From Robina Gokongwei-Pe’s speech during the PMAAAI general membership meeting: “He (Lacson) he is my hero. He and his team represented what good police work actually looks like. Calm. Methodical. Professional. No shortcuts. No favors. Just doing the job the right way.”

Lessons I Learned as a Grateful Civilian

Speech of Robina Gokongwei-Pe during the PMAAAI Annual General Membership Meeting, 24 January 2026

Good morning, distinguished Cavaliers—to those currently in active service; to those who have retired from formal service but continue to serve in many other ways; and to everyone joining us today, both in person and online—to all members of the PMAAAI, thank you for having me. I’m very glad to be here.

I’m very aware that I’m speaking to you as a civilian. I never wore a uniform. I didn’t go through the PMA’s rigor. I didn’t experience the kind of training and active service you all did. But I have lived a civilian life that only worked because people like you were doing your jobs, quietly and consistently, and without expecting recognition.

So, I’m not here to give advice. That would be funny. I’m here to share a few things I learned along the way, lessons I got to learn as a grateful civilian who has gotten to live a fairly ordinary life thanks to people like you.

Now, I do have one photo (see above) that serves as the only evidence of my “military career.” I was a senior at the Immaculate Conception Academy in Greenhills in 1978, and this was during our Citizen’s Military Training (CMT). I’m the girl on the left sitting on the ledge. This is as far as I went when it came to military service.

We spent two nights in Batulao learning how to live inside a tent in the mountains with only portable toilets available. And honestly, even that was already a blessing. Imagine if there were none!

That little CMT and Batulao experience taught me this: courage is not a personality trait. It is a habit. And the first person who taught me that was my father.

This is my father, John Gokongwei Jr. He passed away six years ago, so some of you may not know him anymore. He once said this: “…I chose to live my life unafraid even during times when I was afraid. I discovered that opportunities don’t find you; you find your opportunities.”

For a long time, I thought “unafraid” meant fearless. Later on, I realized it meant something else. Fear does not disappear. You just do not let it decide for you.

When my father was 17, he would travel on a small boat called a batel, from Cebu toward Lucena, then take a truck to Manila. He talked about reading Gone With the Wind on those long trips, while always watching out for bad weather and even sea pirates. On one trip, the batel hit a rock and sank. Their “life vests” were rubber tires, which happened to be the cargo my father was bringing to Manila to sell. Everyone held on to those tires. In his words, the tires kept the passengers afloat, and the passengers kept his tires afloat too. That is the kind of courage I understood from him early on. Practical. Calm. Shared.

I imagine that idea is familiar to many of you. Training does not remove fear. It teaches you how to function with it. You assess. You decide. You move. You take care of the people beside you.

Courage, after all, is not about winning every battle. It is staying steady when things do not go your way, and still doing what needs to be done.

And that mindset didn’t just shape how he handled setbacks. It shaped how everything started. When people look at our companies today, it’s easy to assume there was a clear plan from the beginning. There wasn’t. What there was, was a willingness to work, to adapt, and to respond to circumstances as they changed.

This is my father at a point when people already recognized his name. But this is not where the story begins. By the time this photo was taken, many of the hardest lessons had already been learned. But a significant aspect of Mr. John’s legacy was his determination to drive Philippine industrialization, which manifested into founding some of the country’s market-leading companies.

This photo was taken in 1939. That is my father on the right in a necktie with his parents and siblings in Cebu. This was a comfortable family.

My grandfather, John Gokongwei Sr., owned a chain of movie theaters. There was stability. There was a sense that life was on a predictable path. But although stability can exist, it can also disappear.

Very suddenly, my grandfather died. They found out that the businesses were tied up to various creditors and now the creditors were looking to collect. That’s what happens when you are too nice and you give tickets away for free. It was a big mess. The banks confiscated all his cinemas.

My father was only 13 years old. Almost overnight, the stability you saw in those earlier photos disappeared. As the eldest son, he had to grow up overnight. His younger siblings were sent to China to live with relatives while my dad and my grandmother Lola Juanita stayed here to work.

