The 1964 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

BIOGRAPHY of Pablo Torres Tapia

It has been said of PABLO TORRES TAPIA that he belongs to a new breed of bankers. That he not only gives loans but "gives of himself to the borrower . . . . his time, his effort, his mind and his heart."

TAPIA was born June 26, 1908 in the poblacion of Tanauan, Batangas. His father, a farmer, died when he was seven, and his mother, the former Maria Torres, carried on the burden of raising seven children—of whom TAPIA was the sixth—by selling clothes in the town market and managing the family farm in Barrio San Vicente of nearby Santo Tomas.

TAPIA attended primary school and high school in Tanauan, riding his horse back and forth from the farm each day as soon as he was old enough. Young PABLO loved the farm and farming. A relative of his mother's, Juan Torres, had graduated from Cornell University in the early twenties, specializing in plant hybridization. "Kuya Juan" encouraged the boy's interest in farming, serving as his mentor and consultant then and throughout much of his later life.

In 1928, while his older brothers and sisters were studying in Manila, TAPIA completed high school at the Tanauan Institute and began to help manage the seven-hectare family farm. In October of that year he married Lolita Onate and brought his bride to live on the farm.

Two years later he enrolled in the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, where he earned his Associate in Arts degree in 1932. While his natural inclination was toward agriculture, the legal field seemed to offer better economic opportunities and he transferred to the University of the Philippines where he received his law degree in 1936. He passed his bar exam the same year and returned to Tanauan as a notary public. A year later he joined the Bureau of Internal Revenue as a special investigator. In 1938 when the Collector of Internal Revenue, Alfredo Yatco, was appointed Deputy Governor of the Agricultural and Industrial Bank, he asked PABLO TAPIA to join the bank as agricultural appraiser.

This new field was most appealing to TAPIA, offering him the opportunity to combine his legal expertise with his knowledge of and affinity for agriculture. His career with the bank, however, was short-lived for the outbreak of World War II forced the bank to limit its functions.

TAPIA worked in Manila for a time as secretary-assistant to the judges in the House Rental Commission under the Department of the Interior, but worsening conditions in the city and rising prices forced the young couple and their five children to seek the safety of their hometown.

Tanauan did not provide the safety they sought. In 1945 it was in the path of the retreating Japanese and the family fled again to safer ground as U.S. forces started the liberation of the islands. As they were leaving with what belongings they could carry, TAPIA’s wife was killed by shrapnel. Shortly thereafter his 14-year-old son—who had remained behind—was among those killed by the Japanese.

With four children to support, the oldest of whom was only 16, TAPIA found employment with the U.S. Army as an appraiser in the real estate department for a base located near the capital of Batangas Province. Here he helped negotiate land rentals, damage payments, etc. When the Agricultural and Industrial Bank where he had previously worked was reorganized as the Rehabilitation and Finance Corporation, he was asked to return to his old position. By then, however, he had reestablished his legal practice in Tanauan where he was a notary public and preferred to remain.

Tanauan was greatly ravaged by the war. Located about 70 kilometers from Manila, it was devastated by the retreating Japanese. Some 20,000 of its residents were killed and thousands of pesos worth of property destroyed. Not more than 10 houses were left standing in the poblacion after liberation, and most of the work animals had been butchered or taken away by Japanese soldiers. The bulk of the townspeople were without capital to rebuild their lives. Interest rates skyrocketed. The few who had money took advantage of their position to make more. Usury, which had impoverished farmers before the war, was again rampant. A person who borrowed P100.00 had to pay P10.00 weekly interest. A farmer who needed money to rebuild his house or buy a work animal had to pay as high as 400 per cent interest. There was no credit institution in the locality for the savings and loan association organized before the war had been wiped out.

