He has been chairman and president of a number of financial institutions both in the Philippines and in Hong Kong. And he takes his role as a business leader as one that has to include social commitment and he lives that very seriously. He is trustee of a number of foundations and a number of public institutes and here today, we’re very happy to have him here, in the capacity of trustee in the Philippines Business for Social Progress (PBSP), which most, perhaps all of you know, was started in the Marcos era. There was great unrest and unhappiness in the Philippines. The business community felt it just had to create a better role for themselves. They stepped forward and organized a non-profit institution through which it committed to give 1% of its profit but I won't take away Mr. Pascua's fire by saying any more. But, PBSP has been an extremely strong institution for mobilizing private resources in the Philippines for development purposes. We have been a partner since; for the last three or four years; a formal partner. Synergos Institution-our mission is to work with partners around the world to fight poverty. Our niche in the international development arena is to focus on the building and strengthening of local capital for sustainable development--human capital, financial capital, social capital in communities. We partner with PBSP to help create that capital in different parts of Asia. We've organized some workshops. There was one held recently in Jakarta, one coming up in Thailand and a regional workshop in the Philippines--bringing together organizations that mobilize resources like PBSP; private organizations that mobilize resources and give grants and credit to other indigenous institutions. We have been delighted to have been a partner of PBSP and we're delighted to have Mr. Pascua here with us today who is going to tell us not only about PBSP but also about the tremendous difficulties they are facing. To set the stage for that, let me introduce Ambassador Nick Platt, the head of the Asia Society.

Nick Platt

Good morning everyone. As ambassador to the Philippines from 1987-1991, I helped the US government to make the decision to put a lot of development money into Mindanao and General Santos, built an airport, built some roads, built a port, etc. Our decision was based on promise in Mindanao and also the fact that Mindanao is about as far away from Manila as you can get. That it is not subject to the same kinds of difficulties, bureaucracy, corruption, etc., etc. Mindanao is a place of great promise, and we always thought that was the case. We still think that is the case, but it is also a very complicated place. There are pockets of poverty, pockets of prosperity it has Christians, it has Muslims and in recent years the rise of various groups like the Abu Sayyaf, the MNLF, the Moro National Liberation Front have created tensions that have always been there but they have gotten out of hand, and it is one of the major challenges that faces the government of the Philippines these days. PBSP has been, in my experience, a great force for good. They have been in the Philippines throughout the years and it has been, I think, one of the key, maybe the key, individual business program designed to work out the political and the economic difficulties nationwide. When Mrs. Aquino came to power, they were very supportive of her, it made a lot of difference in those days and this has been true ever since. So we are very pleased to have Ricardo Pascua here today to present what PBSP is doing in Mindanao. First he’s giving us the full rundown. His organization is one that I have a great deal of respect for. This program this morning is part of Asia Society’s Asian Social Issues Program initiatives and it deals with a whole range of programs and problems, environment, women’s issues, population, violence. And this is a part of that. We have been doing a number of programs with Synergos and we are very grateful to opportunity to cooperate. So without further ado, let me put on our speaker.

Ricardo Pascua

Thank you Mr. Nick Platt , thank you Bruce. Morning ladies and gentlemen, fellow workers in development. What I propose to do is to run through a prepared talk and then show you a clip of what we have been doing in Mindanao, particularly a special case of a development project that seems to have done very well by one of our member companies. I would like also my staff member who flew here and drafted this speech for me. First of all, I would like to thank Synergos for partnering with us and hosting this meeting this morning. I was surprised how we might have missed out in mining the opportunities Synergos has for us. When I get back to Manila that won’t be the case anymore. And I’d like to thank you all for coming here this morning and for showing interest maybe helping us in making a dent, in the resolution of hundreds of years of conflict in Mindanao which is part of the Philippines which has never really been colonized, not by Spaniards, certainly not by the Americans, and even the independent Philippine government is having a tough time getting the Shans, the Lumads, which is the indigenous peoples and the Muslims to really work together and be one as Filipinos.

