MANILA, Philippines — Roberto “Bobby” Ongpin — the accounting firm head who was drafted to serve as one of the most powerful government ministers during the Philippines’ worst economic crisis, later becoming one of the country’s wealthiest and most influential businessmen — has died.
According to close relatives and associates, he passed away in his sleep last night in his villa on Balesin Island, the exclusive resort club he built. He was 86 years old.
“It is with profound sadness that I provide this update, something I wished I would never have had to do,” said Rodolfo Ma. Ponferada, president of Alphaland Corp. in an email to Balesin’s members. “Our chair and founder, Roberto Velayo Ongpin, passed away peacefully in his sleep early this morning, 5 February 2023. As many of you may know, he had just turned 86 years old last January 6.”
Ongpin began his professional career as an employee of the country’s top auditing firm, Sycip Gorres Velayo and Co., in 1964.
He related previously to the Inquirer that, during his job interview, one of the company’s founders, the late Washington Sycip, asked him what was on his mind, and he replied: “I’m thinking about how long it will take for me to sit there,” pointing at Sycip’s chair.
Two years later, Ongpin was named SGV managing partner, the firm’s youngest ever, serving until 1979 when, he said, he got a phone call ordering him to come to Malacañang Palace for, as it eventually turned out, was a job interview with then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
After demurring a couple of times, saying he was too young and inexperienced, Ongpin accepted Mr. Marcos’ offer to head the Ministry of Trade and Industry on the condition that he be given a direct access to the President and free hand at trying to reform key aspects of the economy which, at that time, was already starting to show strains from domestic problems and a global recession.
“When a President asks you to serve, you say yes,” Ongpin said.
As Marcos’ top technocrat, Ongpin said one of the key roles he played behind closed doors was to block self-serving policy recommendations from Marcos cronies which he felt would be detrimental to the Philippine economy. He added that, on more than one occasion, he went to Malacañang to explain to the President the ill effects of orders the latter had issued, supposedly at the behest of close associates — orders to permit importations, to grant loans, or to support struggling companies — and have them rescinded.
“Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t,” he said.
One of the biggest roles he played during the Marcos administration was the setting up and running of the so-called Binondo central bank which was created in response to the shortage of foreign currency needed to pay for imports after the country’s 1983 sovereign debt default.
At Ongpin’s direction, police rounded up seven of the biggest Binondo-based foreign exchange traders — waving at them a Presidential authorization to have them incarcerated if they refuse to cooperate — and ordered them to sell only to the government (at a capped profit) all the dollars they could buy from the market.
These dollars were then used by the government for its foreign exchange needs like buying imported medicines and infant formula.
After the Edsa Revolution, Ongpin was accused of personally profiting from this scheme, but the charges never stuck and he was cleared of wrongdoing. Even his right hand man in the Binondo central bank, businessman Willy Ocier — who later became a business rival — told the Inquirer that Ongpin never profited from the foreign exchange operations. “Not a single centavo,” said Ocier, whose father was one of the big money changers who were forcefully drafted into the operation.
A few years later, Ongpin struck up a friendship with Malaysian businessman Robert Kuok and convinced the latter to make a significant investment in the country in the wake of the political upheaval: the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel which opened in 1992 and the adjoining shopping mall in Mandaluyong City.
With his business empire resurgent during the years of the Arroyo presidency, Ongpin became a target of a government investigation during the presidency of Benigno Aquino III. He was accused of borrowing P660 million from a state bank to buy shares in Philex Mining Corp. which he then sold to businessman Manuel Pangilinan soon after for a profit.
Despite having fully repaid the government loan ahead of schedule, Ongpin was accused at various points of the probe of profiting from a “behest loan” or engaging in insider trading. All charges against him and his co-accused were dropped a long running Senate probe on live television and an eight-year legal battle.
Ongpin’s final hurdle came in 2016 when then President Rodrigo Duterte unleashed a tirade against the businessman, labeling him an “oligarch”, which resulted his gaming firm Philweb Corp. being unable to renew its license, and forcing him to sell the company as its stock price collapsed.
In its 2023 ranking of the country’s wealthiest individuals, Forbes Magazine listed Ongpin as the 23rd richest in the country with an estimated net worth of $830 million, after having peaked at $1.7 billion three years prior. The businessman has always protested his inclusion in this list, telling the Inquirer that he has written Forbes several times asking to be excluded from the ranking because it overstated his wealth.
He was a cum laude graduate of the Ateneo de Manila University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in business before receiving his master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University.
“[Ongpin] was husband to Monica, father to Stephen, Anna, Michelle and Julian, father-in-law to Laura and Frank, and in what I believe to be his most cherished role, grandfather to Sebastian, Benjamin, Lia and Maya,” Alphaland’s Ponferada said.
In May of last year, Ongpin showed to the Inquirer several chapters of his “tell-all” memoirs which he was writing, detailing his long and colorful life in government and business. He said then that he was leaving explicit instructions that this book be published only after his death.
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The article was originally published in Inquirer.NET and written by Dax L. lucas.
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