The idea for the prewar savings and loan institution had come from Dr. Juan Pagaspas, a doctor of philosophy from Indiana University and an educator in Tanauan. He conceived the plan of organizing such an association to teach people the value of saving and to help stamp out usury. In 1935 the Square Deal, Incorporated, was formally organized by Pagaspas, Josefa Poblete, Andres Collantes, Aurelio Valencia and Esperanza Gonzales. The association did not survive the war because outstanding pre-war loans were paid with Japanese currency and President-Manager Pagaspas was apprehended and killed by the Japanese in February 1945 while attempting to evacuate records of the association.

Alarmed by the usury that threatened to strangle all efforts at postwar rehabilitation, a group of citizens of Tanauan, among them PABLO TAPIA, decided to revive the Square Deal. As legal adviser to the group, TAPIA had the task of organizing the association, drawing up the articles of incorporation and bylaws, and soliciting support from influential friends and residents. On April 15, 1947 the association was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as Tanauan Square Deal, Inc. Its incorporators were Atty. Basilisa Carandang, Andres Collantes, Primitivo Millan, Alfredo Y. Valmonte, Agapito M. Leus and PABLO TAPIA.

The association's first makeshift office was in a building owned by Sebastian Carandang, father of founder Basilisa Carandang. The initial deposit was 40 pesos (then equivalent to US$20) secured from founding member Andres Collantes; this was kept in a cigar box. An old and battered typewriter loaned by Atty. Carandang completed the office equipment.

TAPIA recalls:

"We had really a painful beginning. The Association had no money. We peddled the receipts from house to house begging our friends and townmates to deposit, say P5 or P10 monthly. We could hardly get deposits for our townmates had no faith and trust in savings and loan associations after losing their money in the Association that was wiped out by the war.

"As President and Manager of the Association I did not receive any salary or per diem for a few months. Neither did the rest of the group. The Association did not employ any help for it could not afford to pay salaries. For three years the Association was housed [by the Carandangs] . . . without paying any rental. After a few months, I was given a P25 monthly salary as President-Manager. Atty. Carandang as Vice-President and Bookkeeper received P20. Mr. Leus as Auditor and Accountant received P15 a month."

As TAPIA stated, those first years were ones of constant work trying to convince people to join the association. For many banking was a strange and incomprehensible thing; others had not forgotten their bitter pre- and postwar experience with bank failures. Those gaining personally from exorbitant interest rates made every effort to discredit the Square Deal.

While others of the group continued to campaign in town, TAPIA tramped the barrios (villages) explaining to farmers that the Square Deal could help them by extending loans for fertilizers, farm implements, seeds and work animals, and assist them to get established in pig and poultry raising. Knowing that farmers—and even townspeople—kept their savings in bamboo tubes and wooden chests where the money did not earn anything for their owners or help others, TAPIA explained the benefits of keeping savings in the association.

Attired in maong (denim) pants, wearing a burl (reed) hat and carrying his inevitable lunch of bread and sardines, TAPIA soon became a familiar figure in the barrios. His love and self acquired knowledge of agriculture gave him rapport with the farmers, and he in turn gained a knowledge of people's abilities, work habits and family life which was to stand him in good stead when they came to the association to borrow. As TAPIA has put it, "I believe that in rural banking, in order that farmers may approach you, you must know their language and talk their language. You must learn their ways so that they may not be afraid to approach you."

As TAPIA continued talking with farmers and observing their ways, he quickly saw the need for education to help them increase production and improve their standard of living.

He knew firsthand that Tanauan and its outlying barrios were abundantly endowed by nature with large tracts of tillable lands, climatic conditions highly favorable to raising crops and livestock, waters rich in fish, and neighboring markets for all that could be produced. Yet, despite these bounties, the people were underemployed, most had low incomes, and many were impoverished.

The farmers knew nothing of new techniques in agriculture such as the use of fertilizers and pesticides, or improved strains of seed and breeds of livestock. This ignorance, TAPIA said, was like a curtain between the barrios and the outside giving the people a sense of isolation. This unawareness of the world beyond resulted in their acceptance of standards of living "way down the ladder." Moreover, the average farmer worked less than six months during the year. For many a principal preoccupation in their idle time was gambling—in the cockpits, the montehan (gambling places), or their homes. "Instead of productively employing themselves, they continued to drain their purses and wallets to their further impoverishment."