About PBSP

Thirty years ago, the heads of 50 of the largest Philippine corporations organized a foundation now known as the Philippine Business for Social Progress. Its mission-to help the poor help themselves. It’s not about charity; it’s about teaching people how to fish so they could fish for themselves standing up and being responsible and accountable for their own lives and actions. Its member firms did something quite unique. I checked with Synergos and others, it is certainly the first time this was done in Asia. They pledged to set aside one percent of net income before taxes to support social development expenditures every year. Twenty percent of that 1% goes to PBSP, and the rest goes to the companies’ themselves. We don’t get everything; we have a self-assessment form we give every year, so it’s like a scout honor system. Nobody’s gonna check whether someone’s lying through their teeth or telling the truth.

PBSP was born as a response to the prevailing social unrest-47 percent of the Filipinos were living in poverty. I remember that I was in graduate school, and I was perhaps one of those marching. Students, workers, and peasants marched to the streets, and society’s basic institutions were being challenged by an ideology that presented itself as inherently progressive and equitable, to be better at uplifting everybody’s life: at that time I thought they were all villains and oppressors. Now on the other side I don't think that anymore. PBSP’s creation, therefore, presented a different thesis: that business could make a vital and lasting contribution to the progress and well being of society.

Today thirty years later, PBSP has become the country’s largest business-led social development foundation, the only one of its kind in Asia and we would like to be able to propogate this experience perhaps with the help of Synergos and others. It translates talk about social corporate responsibility and commitments into social development in very concrete terms. More importantly, it has given shape and system to development work. It does manage projects professionally like businesses coz we are made out of businessmen. It is not a goody-goody soft-softy kind of thing. There are goals, there are objectives, there are measures, and there are accountabilities, and these guys on the staff are held accountable to the board for activity throughout the year.

PBSP created projects to meet the demands of the times we try to match the capabilities of the communities we work with. Over time, PBSP projects have shown increasing complexity as we have garnered more experience. Early on the interventions tended to be fairly simple, one -shot efforts: attempts at low-cost housing, some nutrition training programs, some medical missions. But now we have innovated certain things such as area resource management program integrates ecology management, economic development and organization planning in eleven of 73 provinces nationwide, and we do multi-year long-term implementation period. No longer one-shot things but integrated programs. But of course it's born out of thirty years of experience.

From 50 member companies, we have grown to 154 members; in its first year, it committed a modest PhP2.8 million pesos to its projects. Now you translate that into dollars at that exchange rate at that time, it was perhaps 400,000 dollars. Last year, institutional assistance amounted to PhP123 million pesos, equivalent to 2.46 million dollars at the current exchange rate. Two years ago that would have been double, but the Philippine peso has continued deteriorating for as long as I can remember. Over the past 30 years, PBSP’s financial assistance has totaled 1.6 billion pesos (32 million dollars). It has assisted 2,500 NGOs and people’s organizations, supported over 4,400 projects that benefited 2.2 million Filipino households. As far as scale there are 75 million people in the Philippines now, that's about 12 million households, we’ve touched about 20 percent of all the households in the country.

We think that the hallmark of PBSP is its trail-blazing character. As we tried to pursue relevant and sustainable assistance for the poor, the foundation designs and innovates effective development programs. This year, the new board conducted a re-visioning workshop to determine the foundation’s directions. These are seven five-year plans, to see what we are doing in light of the changing socio-economic and development terrain. We are addressing globalization issues, preparing our communities to participate in the new economy, and providing safety nets to those who would be left behind by the very competitive nature of the global economy.

Moreover, we recognize that to be relevant in the communities we are serving in southern Philippines, we must address the issue of peace and development in the conflict areas of Muslim Mindanao. We are convinced that this is an opportunity for business to bring development to all Filipino communities, and promote lasting peace in the area. We’ll take a shot at it. Everybody else has kinda not succeeded, and hopefully this might work.

