FILIPINO-Chinese business tycoon Lucio Tan impressed students and faculty members with his humility when he received an honorary degree from the Lyceum-Northwestern University during its commencement exercises at CSI Stadia here on Monday.

The chief executive officer of the Lucio Tan Group of Companies, composed of 18 big corporations in the Philippines and abroad, received the degree of Doctor of Humanities in Business Entrepreneurship, honoris causa.

“This rite, just like the previous rites that granted me an honoris causa, humbles me again,” Tan said, speaking before the students, their parents and faculty members.

The LNU officials were led by Dr. Gonzalo Duque, president, who served one time as vice governor of Pangasinan.

It was Tan’s 10th honorary degree from as many prestigious universities in the country, but only his first from a university in Region I.

He confided that while the award recognizes what had he become, the same rite brought him back to memory lane.
In his speech, Tan confessed that the seeds of business entrepreneurship were planted in him by his experience in life, by the experience of survival not only of self but of protecting and providing for his parents, brothers and sisters and eventually his wife and children.

“I was in my teen years doing menial work at Divisoria Market. One day, I saw this old woman buying a few kilos of rice, no there was no rice shortage then, but a few kilos was all she could afford to buy.

He said after counting every bill and coin from her purse to pay the storekeeper, she walked away slowly carrying her precious load. Suddenly, he said, the sides of the plastic bag that contained the rice burst wide open and everything lay scattered on the ground.

On seeing this, the young Tan ran to help the woman scrape from the ground every grain of rice.

After this incident, Tan started looking for a plastic bag that was dependable, strong enough to carry a heavy load and once he found this bag and its source, he started vending it, running around among storeowners whose commodities were weighty.

That was his launching pad, he said, as a top rate entrepreneur that soon catapulted him to put up several multi-million, then multi-billion peso business conglomerate here and abroad.

“Business and Entrepreneurship are like bread and butter. They are inseparable. One engages in entrepreneurship to gain from business,” he said.

Tan believes that entrepreneurship must be customer-centered, adding that as one recognizes the opportunity to business, he sees also the customer’s need and cash-capability to support the business.

“Entrepreneurship for the entrepreneur is an opportunity to serve others. It is not just about making money,” he emphasized.

He believes that business and entrepreneurship must be “other-centered” embedded in one’s life mission.