Philippine Business Magazine: Volume 9 No. 2 - Cover
Brain Gain
They finally decided to come home after several years of working overseas
By Maricar T. Manuzon

Much has been written about overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have earned the reputation of being world-class workers or professionals. Indeed, they have contributed a lot to the development of their host countries’ economies to the extent that their own homeland feels the pinch of a brain drain or depletion of skilled manpower.

More or less ignored are the ones who return to work here and spend their energy, talent and knowledge in pursuits that directly benefit the country they call home. They are the balikbayans, the returnees who finally decided to relocate to the Philippines after several years of living and working overseas. Philippine Business interviewed an impressive sampling of balikbayans from the government and private sector. Read on to find out what made them decide to come home.

Vicente S. Perez
Secretary, Department of Energy

Vince Perez first ventured away in 1980 for a one-year internship with a bank in the US. After that, he ended up staying abroad to take up his MBA at the Wharton Business School from 1981 to 1983. He worked at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh where he was an international officer handling its Latin American debt restructuring group from 1983 to 1986 and then moved up the ladder at Lazard Freres from 1987 to 1996, arranging numerous debt and equity financing in Asia and Latin America. In 1996, while he was still in Singapore, he co-founded Next Century Partners Philippines, a private equity firm that focused on investing in Asia. In June of the following year, he was back in the Philippines to concentrate more on what he had been vigorously on — bringing foreign investments into the Philippines.

When asked what made him decide to return home, he said that he and his partners at Next Century were bullish about the economy at that time – it was during the Ramos administration before the Asian contagion. Before he came back, he spent the whole year raising funds (which then amounted to US$43.0 million) to invest in the Philippines as a “pasalubong”. On the soft angle, what also drove his decision to return to the Philippines was that he wanted to have more opportunities to see his father whose health had begun to deteriorate at that time.

In early 2001, Perez accepted President Arroyo’s invitation to join the government because he saw it as “a unique opportunity” to serve the country. Nevertheless, making his American wife – who was then traveling back and forth from their US residence to the Philippines - agree to his decision “was not like a no-brainer”. He even made a PowerPoint presentation to her about it.

Perez recounted that he first met President Arroyo during his student days when he was president of AIESEC Philippines, an elite student organization where then-professor Arroyo was adviser in the late 70s while she was teaching at Ateneo. Later on, when he was already a renowned figure in private equity and capital markets and Arroyo was still Senator and then Vice President, he would invite her to be the resource speaker for multi-country teleconferences and luncheons that he would host for international fund managers and direct investors. It was in one of these luncheons that Arroyo met in Singapore her future Finance Secretary, Lito Camacho, who was then the head of Deutsche Bank Singapore. As early as 1998, Perez was already introducing Arroyo to investors as the country’s next president. Talk about forecasting: he bets that Arroyo will be president for the next nine years.

After a short stint as DTI Undersecretary and concurrent Managing Head of the Board of Investments, Perez took over the reigns of the Department of Energy from Lito Camacho after the latter’s transfer to the Department of Finance. Sec. Perez heads the Department of Energy at an appropriate time – when he can bring his expertise to convincing foreign investors to at least look at the opportunities arising from the restructuring of the power industry particularly in the aspect of privatizing the Napocor.

Sec. Perez says that there are a lot of balikbayans who gave up more financially rewarding jobs abroad to pitch in to help the country. “They are the unsung heroes”. He was able to convince a few to join the government. Perez only wishes that what they are doing here would serve as an example to younger Filipinos abroad. Why do they do this? Sec. Perez offered an answer, “Maybe we realize it is time to stop doing well for our personal gain and start doing good for the country”.

Joselito Isidro N. Camacho
Secretary, Department of Finance

Lito Camacho left the country in 1977 to take up his MBA at the Harvard Business School in Boston. After Harvard, he worked for two years at Bankers Trust New York before making the rounds in the bank’s overseas units in Asia.

In 1999, when Bankers Trust was bought by Deutsche Bank, Camacho stayed on with the merged entity to continue serving as managing director of its Singapore operations. It was while still in Singapore in the early part of 2000 that he felt a yearning to come back to the Philippines on a permanent basis. In an interview with Philippine Business, Camacho explained that his coming home to the Philippines was “an emotional thing” for him. He said that he went back because “this is home”. Did he think it was a calling to serve the government that early? He calmly replied, “No, because you see, it was still Erap’s time then”. He actually had no idea he would be joining the government later.

Fact is, he had no idea at all what awaited him back home. All he knew was that he had to go back even if it would entail resigning at Deutsche Bank. But Camacho was too valuable for Deutsche Bank. Instead of letting him go, it re-assigned him as the country head of its Philippine operations. This was to be his last private sector engagement before joining the Arroyo administration in March 2001 as the Secretary of Energy and, three months later, as Secretary of Finance. It is in the capacity of Finance Secretary where he is seen to be more effective since he holds a 23-year track record in the field of banking and finance while in the private sector. One of his many accomplishments thus far is improving the country’s access to foreign capital markets.

Camacho said that he accepted President Arroyo’s invitation to join her Cabinet not for any reason but “for the country.” It was for the country that he left the private sector where he used to be happier - what with all the controversies hounding him now as a public servant - and where his paycheck was much, much more.