Suddenly, Albee
Published on: 31st May, 2010
Alejandro Yap Kinya
Nobody knows exactly when it started , but the buzz turned up last year, reverberating in a provincial political landscape littered with tired old names, pretenders and wannabes . There’s this successful and intelligent young man who is joining Negros politics and he is armed with more than just charm and resources. Initially thought to be just another high-flying brat awash with cash, Albee Bantug Benitez, in fact, is mounting the ring with every right of an accomplished businessman: he is chair and president of one of the country’s top 150 corporations with sales of P5billion last year. And he is just 41 years old.
He also has political genes and pedigree more sterling than most incumbent politicians in the province now:
He is eldest grandchild of Remedios Bantug, former mayor of Victorias city who, at age of 81, became a public servant;
He is a great grandson of Alejandro Yap Kinya, founding father of Victorias city which stands on land the family had donated;
He is nephew of Sammy Palanca, Bacolod’s old man by the sea whose vision of a new city rising out of water is now coming to fruition inspite of all the controveries ;
He is son of Joly Benitez and the late Betty Bantug, bright stars of the early Martial Law years, two of the technocrats whom Marcos mobilized to deliver the promises of his New Society vision, back when being “Marcos men” was honorable. Dad Joly, who was also at one time assemblyman, conceptualized the BLISS housing program, forerunner of the present Pag-IBIG housing.
And then his aunts and uncles: Mita Bantug Rufino, Vicky Hoffart, Cynthia Regino, Ray Bantug, all to the manor born, but all driven by the kind of work ethic that saw their mother astounding everybody when, after her election, she reported to work everyday and took the day-to- day problems of Victorias seriously. Given her age and station in life, people had thought she would simply be a figurehead mayor.
That’s just on his mother side. On his father’s side is a line of names who have not just build personal fortunes but in fact helped build the Republic of the Philippines:
His great grandparents, Dean Conrado Benitez and Francisca Tirona Benitez had founded the Philippine Women’s University. Dean Benitez was also one of the so-called “7 Wise Men” who wrote the 1936 Constitution ;
His aunt, Helena Benitez was founder of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines, and a longtime senator; a trailblazer for the cause of women.
Those who think Albee will take the easy route of buying his way in politics can be served by remembering he comes from this family that has matched their God-given resources like land and intelligence with the seriousness with which they work and extraordinary tenacity to realize their vision.
But let us set the record straight. While he is heir to his family’s name and work ethic, Albee has, on his own, built his own fortune. With P20,000, Albee founded his company, Bingo Bonanza, 15 years ago; last year, it reported sales of P5Billion and is now listed among the country’s top 150 corporations. From an operation with almost zero employment, the company now has 2,000 direct employees and 4,000 indirect workers.
The main activity of his company is gaming, primarily bingo. The P20,000 capital he had started with was spent in printing tickets and paying for the overhead such as rentals of chairs and tables. The prize money was raised from the sales, so the company did not have to fork this out. Albee recalls that it was his friend, Henry Sy, Jr. who had encouraged him to set up the gaming business at SM Megamall because they were, at that time, looking for locators that would bring in the crowds to the mall.
Starting as a once-a-week activity, on the third floor bridgeway of Megamall which hardly had any traffic then, the
Alejandro Yap Kinya
venture just kept getting bigger and bigger. The culture of the market and its natural inclination to play bingo may be credited with the success of Albee’s company, but his youthful aggressiveness as a businessman cannot be discounted. He kept pushing the business to grow. At a certain point, he came up with a promotion that involved giving away six brand-new cars as top prizes.
Now, that was risk-taking big time, and his Lola Remedios was alarmed. On the eve of the game, he recalls, she called him up to check on his eldest apo and make sure he had things under control. Albee smiles when he remembers her words: “Sigurado ka sa ginahimo mo ha? Please assure me you know what you’re doing!
Albee assured her he did, and his risk paid off. The next day, the line for the bingo tickets which were sold at P2,000 per snaked through several floors of Megamall.
