ELENA SEN LIM: TAI PAN OF PHILIPPINE BUSINESS

PRESENTED TO
DR. LUIS CAMARA DERY
DE LA SALLE UNIVERSITY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE COURSE REQUIREMENTS
OF KASPIL1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Biography of Elena Sen Lim

Conclusion

Sources

The daughter of poor but hardworking shoemakers

(Evelyn and Diego Sen), Elena Sen Lim was born in Tacloban,
Leyte 80 years ago and today is credited with some of the
most successful joint ventures with Japanese and Korean
conglomerates (like Sony and Samsung) the Philippines has
ever seen. From a home with no indoor plumbing (she and a
sister used to fetch water, contained in 10-gallon pails, from a
source half a kilometer from their house in Tacloban when she
was all of 4-feet-6-in.-tall), Elena and her family now live in a
grand home in one of Makatis posh villages. The road from
Gran Capitan street in Tacloban to the Lims Makati home was
a long and arduous one, and Elena deserves the soft cushion
she lays her head on every night.

In her book, I Am What I Am (Politically

Incorrect), launched recently at the Makati Shangri-La with
over 600 of the countrys movers and shakers in attendance,
Elena shows, in easy-to-read stories about pivotal moments in
her life, why character is the template of our destiny. Elenas
stories show us why she was destined for success. How being

given a solid education by a kind priest (later to become

Archbishop Julio Cardinal Rosales), how being Imelda
Romualdezs classmate once upon a time, how being a child
waitress serving noodles to American GIs (from whom she
learned her English), among other circumstances shaped
her character and seized her future. The right-hand pages of
Elenas 342-page book bear an icon the original iron shoe
anvil from the Tacloban shoe repair shop of the Sens, where
Elenas character was also cast.

To this day, she writes in one of the first chapters of

her book entitled How do I begin, the behavioral simplicity
of my childhood community n Tacloban, which was a
nondescript town in Leyte some eight decades ago, still
dictates the way I make choices and decisions. It was all about
friendship, love, concern for one another, oneness, a touch of
youthful wild abandon, surviving deprivation together, living
through the frightful uncertainties of a world war, moving on
and trusting God.

In another part of the book, she confides, If I made

quite a few checkered choices that are too many to enumerate
in this book, it was probably because I never seemed to doubt

that I could make the best of whatever I would take on,

regardless of the odds. I was so sure that if my family and I
could grow up in deprivation in peace and in war in Tacloban,
I would make it anywhere.

She immediately explains why she lives her life

according to what she believes in, even if by doing so, she is
being, politically incorrect.

She shocked the highest echelons of government, the

powerful Keidanren (Japans most powerful business group),
and fellow Filipino businessmen when in 1986, in a speech
that was supposed to attract Japanese investment to the
Philippines, she instead told the Keidanren what critical
reforms were needed to create a more mutually beneficial
relationship between the Philippines and Japan. Elena was the
only female chosen to address the visiting Keidanren
delegation.

Elena claims that the conference staff would instantly shred

copies of my speech. But she also claims that something
good came out of it. Since she pointed out how hard it was to
line up for a Japanese visa, including lining up for hours under

the sun and the rain, physical improvements (such as awnings)

were later installed in the Japanese embassys consular
section.

Elena was hardly daunted by anything, and when you

gave her a No, it seemed like you were giving her a green
light to try harder. She enumerates many, many instances
when she was flatly turned down by people, but she simply
never gave up.

There are no defined chapters in the book, just a

collection of stories that are frank, straightforward, humorous,
awesome even. One of my favorite stories is that of her
scaling a stone mountain in Hong Kong on a dare (I thought
you used to climb mountains in Leyte as a little girl.) and an
HK $1,000 bet by her kumare. Elena took the dare and
climbed the stone mountain and midway was asked by the
frightened kumare to come down. But Elena proceeded (in
life, sometimes the only way out is up) only to receive a
shocker when she reached the top her kumare said the bet
was off!

