work for success, donates P20M to PLM
MVP cites hard work for success, donates P20M to PLM
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Also pledged to help improve the school’s facilities
Manuel V. Pangilinan, CEO and managing director of First Pacific Co Ltd, has told this year•s graduates of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM) that success springs from hard work and being truthful, not from magic or mystery, as he donated P20 million to this university, whose facilities he also pledged to help improve.
What accounts for success? I say there is no magic, no mystery, no secret recipe,• he said in last night•s commencement speech at the PICC Plenary Hall, in Pasay City. •Success springs from values as basic and old-fashioned as being honest and truthful, working hard, playing fair, setting goals, discipline and determination to pursue them.•
Addressing PLM•s 47th Commencement Exercises, Mr. Pangilinan, who was awarded the degree of Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa, also stressed the importance of passion and the absence of fear of failure, as he continued to talk about success in reaction to a question that was asked of him when he visited the PLM campus in Manila•s old walled district of Intramuros on April 4.
Most of all, success is about passion,• he emphasized. •Passion to succeed. Passion to compete. Passion for excellence. He went on: •But let me say this•you can•t succeed if you•re afraid to fail. I•ve known how to lose•not just once, but many times. Boldness to take risks, guts to decide and act•these are strengths, not weaknesses.•
Mr. Pangilinan, who chairs the First Pacific subsidiaries within the MVP group, where Philex Mining is a part of, also announced a P20-million donation to the university, and that he will provide the PLM campus with free wifi through the Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) Co., potable water through the Maynilad Water Services, and fix its electric wires care of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).
Citing his own humble beginnings starting from when he availed of free but quality education to escape poverty, Mr. Pangilinan praised the men and women of PLM who are now famous and productive members of society and who used to be •struggling and simple• students. •Your background and values resonate in my own life.•
He then told the audience of his first job as an employee and how he had trained and pounded the streets of Mindanao as a salesman, despite having an MBA from Wharton, and up to when he founded the First Pacific, in Hong Kong, in 1981.
Having started with only six people in a 50-square-meter office space, he stressed, First Pacific has now become a regional conglomerate, employing over 100,000 people in most parts of Southeast Asia, and with sales of about $20 billion. The conglomerate has invested in a broad range of businesses, such as agriculture, food, telecommunications, power, tollways, water, hospitals, and mining.
It took persistence and years of waiting until I finally became my own boss,• he said. He added, •Was I scared being on my own? You bet! Transitioning from employee to entrepreneur was like starting all over again.•
And so he reminded PLM•s 2015 graduates that it is all right for them to fail while pursuing their career, as they are still young. •Your past successes tell you that you can attain more successes in the future,• he stressed. •Your failures tell you that you can survive, and move on.•
But he also told them to continue working hard, so they can lift themselves from poverty. •There is greater satisfaction to have accomplished something from being poor, rather than out of wealth inherited. It•s good to be poor•so long as it•s not forever.•