Mindanao

In 1999-prior to the Abu Sayyaf notoriety-we at PBSP commissioned a study to establish the development imperatives in Mindanao, specifically, in the poorest provinces: parts of the special zone for peace and development (SZOPAD), particularly in the autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao or ARMM which is run autonomously following the Tripoli Libya peace accord. The provinces in this cluster form what is now known as the second Mindanao, poorer and least developed.

We wanted to validate our perception that while the ongoing conflict has been shrouded in many layers of political, cultural, and religious color, the root cause of instability in Mindanao lay in long-time neglect and underdevelopment; and to identify strategic imperatives and options for PBSP, we must address the inequitable distribution of wealth and the means and opportunities to address poverty, because if economic development and the equitable distribution of income and wealth is not addressed, no amount of negotiated political solutions and armed interventions and military campaigns would guarantee lasting peace. They have to have livelihood, they have to be able to eat, to house themselves to clothe their children, otherwise they will continue to fight.

Using the Human Development Index or HDI as benchmark, our study revealed that the quality of life of the people in Muslim Mindanao was way below the national level, and even the HDI level in the more progressive provinces of Mindanao was woefully low, Sulu Province has .33 HDI rating, comparable to Uganda’s .34. The Philippines’ average is .74. If Sulu is .33 and the rest even lower, you can imagine the disparity.

Poverty incidence is highest in the second Mindanao: 57 percent in the ARMM, 40 percent in Region XI, and 50 percent in Region XII; in contrast, the national poverty incidence averages is 31.8 percent.

The same areas registered lowest in functional literacy rate and in access to basic services such as potable water and electricity. The image on the screen will show you how the second Mindanao compares with the rest of the country.

PBSP Catch Up Plan

PBSP’s Peace and Development Program aims to close the gap between the second and the first Mindanao. We probably won’t be able to do it all, but we’ll try to make a dent. The catch-up plan aims to mobilize business and civil society to be involved in programs that directly contribute to lasting peace and development in Mindanao, while working with government. We have to be working together, it can’t be done by one sector alone. Certainly not the business sector alone, not the government sector alone, not the civil sector alone.

Our objective is to increase people’s income, improve their quality of life, provide access to land tenure, and minimize conflicts among the Christians, the Moslems and the Lumads, an indigenous people’s group of Mindanao who have been shoved up the mountains by the lowlanders who have come in.

We hope to reach 3 million Muslims and Lumads, of which 314,000 are non-literate.

We are focusing our programs on health, education and literacy, land tenure, productivity and income improvement, and helping the people work with government so they can help in defining and implementing a common development agenda.

I was being interviewed yesterday and I was relating that in one my conversations with a Mindanaoan, it seems like there’s a big difference in the paradigm among the Lumads and the Muslim tribes and the Christians on the nature of land ownership. Our laws which are pattered after yours, perhaps based on the Roman concept that if you own land and title to the land, you own it from town all the way up to the sky. Well like the American Indians perhaps the concept of land ownership among the tribes is different. You are steward of the land if you are head man of the tribe but your responsibility is to make sure that every one of your tribe gets to benefit from the produce of the land, and you do not have the right to alienate the land yourself, to be given to the next generation to whom you owe a debt of honor, to transfer the land at least at the same state or better state than you found it. Well these are two different paradigms, but the government in Manila has a Roman paradigm, so somebody comes in and says, this land is mine, and they get a title. The tribe says what are you talking about, this is yours? This has been with me for thousands of years-you try to come and take it. Now there’s a new law that recognizes rights of tribal groups over their ancestral lands. It is now being slowly rolled out and implemented. It took some time for everybody to understand this difference, but at least there is some attempt at a solution reconciling these different paradigms, but we have some ways to go. We hope to make substantial impact in the next 5 years. We have allocated a small sum, PhP1.6 million pesos [32,000 dollars] for relief, rehabilitation, and start-up projects, and are raising PhP80 million pesos to fund our programs in the next 5 years. We don’t have a lot of money, so we have to work with what we have. However, the board asks the staff, don’t think of resource constraints. You tell us how much you think you can spend effectively over the next 5 years, and leave to us the job of finding the money. So our staff says, okay, we need PhP2 billions, 40 million dollars over the next five years, PhP400 million, about three and a half times what we used to spend yearly on all the programs all over the country. That’s the number we are trying to work with. 40 million dollars over the next five years. Where do we get the money? I don’t have any idea yet, but we are talking to you.

