NO, THEY WON’T SELL IT FOR A SONG

By Philip M. Lustre Jr.

OF course, the Lopez family won’t admit it publicly. They are reticent of their real feelings and intentions to a fault. But anybody who knows the history of the Lopez family and their struggle against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, their nemesis, would know they are not easy nuts to crack.

The Lopezes, one of the more persistent economic families, had their past lessons, largely bitter and one-sided, but they know how to fight back and survive. They have outlived the dictator and recovered their business empire in a reversal of fortune.

This is the reason the Lopezes, in an eyeball to eyeball situation with Rodrigo Duterte, have not in any way blinked. They know Duterte, a dying mad man, does not approximate an inch of Marcos, the wily and calculating political genius, but largely on the evil side. Of course, they would not admit Duterte does not actually merit their unequivocal attention. From their standpoint, Duterte does not make them nervous or uncomfortable.

This is the reason the Lopezes were not selling their majority interest in ABS-CBN. They would not sell them for a song as the mad man had wanted. Three months ago, Duterte was egging out the Lopezes to sell ABS-CBN in what could be regarded a blatant arm twisting tactic to scare them of their wits. Sell them or I would punish you – this was the crackpot’s message.

“Utot mo (go and fart).” This was their subtle message. Why not? The Lopezes’ mindset works under a simple equation. Why would they be afraid of a political maggot from Davao City, when they did not blink under Marcos? They zigged and zagged out of the worst imaginable political vendetta by Marcos and they passed with flying colors.

They would get scared of Duterte? No, the Lopezes are hard-boiled conos; they would not budge and give him an inch. They prefer to keep their pride intact than surrender to a political leader, who is crude and boisterous by all means and standard. “Pundonor,” as the Spaniards say it. Punto de honor, Or point of honor.

Moreover, they are fearless nationalists, who would not allow the media station to fall under the control of a perceived dummy of China. They would not allow ABS-CBN to be used for China’s propaganda to integrate the Philippines to become its province. Hence, its deterioration is an option to negate being used for China's propaganda.

Entrepreneurs are creatures of creative greed. At the end of the day, every entrepreneur is defined by the amount of wealth he creates or throws into waste. The yardstick is frequently the color of his money. Hence, every entrepreneur is open to negotiations. “I’ll buy you,” or “you’ll buy me” is the usual opening statement.

But the Lopezes would not agree to negotiate with Duterte’s chosen entrepreneur. Not with Dennis Uy, the overextended Davao City-based businessman, whose business empire is feared to collapse anytime because of the inordinate rise of his firms’ debt-equity ratio. He does not have the money to strike a megabuck deal to meet the Lopezes' asking price. Not to dubious Apollo Quiboloy, who faces accusations of dollar smuggling in the U.S., or the Villars, who have no passion for media business. The Villars prefer to make money by converting those open agricultural estates into subdivisions.

Truth is Duterte and his mentally-challenged ilk had miscalculated the Lopezes. His limited mind could have probably thought they are cash-strapped. This is absolute nonsense. Truth is they are loaded. They have earned a windfall from the sale of two erstwhile corporate gems to First Pacific: Meralco and Maynilad. The Tagalogs have a sentence for what the Lopezes did: “Nakapagsubi na (they have saved something).”

The Lopezes are no different from grizzly bears, or polar bears, who have fattened themselves to meet the most debilitating winter, hibernate in the cold, and rise up in spring to repeat the same cycle of their existence. Survival is in their DNA. The history of the Lopezes is a history of survival from patriarch industrialist Eugenio "Inying" Lopez Sr. down to his living heirs.

They would just park ABS-CBN like an unused car, take their chances when a more mentally stable president gets elected in 2022, and restart the media giant after the 2022 elections. They have done their actuarial studies; they know they could stand the financial pressures of a two-year hiatus. They will keep the media giant firm.

No sweat.