Ramon S. Ang: the Philippines’ next president?

THE country’s politics is up for upheaval and major alignments amidst rumor that San Miguel Corporation (SMC) president and co-chairman, Ramon S. Ang, is seriously considering making the biggest gamble of his life, as the next Philippine president.

Pinoy Exposé gathered that already, two meetings of a supposed newly-organized “political core group” of “RSA” (the initials of Ang), had been held since December 2020, to map out the initial campaign “strategy” for his candidacy.

The first meeting, this paper gathered, took place just a week before Christmas while the second meeting happened just right after the New Year, with both meetings being held at a popular restaurant along Tomas Morato, Quezon City.

It was further gathered that there were “17 persons present” during the first meeting but this was trimmed down to just 10 persons in the next meeting.

More than qualified to run

For RSA to seek the presidency is understandable enough—he has the (personal) money to finance his candidacy, without the need to woo the country’s political elite and the business oligarchs for their support.

And being up-close and personal with politicians of all sorts, from the lowest to the highest and his wide experience as a top businessman and keen political observer, RSA definitely has his own set of ideas on how to propel the country forward.

Forbes magazine estimated that as of January 23, 2021, RSA has a net worth of $2.4 billion (P120 billion), more than sufficient to finance whatever is the cost of conducting a sustained national campaign for the presidency (an average of P5 billion based on past experience).

As such, he would never be “beholden” to any of his business rivals, the country’s oligarchs such as the Ayalas, Zobels, Lopezes, Pangilinan, Gokongweis, Sys, etc., etc., to help finance his presidential candidacy.

That all candidates for national office, the presidency in particular, had to resort to asking financial support from the oligarchs, is a political reality in the country since it gained political independence from the United States in 1946.

And as the arrangement goes, an elected Philippine president always “repays” his financial backers during the campaign with lucrative government projects and access to political influence and say-so in business policy decisions and more often times to the detriment of the interest and welfare of ordinary Filipinos.

Unlike also the country’s oligarchs such as Pangilinan, the Ayalas and the Lopezes and the country’s political elites such as the Aquinos, Roxases, Cojuangcos and Laurels, who were “born with a silver spoon” but whose family backgrounds were stained with treasonous relationship with the country’s foreign occupiers from Spain, the United States and Japan and presently, with the oligarchs of other countries, RSA has always been known as a “self-made man,” a fact he is always been proud to look back to.

The available information on RSA disclosed that unlike his rivals in business, he had to work his way up to the very top of the SMC with his close friendship and loyalty to Amb. Eduardo ‘Danding’ Cojuangco (who died last June 16, 2020) and his personal qualities as a businessman his main “assets” in all the personal success he has achieved all these years.

In other words, RSA can identify with the plight of the ordinary workers to the problems of entrepreneurs and business groups who need help in order for them to prosper.

In other words, his political enemies, should he decide to join the 2022 presidential contest, would have to scratch the “bottom of the barrel,” so to speak, and would still come out wanting of any issue that can be thrown against him that would be sufficient to smear his name and reputation before the electorate.

‘Corporate Social Responsibility’

A submitted entry at Bath University, UK, available at the Internet, had listed SMC at the top of the country’s 10 biggest corporations in terms of “CSR” (corporate social responsibility), followed in the top 5 positions by Nestle, Accenture, Pilipinas Shell and Procter &Gamble.

Titled, “Lifting lives for good,” the article, submitted for the academic year, 2018/2019, explained that recognizing the breadth of its business portfolio and the extent of its resources has put SMC in the “unique position to make a difference to many,” SMC’s CSR focused its attention to education, health and nutrition, environment and housing and rehabilitation.

All these can be probably attributed to RSA’s humble beginnings and which should partly explain his being the most “sensitive” among the country’s top businessmen in attending to the needs of the marginalized sectors and in helping the government in addressing their needs.

Particularly last year, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the SMC group has been on the forefront of assisting the government in addressing the problems brought about by the pandemic.

Aside from setting aside P500 million just to help combat the pandemic, the SMC Group is on record of procuring some 54,000 sets of PPEs (personal protective equipment) badly needed by the country’s health frontliners; 10,000 of these, available information disclosed, are “locally-made,” thus helping the country build the capacity and capability to produce this very essential item when the next health crisis strikes.

SMC also donated ventilators to five hospitals; to address the shortage in disinfectant, SMC also
“repurpose” the manufacturing facilities of its liquor subsidiary, Ginebra San Miguel (GSM), to produce 1 million liters of 70 percent ethyl alcohol, worth more than P83 million.

All these, of course, do not translate into political campaigning but the goodwill for SMC and RSA they developed from those whose lives they touched are all political points that can benefit him when he starts his quest for the presidency next year.

When Cojuangco threw his hat in the 1992 presidential race, the one political baggage he has was his close association with Pres. Ferdinand Marcos and his martial law regime.

But Ang has no such political baggage with him and with the political opposition totally discredited thus offering opportunities for “fresh faces” in next year’s polls, RSA may probably end up as the country’s first businessman to be elected as president.