This photo was taken in 1952. By this time, my father’s siblings had returned from China, and the family was once again in a more stable place. The boy in shorts on the right is my Uncle James, who currently serves as Chairman of the Gokongwei Group.

Having lived through loss and instability at a young age, my father never assumed that stability was permanent. He treated it as something that had to be protected, worked for, and renewed.

That sense of continuity, of responsibility passed on, is something I think many of you understand very well. So, lesson No. 1, stability isn’t something you inherit once and forget. It’s something each generation has to earn again and nurture.

This was my father’s first major manufacturing venture, the cornstarch business (see photo above). It marked a real shift. He went from trading and selling, to building something that depended on systems, processes, and people working together every day.

You’ll notice this older gentleman on the right. He was a retired executive from Procter & Gamble. My father hired him very deliberately. Not for prestige, but to help put proper systems in place.

That willingness to bring in expertise, even when it comes from outside, became an important part of how the business was run. This was also the stage where leadership became less about doing things yourself, and more about enabling others to do their jobs well.

This brings me to the second lesson. You don’t build institutions only through strategy. You build them through relationships, day after day.

This photo was taken in 1966 when my dad was awarding his best salesmen. The photo looks pretty simple. A handshake. People standing around with their paper ribbons like when we were in school and awarded most quiet or most friendly.

But this is where institutions actually take shape. My father spent a lot of time with people. Not just in meetings, but in ordinary interactions. Listening. Explaining. Understanding.

Leadership, at least as I saw it, was very personal. And I think that’s something many of you recognize. Institutions don’t hold together because of policies alone. They hold together because of relationships that have been tested over time.

On weekends, my father would take me with him to Makati Supermarket at the Makati Commercial Center, now Ayala Center.

He was checking on his stock of Blend 45 coffee and looking at the shelves to see if his products sold. He would leave me at the horsey-horsey ride.

I liked going. Partly because of the ride. But mostly because there was a big book section. I was allowed to choose any book I wanted.

This was leadership by example. Work didn’t stop because it was a weekend. You didn’t simply rely only on reports. You paid attention to details because they mattered. No one explained that to me. I just watched it happen. And when that’s what you see early on, that’s what you learn.

During the lockdowns, I decided to recreate this old Presto ad with me on it. I was 9 years old. My father was so kuripot that he made me the model!

My father had very simple rules when it came to money and growth. One of them was this. If your business is still small, keep your expenses small too. It wasn’t about being cheap. He paid attention to costs the same way he paid attention to shelves.

Even when the business began to grow, that habit stayed. He didn’t spend ahead of results. He didn’t assume good times would last forever. He believed you earned the right to expand by being careful first and that discipline isn’t something you turn on during a crisis.

By the way, that slogan “Isang kagat, dalawang sarap!” would never pass the censors now!

In 1969, when my father opened Cebu Foodarama, our first supermarket. It no longer exists today, and the business eventually moved to Robinsons Fuente. But this was his entry point into modern retail.

Retail may look ordinary from the outside, but it’s actually very exposed. You’re dealing with people, cash, supply, logistics, small margins, all at once. There’s nowhere to hide inefficiency.

That visibility forces discipline. And it teaches you very quickly what works and what doesn’t.

While all of this was happening on the business side, I was doing what most young people my age were doing. I was trying to get through school.

As some of you were entering the PMA, I was also entering UP Diliman. But not into a quota course. I did not make the grade for that. I got into a non-quota course and I was just very grateful to be admitted at all. And like how I imagine the PMA is, UP was a humbling experience for me.

It taught me how to struggle in a system that did not adjust itself to me. You either kept up, or you figured out how to work harder, or you failed and moved on.

Some of you here may unfortunately be old enough to remember this. Unfortunate because that means you’re probably a senior citizen already! But for the young ones, on August 20, 1981, my cousin and I were kidnapped on our way to school. It happened at the corner of P. Tuazon and C. Benitez in front of Camp Panopio, in broad daylight. It was an ordinary morning. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

As the case unfolded, what became clear was that this was not a random crime. Some of the people involved in the kidnapping were former police officers. The alleged mastermind was the son of a Cebu judge. These were people who understood authority better than most. They knew how power moved. And they used that knowledge for the wrong reasons.