Peace Initiatives at the Company Level

A component of our program is advocacy among companies, especially those operating in Mindanao to express their corporate citizenship by integrating conflict-sensitive policies and practices at the company level, and promoting peace by investing in the area.

Let me illustrate this with the successful case of Paglas Corporation, a banana planter and exporter. It is a member company-we are proud of it-- operating in Datu Paglas Town, Central Mindanao, right in the middle of ARMM.

For many years, the town was characterized by underdevelopment and inter-ethnic violence between the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front) and the ILAGA (Christian Paramilitary Group). Today, it has become a peaceful community, employment opportunities have increased dramatically, and the once half-empty school is full of children. Over 2,000 farmers, mostly Muslims, are employed in its thriving 1,300-hectare banana plantation.

This change is largely due to the vision and effort and chutzpah of one man, Datu Ibrahim III Paglas, Toto for short. When he became the town’s mayor, Datu Paglas made it clear that he will not tolerate criminal or terrorist activities in his town. He used his influence as the current “padres de familias,” or headman, “datu” of an old and respected family, as well as his ties to many MILF commanders, including Chairman Salamat to improve the town’s peace and order situation.

Committing his family’s landholdings and persuading other landowners to do the same, he convinced investors from Manila, from Italy, Saudi Arabia, and the United States to finance the setting up of a banana plantation.

The Business Case and Peace

After four years, business is looking healthy and more than sustainable. In another 2-3 years, the investors believe that this plantation can be one of the most profitable export banana plantation in the Philippines. 7.3 million tons of bananas have been produced to date (annual production being 4.7-5.3 million boxes) and have been exported to Japan, China, Korea and the Middle East. State-of-the-art irrigation technology is provided by an Israeli engineering firm.

Initially Christian plantation workers, came from General Santos, Cotabato and the surrounding regions, were brought in as trainers and supervisors. Toto Paglas gave them his personal assurance that they wouldn't be harmed, he put the Christians under his personal protection, and even located their accommodations close to his.

Today the Muslims and Christians work side by side in harmony, and the Christians are no longer seen as "trainers" or any more skilled than the Muslim employees. Workshops were organized to increase understanding between the two cultures, and religious leaders from both sides have been brought in to give seminars on Islam and Christianity. They told everyone, we pray to the same God, we just call him his different names. Allah, Yahweh, Elohim, Christ, God the Father. Whatever you call him, he is the same God. The Christian workers describe how they avoid eating pork at lunchtime in front of their Muslim colleagues. They have to be culturally sensitive, which is one of the things our previous president did very badly. After the military overran the main MILF camp, what did they eat? Roasted pork. Talk about cultural insensitivity.

Chairman Salamat, after being assured that the company’s intention was to bring development to the town, gave his personal assurance that the town of Datu Paglas would be considered a "no-go zone" for the MILF and that no personnel, equipment or transport vehicle of either La Frutera, the area’s foreign investor or the Paglas Corporation would not be harmed. There has not been one incident of criminal activity against the companies since their inception. When compared to the enormous sums invested in security by businesses operating in other parts of the ARMM and even other regions of Mindanao, this is really astounding.

When the conflict between the MILF and the government forces broke out again in early 2000, the ex-MILF Muslims working in the plantation offered to rejoin the MILF. But Chairman Salamat issued an official announcement that all plantation workers were to remain with their jobs. He is quoted as saying: "We can have no peace without development. The success of this plantation is critical to the peaceful future of Muslim Mindanao. The world must be shown that business can be done here and that economic investment in our area is viable." The investors stress that no protection money has ever been paid, and absolutely no donations have been made by either company to the MILF, nor have there been any financial solicitations, direct or indirect, from the MILF itself.

