Service as life, or, wala sila sa lolo ko
This is an editorial that was published in the Manila Standard on April 24, 1995, written by Amante Bigornia after a conversation between him, myself, and Cip Roxas in the newsroom in which Amang found out I was Gregorio Anonas Sr.’s granddaughter. Amang had covered Congress as one of his many beats, and he knew of my Lolo Goyo — and what he’d heard back on the beat was that my grandfather was an exemplary public servant. He decided to pen this editorial because “Filipinos need to be reminded that this caliber of public service, and this caliber of Filipino, is what we still sorely need today.” Amang’s words ring true to this day, 28 years later.
Amang, as was always his wont, did his own shoe-leather journalism by researching on my grandfather’s life and career, though I did share what documentation from my Lolo Goyo’s correspondences and writings I had. While our family knows Lolo Goyo handled 15 GOCCs, Amang’s research yielded documentation of his work in only 10 of those government-owned companies, and the pressures of the deadline curtailed his research. If I remember correctly, he only had four days to do that research, and Google as we know it didn’t yet exist.
Here is the text of the editorial, for ease of reading:
“Exactly 100 years ago today, Gregorio Anonas Sr. was born in Iba, Zambales. The fact probably does not mean anything to anybody except to a few senior citizens whose lives he touched or who heard or read of him in their youth.
“We take note of his centennial birth anniversary only for one reason. He represented a rare breed of public officials that should be emulated by the next generation of public servants, a tribe that is the antithesis of the present crop whose reputations leave a lot to be desired.
“It is said, perhaps too harshly and unfairly, that politicians and their proteges these days enter government service poor and exit as rich men. There are of course some exceptions to the rule, but they are quite rare and fast becoming extinct.
“In the days of Anonas, it was the reverse. They went in wealthy or at the very least with some money to spare, and left as paupers, at best comfortably well-off.
“Anonas was born of a family from the landed gentry of Zambales. It was not, however, as wealthy as the hacienderos of the time, but it was comfortable and exercised some influence over the people around them. It was also a religious family that prized education.
“Although brilliant (he topped the 1919 bar exams), Anonas’ career was not exceptionally spectacular. He accomplished a lot, but working under the shadows of such legendary figures like the fiery nationalist Manuel L. Quezon, the astute pol Sergio Osmeña and the great orator Manuel Roxas, Anonas’ achievements did not get the attention and praises they deserved.
“But his accomplishments were myriad and laid the basis for the economic growth of the country. These days, hardly anybody remembers them although they were milestones in the development of the nation.
“Anonas started out as a lawyer for the Bureau of Internal Revenue, rising to be chief of the legal division. Then he shifted to politics, getting himself elected in 1928 to the unicameral National Assembly.
“Politics was not his cup of tea and toward the end of his term in 1933, he became undersecretary for public instruction in the Department of Education. Still, he did not make waves, but in 1934 the then American governor general Frank Murphy named him the first Filipino general manager of the Manila Water District, the precursor of the present Metropolitan Manila Waterworks and Sewage System.
“As manager of the MWD, he built the Ipo Dam and the Balara filtration plant in Quezon City. This was the first of many “firsts” that studded his long career. In 1936, he became the general manager of the National Development Corporation where he set up the following government firms that are the landmarks of the country’s march into economic development:
“The National Power Corporation which put up the Caliraya hydro-electric power plant in Laguna; the National Textile Mills, the first integrated textile mills in the country; the Cebu Portland Cement Corp., at the time one of two existing cement factories; the National Food Products; the National Warehousing Corp. which set up the first warehouses in the Customs area in the Sourth Harbor; the Insular Sugar Refining Corp., one of two refineries at the time; and the Philippine National Lines, a shipping firm.
“While Anonas was running these institutions, he was receiving a monthly salary of P1,000. It was quite ample at the time, but with 10 children to support, it was not something to crow about. That was all he got and he was such a stickler to the law that he did not use a single sheet of office stationery for his personal communication purposes.
“We can imagine the money he would have made running 10 government corporations if he had lived under the circumstances prevailing today and behaved like some people we know who have become opulent. But when Gregorio Anonas died, he was buried at the North Cemetery in a lot donated by the government with a tombstone donated by the NDC employes.
“He did not, of course, die a pauper. But whatever he left to his children, none was more important than a reputation of unquestioned integrity and dedication to duty.
“Upon that legacy, his children, all 10 of them built exemplary careers of their own, mostly in the banking industry with his wife Concepcion, now 96, still overseeing them.”
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I am posting this old editorial here as a reminder that this nation has always had good public officials — case in point, my grandfather Gregorio Anonas Sr. His brand of public service was uninterrupted by grandstanding or fame-seeking.
Indeed, he did not even seek to make a fortune. He had a country to build.
Rather, he saw just how much work was needed from government, and he gave his life over to working to meet the needs he could meet, often rising before dawn and sleeping close to midnight, and working on weekends to get the job done.
This is the measure of public service I was taught to hold our public officials to. Working in government was not my cup of tea, so I chose journalism and writing. Our family still does what it can to be good citizens, and to provide service to the people our patriarch so loved, wherever we may be, in whatever way we can.
So, yes, I can tell several “public servants” na wala sila sa lolo ko (they cannot hold a candle to my granddad).