That experience taught me something very clear. Authority, on its own, does not guarantee integrity. And experience, without accountability, can become dangerous. That’s why things only work when there are consequences. When rank, position, or connections do not put anyone above the law.

After all of that, this is the part that matters most to me. We were found and rescued because there were people on the other side who did their jobs. People who followed leads, coordinated, and did not look the other way.

One of them was a young Lieutenant Colonel at the time, Panfilo Lacson. I say this very simply and very personally: he is my hero. He and his team represented what good police work actually looks like. Calm. Methodical. Professional. No shortcuts. No favors. Just doing the job the right way.

I am here today because someone took that responsibility seriously. Safety does not come from luck. It comes from people who do the right thing, especially when it is difficult and when no one is watching.

The kidnapping was later featured in the movie “Ping Lacson: Super Cop” starring the late Rudy Fernandez as Ping Lacson and Angel Locsin as the young me. So, just to set the record straight, no, I was NOT kidnapped at UP jogging in sports bra with long flowy hair! In fairness, bagay si Rudy Fernandez as Senator Ping kasi pareho silang pogi pero maybe hindi masyadong bagay si Angel Locsin as the young me kasi naman look at my short hair at the time! I looked more like an Angel Locsin.

Every now and then, the real-life cast catches up. Here I am with my hero Senator Ping, who by the way is from the Class of ’71, and Class of ’88 member Michael Ray Aquino. We are now definitely older. In the movie version, we all seemed to be running all the time. Maybe we got wiser too, because these days we know that it is better to sit down and just talk about the latest episode of Batang Quiapo.

I gave Senator Ping two books from our family: Lessons from Dad: John Gokongwei, Jr., written by my brother Lance, and another book on my parents, John and Elizabeth.

After everything that happened, life did what it always does. It moved forward. 25 TABO?!?!

I joined Robinsons Retail in August 1984, at 23, as a management trainee, when it was still basically a one-store business. No special treatment. No shortcuts. I started where I was needed: on the floor and in the back, learning the work the unglamorous way. Yes, including inventory meaning manually counting panties and bras and briefs. Of course, there’s the ever-present tabo because there’s always a leak somewhere! I know that rhythm is familiar to many of you. Before rank. Before command. When you learn leadership by being present where the work is. That stage matters, because once you’ve carried the load yourself, you don’t forget what it feels like. You give clearer orders, make fairer calls, and lead with respect.

I became a store manager at 25. Here I am with my department heads . And right beside me is Tukmol.

Let me tell you the story of Tukmol. No one really knew where he came from, or who his parents were. Even he didn’t know. He was always around Ermita, hanging outside the mall, and I would see him there, loitering, watching, looking for customers. He was a pimp.

I offered him a simple deal. Come work with me. I will give you a regular salary. You make my coffee, carry my bag, do honest, basic work. And with something steady, maybe you can even go back to school. He agreed, at least for a while. Tukmol stayed a couple of weeks. Then he disappeared.

Months later, he showed up again. Same place, same life. He told me he went back to pimping because it paid more. Faster money. Bigger money. Cash today.

And that, to me, is the cycle of poverty that traps so many Filipinos. We reach for the quick payout, even when it’s risky and unstable, because the long route feels too slow. We expect a lot of money now. We choose the shortcut, even when a steady job, boring as it looks, would have kept us safe and moving forward little by little.

That’s why this lesson matters. Be patient. Don’t take shortcuts. And if you’re going into business, definitely don’t expect to make a lot of money in your first year.

Now this is me and my brother Lance. Being the ate, I was a bit bossy. Little did I know that he would become my boss. Sometimes the person you used to boss around ends up being the one who has your back when it matters. I know many of you can relate. In your line of work, you don’t get through missions, operations, or long nights on duty by acting like a one-person show. You get through it because you trust your team, you respect the people beside you, and you don’t treat anyone like they’re “lower” just because you outrank them. So yes, don’t be a bully.