The combination of Datu Paglas’s leadership and vision, the willingness of the people to work for peace and development, complemented with the implementation of conflict-sensitive company policies, have helped bring peace and prosperity at least in one town, in Datu Paglas. It ought to be replicated in town after town after town.

To help companies operating in Mindanao undertake programs that promote peace and development, we in PBSP are partnering with the British Embassy in Manila, the International Business Leaders Forum, and International Alert to help companies develop policies and practices which can contribute directly to long-term peace in Mindanao. These include:

• Awareness-raising practices with companies, focusing on promoting the positive role they can play in peace-building through adopting conflict-sensitive policies;
• Policy review: helping companies work through existing policies and develop new ones to promote tolerance, diversity, and conflict-sensitive practices;
• Brokering links between larger companies and small and medium enterprise development programs, to utilize existing business expertise in helping to stimulate economic activity through skills transfer and mentoring programs.
• Capacity-building local partner NGOs to manage a corporate engagement program on business and peace building in Mindanao.

And these, ladies and gentlemen, are some of the strategic contributions that business can and do make in the Philippines in helping promote peace in conflict areas. As responsible business leaders, we need to plough back to society a portion of the wealth generated from and through it, we actually cannot do anything less for our people.

Thank you and good morning.

Video Screening

Questions and Answer Session

I have to beg forgiveness because I do not have direct personal experience with this project. I came to know about it. I can come back to you with an answer. It is a jewel in the rough, my sense is that it is not replicable yet. I have also a copy of a more extensive write-up on the place. It might encourage someone to go there and to do something similar. But several PBSP members operate in Mindanao. The Peace and Development Initiative was started out and advocated by two members: Paul Dominguez is married into a family very active in Mindanao in cement, electricity production and logging and timber ventures as well as Luisito Lorenzo head of Lapanday Holdings which now owns Del Monte which has large plantations in Mindanao. They would wish Mindanao to be peaceful because it is right in their backyard of their business. That is kind of how we operate. A member company of a trustee gets interested in an area, commits resources behind an interest and PBSP is always ready to provide the technical assistance, manpower and experience base to help the member company to spend the money he wants to spend in social development.

Question

It was very inspiring to see so many programs that have an effect on so many levels of society. I was wondering if you could give us some insight into some experience. For example in many instances, it is often a few people who are leaders of extremist group of some interest that causes a difficult time to get many people to work together. Is there anything that was learned in this process, especially early on that tried to get the people involved in some of the things that you did.

Ricardo Pascua

I have to give you a personal view. Sometimes it is best to sit down, shut up and listen. Then you can find out what is it that really hurts him. If he gets to appreciate that you are really listening, then you don't have to even agree but he will begin to trust you. In my own experience, I seek first to understand before seeking to be understood. At some level.,

Question

(NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies Professor) What are you doing in Mindando to promote industrial exports? Question regarding multinational exports and localizing export operations strictly to Philippine businesses.

Ricardo Pascua

Member companies do those individually. PBSP is really an NGO that is oriented toward raising funding toward social development work and its membership is composed of the largest businesses in the country. So PBSP is outside the direct purview to engage in business ventures. However as I understand it, again I’m not from government, but the Trade and Industry Department is promoting a set of economic clusters focusing on where the Philippines may be competitive.

I think one of the highest priorities is being given to the export of information and communications technology products and services because the operating hypothesis being that with a large English-speaking and trainable population and even now the Philippines being second to India in Asia in terms of export of software and communications and technology services, it might be an area where the Philippines could be better than its competitor countries.

