75

On Nov. 25, 2023, I turn 75. The day also marks the 22nd anniversary of my BizNewsAsia weekly business and news magazine. And my 53 years of professional journalism. I consider it also my Thanksgiving Day.

I covered and witnessed all kinds of events – fires, crimes, massacres, massive floods, plane crashes, epidemics, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, three EDSA revolts, 14 coup attempts, the world’s two longest insurgencies – the NPA and Muslim separatism. I interviewed presidents, from Marcos I to Marcos II.

It has been an exhilarating, fulfilling journey, one marked by more triumphal ups than depressing downs. On balance I could not have asked for more in life. I am a product of public elementary and high schools when state education was the best in Asia. I graduated with honors in Tondo and would not have finished college were it not for a four-year scholarship I won after topping a citywide competitive exam.

I finished journalism at UST, magna cum laude, with minor in economics and marketing. I took up three semesters of MBA at Ateneo Padre Faura. I didn’t learn much that is new except for the technical aspects of reading a balance sheet and analyzing problems with numbers. I attended economics and banking courses. I finished global journalism at the University of Stockholm.

BizNewsAsia is a publishing success story. It took off greatly and never lost ground, despite three years of COVID and its after effects. While many publications closed shop and lost their moorings, BizNewsAsia instead grew in strength, thanks to my business friends.

For this reason, I thank my business friends who have been with me, no matter the state of the economic and political weather.

I am particularly grateful to Ramon S. Ang, godfather to two of my married daughters. He lends you genuine friendship money cannot measure nor buy. When he heard I collapsed after a long trip, he sent his best doctor to check on me. When I had a head-on collision, a tow truck was there in 30 minutes and had my damaged SUV parked in a friend’s expensive garage forever. When I asked for one page of magazine ad, he instead offered two each week.

In two decades, RSA re-engineered San Miguel Corp. into a