She describes the book as akin to a diary whose

pages were scattered by the wind and quickly gathered helterskelter. In fact, you can just cut through the book, and
begin on any page and you will still end up with a clear picture
of Elena.

The trail-blazing businesswoman admits that,

despite resolute efforts at self-censorship, some stories
would, at the very least, surely pop blood vessels of some high
and mighty whom I, in good faith, could not help but
sideswipe along the way.

I am not wired for safety, she declares. As to whom

she sideswipes along the way, you just have to read the book.

But there are many people she hangs a garland of

words on, like her late widowed mother, Padre Juling (who
would later become Julio Cardinal Rosales), Sonys Dr.
Yoshida, even the late former President Cory Aquino. She
recalls that to support the crusade to awaken the people to the
injustice of Ninoy Aquinos death, she lent them a video
projector for their nationwide sorties. This way, the masses in

the provinces could watch footage of Ninoy and his

assassination.

After the nationwide tour, I was so surprised when

Cory offered to pay me for use of the projector. I declined of
course. I asked her to consider it part of our modest support to
help inform the people on a very important national issue.
However, she was insistent and I finally had to accept
payment.

I was deeply impressed by her act. Some politicians

assume that the use if rented services and equipment are
freebies.

***

Elena narrates in her book that she was with The

STARs founders the late Betty Go-Belmonte and Max
Soliven during the EDSA Revolution, whose 25th
anniversary we are celebrating soon. In her recollections, she
says the three of them gained entry to Camp Crame not
because of Maxs press ID but because she had told the

soldiers at the gate that they were bringing food to General

Ramos.

Mr. Soliven used to tell me he and his family took

refuge in the Lims home a week before EDSA because he had
received reports that he was not safe in his Greenhills house.
Elena confirms this, saying Soliven and his wife Precious
stayed with them beyond the EDSA Revolution.

From building businesses, speaking her mind and

giving a safe haven to an endangered journalist, Elena Lim has
helped shape history.

All I have are experiences to narrate in my own

fashion that I pray some of this books chance readers may be
challenged to improve on. If the reader can at least laugh with
me over my naivete, then we will have shared a precious gift
that is priceless, especially in difficult times. And if some
aspiring entrepreneurs will be inspired by my experiences to
do me one better, it will excite me no end.

CONLUSION:

It is really humbling to see someone who looks back

from where she came from and knows how to give back to her
country.
Upon reading the article written by Joanne Ramirez
about the life of Mrs. Lim, I realized that not all rich people
are born that way. Some came from marginalized families and
worked their way to the top. Elena was born to a family of
shoemakers in Tacloban, Leyte, they were so marginalized that
their house does not have an indoor plumbing which means
they have to fetch water from the wells. As Elena told the
readers of her book I Am What I Am, experiences help makes
us who we are.. In her case, a priest helped educate her, and
she learned English through talking to American GIs during
her stint as a server of noodles in a restaurant. It also told the
readers to accept the rejections that were given to us and use it
as a stepping stone to achieve something greater. It made me

realize that if we were given a no it just meant that God has

planned something better for us.
In my opinion, she really deserves the title Tai Pan
of Philippine Business because not only did she pioneered
several businesses in the Philippines, she also did not forget
where she came from and she also gave back. An example of
this is during the aftermath of the Typhoon Yolanda. As we all
know, Leyte was the province that was destroyed the most by
the typhoon. Elena, upon hearing what happened to her
province, instantly went there and helped her fellow
kababayans. She gave them relief goods, rebuilt their
schools and even added some more classrooms! This is an
example of a Filipino who knows how to give back. We
should all work hard to become like Elena Sen Lim and
remember to give back to the poor and undeserved.

SOURCES
Ramirez, J. R. (2011, February 3). philstar GLOBAL.
Retrieved March 20, 2016, from philstar GLOBAL:
http://www.philstar.com/newsmakers/653577/elena

Fermin, J. (2014, April 25). Solid Group Inc. Retrieved March

20, 2016, from Solid Group Inc.:
http://www.solidgroup.com.ph/news/rebuilding-ruinsyolanda