In Mindanao, I understand that there are some agro-industrial operations. You see, this is again a personal view, if all you do is provide labor, just hands, and you import all of the inputs that is then re-exported, it may actually create for you export enclaves with very little linkage backward into the country. While if you make use of your agricultural base where two-thirds of the population live and create more value for what you export that is grown from the land, not only do you have a lot of value added locally you also impact a larger base of the population. Now Mindanao is great agricultural land, it does not have typhoons, it rains every afternoon in many parts of Mindanao so their land is rich. That’s why there are a couple of large pineapple plantations and banana plantations thrive. But the better agency to work with for pure business venture is not PBSP, but more the Department of Trade and Industry, which promotes export in the form of investments, and there is a Philippine Export Zone Authority which has created or incentivized specific export zone areas and there are some in Mindanao where industrial export activity is encouraged with a lot of incentives. So that would be the place where information or a more complete set of information and institutional support might be found to find export-oriented industrial investment opportunities, less the PBSP.

Question

(NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies Professor) Regarding Philippine businesses exporting more, creating local jobs. Can PBSP help with this effort locally?

PBSP doesn’t really have to do that because a lot of people are doing that on their own. There is a lot of initiative on the corporate level to make sure that they don’t get swamped by the tyrant tidal wave of globalization that is coming. We will have to be preaching to the converted. If we do that PBSP will be stepping out of our purview. There are many other things PBSP could be doing that’s right up its alley, but preaching to its membership to be more globally competitive will be preaching to the converted. But each business has to figure out what it’s best at doing and they’ll do that business themselves.

Question

I noticed that most of these programs focused on men. What are the women’s issues that are addressed in Mindanao, given the cultural differences?

Ricardo Pascua

I don’t have any personal knowledge but let me perhaps give an anecdote. In my experience, never lend to the men. You always lend to the women. The women pay, the men you’re not sure. That’s true, all the microfinance operations themselves are composed of the housewives. They are really more trustworthy with money, but I don’t have any personal knowledge of what specific women’s issues are addressed. I’m sorry. Beth, can you get the name and number and email and get back to them somehow.

Representative, Consul General of the Philippines

I just wanted to inform you as a follow-up to the question of Rita Villadiego from the Philippine Express. The Philippine Consulate in fact has a partnership program of poverty alleviation in the Philippines, and it’s basically asking the community to cooperate and support common projects rather than disparate efforts and we have been very successful. The first year, we supported a hemp project and a microfinance project with UNDP. And as you said, it started in women in the most depressed areas in the Philippines because studies have shown that they are the most effective. Studies have shown that they pay their loans, 95 percent of the program has been successful. In fact I’ve had initial discussions with PBSP in Manila, and I’d like to convey to you that we are very interested in partnering with PBSP in helping us find funds for them. And in fact we’ve had initial discussions with United Way and other foundations so that they can mobilize resources to help with projects in the Philippines, and I’d like to invite the people who are here today who have interest in helping the Philippines. We would be very happy to partner with you in any way we can, whether doing due diligence, looking for right projects, or monitoring the right projects for you, because we’ve already established linkages with the Philippines. And in fact, I’d like to inform Mr. Pascua that we have elevated it to the level of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and hopefully the new ambassador from the Philippines to the United States will be taking on this project also, so all the folks in the United States will be able to do the same.

Ricardo Pascua

The new ambassador of the Philippines we’ve just confirmed, is a member of our board, Chairman of our executive committee and a good friend of mine, Mr. del Rosario. We’ll have to make sure that he does not forget PBSP and our Mindanao project when he gets here.

S. Bruce Shearer

I wanted to make a comment about the fundraising and about the work in general. In terms of the fundraising, many countries have created “Friends of” organizations within the United States to receive tax deductions, and there are so many different ways and opportunities to give… that these “Friends of” can be kind of a portal into giving various gifts to Asia. So I think what we could do after this is talk a little bit afterwards in creating some sort of a website and perhaps a “Friends of the Philippines” group which perhaps already exists. And I’d like to invite anybody who would like to participate to give us your name and number so we can involve you.