Deferring to his elders, however, is one article of faith for Albee. After all these years, one lesson he wants to share is “Trust your elders. They’ve been through a lot more than you.”
The bingo operation was not the first business he launched at the mall. He and his wife, the former Nikki Lopez, first launched “Babies on the Go!”, a stroller rental business for mothers who brought their babies with them when they went malling. The office of this business, Albee recalls, was the space underneath the staircase where they also stocked the strollers off-hours.
Albee was born in the US, while his dad and mom were taking post-graduate studies in Stanford. Aside from being born in an academic environment, however, their love for knowledge was encouraged by their parents at home.
Albee remembers that while everything else was budgeted for them, his mom Betty lifted the budgetary restrictions when it came to books. We were encouraged and inspired to read books, he says. His brother, Francisco, took this love for knowledge all the way to his profession: he is now a professor at Washington University in Seattle, USA.
Albee on the other hand, has embraced education as a cause. But naturally, the organization he named after his mom, the Betty Bantug Benitez Foundation takes a strong lead in education. It is operating a CyberLibrary in Victorias city, where students, for a very minimal monthly due of P20, can explore the world and beyond through the Internet.
The boy who was taught by his mother to embrace education is now giving back to his hometown.
Aside from education, BBB Foundation is also into health programs and medical assistance. The Foundation’s Ikaayong Lawas is one of the best known health and medical assistance programs in Negros Occidental, helping hospitals and clinics, conducting medical missions, and delivering medicines and services to indigents.
In 1988, Albee came home to Negros, where he had spent most of his boyhood summers, to settle and work on the family farms in Victorias. Here, Albee took to heart the advise of his grandfather , Abelardo Bantug, who told him that the “best fertilizer for the farm is your footprints.” And so, Albee made it a point to move around, talk to the workers, touch base with his fellow planters.
But after two years of farming, he was restless; after all is said and done, he says, “it was the family business. I wanted to start something, on my own.”
He became a sugar trader, and then an exporter-consolidator for Filipino condiments like patis and suka where he singed his fingers. The eager-beaver budding businessman nearly wiped out his inheritance in this export business.
His bingo business has grown to casinos and hotels, and Albee sees this model as a potential platform for tourism in the Philippines. He cites the case of the once- sleepy-and-very-poor town of Sta. Ana in the Cagayan Valley up north where his company has also located. Because of its geography, its people relied on little else but fishing, something that weather cycles allowed them to do only three months a year. Sta. Ana was out of the way and was a 4th class town with a budget of P200,000 a month.
Converted into a Special Economic Zone, Sta Ana has since leapt to the 21st century with gaming and tourism facilities. Now its budget is P40M a month, Albee says.
The country has a big potential in the gaming industry, Albee says, considering that in Asia, we have the lowest tax rate. Like Sta. Ana, we can pull our communities out of poverty fast with this industry, he also says, adding gaming can be a tourism component.
But what about Catholic sensitivities? Aside from the fact that bingo is a social thing, Albee says “the gaming industry has changed a lot from where it was 20 years ago.” He cites the case of Las Vegas: from “sin city, it is now a family entertainment complex.”
It also depends on how things are managed, he also says, recalling how, during her time as chair of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, Alice Reyes made sure there was a daily 11 a.m. mass in all casinos.
Even a conservative place like Singapore allows gaming; in fact, it has a tax rate that’s about as high as Malaysia’s 25 per cent, Albee adds. He agrees, however, that there must be “proper regulation” of the industry to avoid abuses.
Comfortably settled and financially stable, Albee still makes eyebrows rise with his reported plans to run for congress. Why join the crooks and thieves there, he has been asked, to which he retorts: “well, at least [with me there] there’ll be one less crook!”
For the political landscape in Negros Occidental, however, that’ll mean a whiff of fresh energy that may yet wash out the stale stench of the old goats, the tired old names and the pretenders.*