J. Albert Gamboa l December 27, 2022 l Manila Bulletin
Dr. Henry Lim Bon Liong, President of the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. (FFCCCII), has nominated singer-songwriter and businessman Jose Mari Chan (JMC) as National Artist for Music.
This was announced during a recent media forum in Quezon City hosted by FFCCCII Director Wilson Lee Flores. JMC was bestowed the FFCCCII Lifetime Achievement Award during the event held at the 83-year-old Kamuning Bakery Café. The audience was stunned when JMC said: “Please don’t call me the Father of Philippine Christmas Music” because he believes there were others before him who deserved that moniker.
Time Magazine featured JMC in its digital edition last week. Let me quote excerpts from the article: “Every year by September 1, the Internet in the Philippines teems with memes of a septuagenarian, ethnically-Chinese man. Post typically feature variations of him peeking into frame. His appearance unofficially marks the start of the country’s lengthy holiday season, colloquially known as the ‘Ber months.’
“Whereas Mariah Carey’s voice may ring in the winter spirit in America, it’s Chan’s carols that have, over the past few decades, become ubiquitous throughout the final four months of every year in malls, restaurants, karaoke bars, and radio broadcasts across the archipelagic Southeast Asian nation of 110 million people.
“Chan, who considers himself first a businessman, and second a singer-songwriter, has held a lifelong love for music. Even though he had to prioritize the sugar business he inherited, he simultaneously pursued a career as an artist, releasing his first album in 1969 when he was in his early twenties.”
According to the New York Times, “In 1975, after the Philippines’ notoriously corrupt authoritarian leader Ferdinand Marcos Sr. nationalized the sugar industry in all but name, which triggered a sugar crisis in the country, Chan and his family moved to New York to pursue the family business in America. When Marcos Sr.’s dictatorship fell in 1986, they returned – and Chan, with new music, made a comeback on the airwaves.
“But it wasn’t until 1990 that Chan would record the song for which he has ultimately become most famous. He wrote it as a duet, and originally, he says, he had wanted Lea Salonga – who at the early stages of her illustrious career was already an award-winning Filipino actress and singer – to perform it with him. When label contracts prevented them from working together, however, another singer was lined up. But then that replacement developed a hoarse voice before getting to the studio. In a pinch, his then-teenage daughter Liza stepped in. ‘Christmas in Our Hearts’ went on to become a sensation.”
As a businessman, JMC is the Chair and CEO of the Binalbagan-Isabela Sugar Company, or better known as BISCOM in the province of Negros Occidental. “The sugar industry’s problem is quite large. I’m not trying to put down agrarian reform. The industry was very well run before with large estates. Then when land reform was implemented, they cut up the land into five small hectares and gave it to the poor. Of course, I was very happy that now the landless could own their land, but there was no follow through. The poor had no access to financing and technology. But it’s not too late. I think the millers and the businessmen should provide help to the beneficiaries of land reform. I’m doing that in my own sugar mill. I try to help the farmers so that they can rise again, otherwise we will be relying always on imported sugar,” he shared.
His remarks are very timely in light of the current controversy regarding President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s order to expedite the importation of 64,050 metric tons of refined sugar. Department of Agriculture (DA) Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban disclosed that Marcos Jr., concurrently the DA Secretary, was concerned about the high inflation rate of sugar.
But the biggest confederations of sugarcane planters are against the importation at this time when harvesting is at its peak. Those who expressed their opposition are the United Sugar Producers’ Federation of the Philippines, the National Federation of Sugar Workers, the Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations, the Panay Federation of Sugarcane Farmers, and the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters – who collectively represent more than 60 percent of the industry.
On the proposed revival of the Negros Island Region (NIR) that existed between 2015 and 2017, this is what JMC has to say: “The NIR is very rich in terms of productivity in the sugar industry. I agree with the proposed reunification of Negros Occidental and Oriental under one island region. The millers from both provinces should plan together and help these small farmers. As you know, our production is down to 1.8 million tons and we need about 2.4 million tons for our consumers, so we need to import 600,000 tons every year.”
Not now, though, when the milling season is peaking in the country’s sugar-producing provinces.
*** J. Albert Gamboa is a Life Member of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX). He is the Chairman of the FINEX Media Affairs Committee and the Editor-in-Chief of FINEX Digest. The opinion expressed herein does not necessarily reflect the views of these institutions and the Manila Bulletin. #FinexPhils www.finex.org.ph