I wanted to say just a word about the incredible program we've heard here. So much of effort to resolve conflicts, governmental efforts, multi-lateral efforts, United Nations efforts, in terms of policy, how do we get the policy framework right, the economic framework right, with the IMF and World Bank, but we also forget that on the ground, it’s people and leadership of the kind that you've seen today that is making the difference. Thirty-two thousand dollars, or a five-year budget of, forty-eight million dollars, and unless that piece is in place, then all this policy, all this putting in place of boundaries around the conflict, all of the efforts of finance and funding, World Bank involvement, it doesn’t go anywhere. This is the kind of working capital that I think PBSP represents is the local business communities putting forward its money first, and mobilizing local people and localizing communities. So I really think this is a key issue for all of us who are interested in development everywhere. This is a model that is beginning to grow, but it’s a scale that’s so small. In a scale compared to the resources available to it, is so small. Many greater organizations in this room, if we can all in our various capacities, there are many great organizations in this room. Trickle Up and many others are with us, if we can all try to find ways to build on this trend that PBSP is leading, that would be terrific.

Maria Glenda Ramirez, NYU Global Public Service Fellow.

Question on human rights principles being integrated with the companies’ activities, where they think the challenge is, if these principles can be adopted in activities of developing countries. If members of PBSP are to moving to integrating human rights principles in mission statements or in practice.

Ricardo Pascua

Well, at the very least, respect of human rights is implied in what we do. And at best, I believe it might be actually explicitly addressed. I think human rights begins with an ability to give the guy the dignity that is proper to him as somebody saved by the blood of Christ. You cannot not respect a human being because each one is a beneficiary of the blood shed by Christ on the cross. It doesn’t matter if he’s Muslim, Buddhist, whatever. He is still a beneficiary. And what we do at PBSP I think that is at least implied because if you get him clothed, fed, housed, you are already responding to the question of the king at the end of your life. What did you do? I was hungry, did you feed me? I was thirsty, did you give me a drink? I was naked, did you clothe me? Now beyond that, what we are advocating is a market system, a humane market system with heart that preserves the individual peoples and preserves the ability of the citizen to make individual choices for his own good as against a totalitarian system that we set up a model against in 1970. I think a market system with a heart humanely implemented is the best chance for human rights to flower. So at the very least that we do implies respect for human rights, at the very best it is explicitly addressed.

Comment

I would say that at a conservative estimate is that there are at least 20,000 Filipino or Filipino-American graduates here. Huge, huge potential

Question

Thank you very much for your program. My name is Beth. My question goes to your personal views. I’d be very interested to hear your motivation in getting your company involved in initiatives generally and specifically what you might say to your peers in the business world, who say business is just a business. What can you tell them?

Ricardo Pascua

Well, I’d say that human motivation is complex, and when you take an action, you are usually trying to achieve a multiple set of objectives so getting involved in corporate social responsibility for me personally achieves several multiple objectives. At the highest level of objectives, to respond to my ethical values. I am a professed Christian, a practicing Catholic. I am a member of a Charismatic group. I believe as I said that every person is a beneficiary of the blood shed by Christ on the cross so when I help my fellow man, I am responding to the call Christ is making to everyone to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, give house to the homeless, visit the sick. That’s number one. Second, just on a human level, there ought not to be anybody that is allowed to live below human dignity. We might not be able to solve all the world’s problems, but you have to do a little bit that you can. And then since I’ve been graced with the ability to steward the resources the corporation is available to it, that’s one of the graces I’ve been given that I’ve been asked to use to respond to this call, and by the way… it’s not bad business. For example, at the PBSP board meetings, you sit around the table with some of the senior businessmen of the country: people you do business with, some are competitors, some are suppliers, clients, your customers and some are coworkers or syndicate members or partners. You develop a personal relationship with them outside of the business world, that allows you to get to know him and for them to get to know you at a personal human level and apart from projects, we get the ability to horse around like kids again, you know jump off boats and into the sea when we visit Mactan Bay Plantation and go out and plant trees and be like kids again. Hey! When I got something to ask my colleague in PBSP on a real business level, it makes the job easier. Because he knows me, I know him… it makes the business transaction run smoother. I’ll probably get a little bit of a better deal because I know him so action like this allows me to achieve a multiple set of objectives.