Not because it sounds nice, but because leadership is a long game. And sooner or later, you will need the people you’re with today, especially the ones you almost didn’t listen to. Of course, the only time Lance and I argue is when there is a UP vs. Ateneo game!

In May 2018, 34 years after joining Robinsons Retail as a tindera, and at an ancient age of 57, I was appointed President and CEO.

Last year, I got kicked upstairs as Chairman of the company and I am now a full-time Squid Game doll with my eyes glowing red if I see something silly going around. Unfortunately, I am not as cute as the doll anymore!

There was a time when a rumor went around that I had a snake twin. A literal half man, half snake twin. Somewhere out there, slithering around, living its best life. Rumors are like snakes.

The more you poke them, the more they move. The more you try to “explain,” the more they grow fangs.

In business, you will always have snake stories. Someone heard something as told to them by someone. Everyone suddenly becomes an intelligence officer. Marites! But here’s what I learned.

If it is not true, do not feed it with airtime. If it is true, handle it properly and through the right channels, not through whispers. Because when leaders spend their day chasing rumors, the real work slows down. And the only thing that benefits from that is my snake twin.

This one is from July 2025. There was a big typhoon passing through Luzon so there was a lot of rain, a lot of flooding, the whole works. Some of you would have been deployed then. Similarly, our Robinsons Supermarket store manager still decided to report for duty and made a call: open the store. Because when everything is disrupted, people still need basics: water, food, medicine, diapers. A store becomes a lifeline.

A week after, she received her 26 year service award like nothing happened. That’s stewardship. Very PMA, actually. When conditions are bad, you do not just secure your post. You also think of the civilians. You keep things moving, calmly, responsibly, with a clear head.

So before I end, this is an excerpt from Senator Ping Lacson’s speech delivered during the 119th PMA Foundation Day and Recognition Rites in 2017 for the Masaligan Class of 2021: “Plebes are left with the only goal that mattered—to be leaders that set them apart from the rest, being born for a greater cause, imbued by honor, discipline and excellence.”

I love this because it puts into words what people often miss: what PMA really shapes is not just capability, but honor, discipline, and excellence, and the sense that you were trained for something bigger than yourselves.

So if I may, here is a bit of humble civilian advice to you, distinguished PMA alumni. You already gave the country your prime years. You gave it your discipline, your weekends, your sleep, your knees. So this is not a lecture. This is a practical ask. Give back to your school. Because the PMA is a factory for leadership.

If you keep that factory strong, you keep producing officers who can serve with competence and character long after all of us are retired, or gone, or just happily complaining about our back pain.

Support the cadets. Mentor the young officers. Open doors for them when they transition to civilian life. The small things matter.

Let me end with a quote from my Dad: “Success doesn’t happen overnight. It’s the small successes achieved day by day that build a company.”

In our world, that’s sales, inventory, customers, and cash flow. In your world, it’s something much bigger. It’s a country. A nation is built the same way, through thousands of steady, difficult decisions made over years. It’s built by training that never really ends. By discipline that becomes habit. By leadership that carries other people’s fears so they can keep going. By the quiet courage of being ready, again and again, even when the circumstances are not kind.

And I want to say this plainly, with deep respect: thank you for your service. Thank you for choosing a life that demands more from you than most people will ever fully understand. Thank you for the nights away from family, the missed birthdays.

Some of you are still in active service. Some of you are retired. But I hope you know, retirement does not erase what you have given. The nation continues to benefit from it. And your example continues to shape people. In uniform and outside it.

So, from a civilian who has been allowed to be a tindera and serve customers, and worry about very normal civilian things because you have taken on the harder worries, thank you.

May your days ahead be filled with the same sense of purpose you have given others. And may you keep collecting those small successes, day by day, because that is how you build anything that lasts. A company, a family, a community, and yes, a country.