Other customs which TAPIA deplored were the "lavish barrio fiestas with the attitude of 'let's live today.'" Each barrio celebrated several fiestas, resulting in "an enormous sum spent aimlessly and unproductively just for the sake of keeping up with the Joneses." As TAPIA saw it, the farmer's life was a "vicious cycle of ignorance, idleness, conspicuous consumption and consequently low productivity and income," which could only be broken by education.

With the help of his agriculturist uncle, Juan Torres, TAPIA began to collect farming tips from the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture at Los Baños, from newspaper clippings and from material printed by chemical companies. These he translated into Tagalog and mimeographed on whatever paper he could scrounge—backs of old bank forms, papers from the schools and the like. Now as he traveled to the farms he brought his mimeographed farming hints with him. This was the beginning of what was later to become Tinig ng Tanauan (The Voice of Tanauan), the first barrio-farm newspaper in the Philippines.

These farm bulletins were an immediate success; soon farmers were asking, "Do you have anything for me to read today?" In 1954 a group of newspapermen from Manila came to Tanauan to do a story on the successful operations of the Square Deal savings and loan association. One of them, Mario P. Chanco, saw and heard the story of the mimeographed bulletins. Upon his return to Manila he and other members of the National Press Club solicited support of Manilans to purchase two Minerva presses which were donated to the association together with a cutter and some type.

Accompanying the machines was a commemorative plaque, which reads as follows:

SO THE PEOPLE MAY KNOW

This printing shop was made possible through the vision of many, the generosity of a few, and the help of Divine Providence. It is the first of many more like establishments which will soon be set up all over the Philippines. It is the hope of the sponsors that this organization and the men who will work with it will remember always that their first duty is to their country, to their people and above all to Almighty God.

Let them use this equipment to let succor to the oppressed, the underprivileged, and the peace loving; let them always remember that the power of the printed word as a factor for good and evil stands divided only by a thin line.

Let them remember that it lies solely in their power to create a community and a nation united in common hopes, ambition and destiny. Let them never forget that as their words are written so shall our nation's posterity be found.

With the printing press to speed Tinig's messages, TAPIA continued his educational campaign. Since many farm families kept their savings in their homes, he might write a story about a robbery, pointing out that money can be a danger to life and property, so why keep it around the house or on your person? When a house burned and the money kept there was destroyed, TAPIA would publish the story, pointing out that if the money had been kept in the bank it could be used to provide another house.

Fear was not his only approach. Sometimes he would stress that it is patriotic to invest in Philippine bonds. He would quote liberally from teachings of great men such as Apolinario Mabini and Manuel Quezon about social questions, stressing that "you are not living for yourself alone" and money in banks works for others as well as self.

When Bishop A. Madriaga issued a pastoral letter against expensive fiestas in 1955, TAPIA excerpted portions for an issue of Tinig, accompanied by statistical data on the annual costs of the fiestas in each barrio of Tanauan. He noted that this data had been collected in connection with the Year of Thrift as proclaimed by President Magsaysay.

At first the new presses were used only to print the newspaper. Later orders began to come in for calling cards, receipts and other commercial forms. As the volume of business increased, additional operators were hired, and the print shop was set up as a separate unit of the Tanauan Farmers Marketing Cooperative (FACOMA) which had its origin in 1948 as sister institution to the Square Deal savings and loan.

The Tanauan Press now makes money for the FACOMA from printing jobs, but Tinig is still distributed free by jeepney drivers, employees and teachers who visit the barrios. PABLO TAPIA continues, without compensation, to edit each issue.

Throughout these same years the savings and loan association activities also were flourishing. Three years after the association was incorporated TAPIA could report that "our total resources were around P300,000. Our loans outstanding were from P180,000 to P200,000 annually. We gave loans to farmers and small merchants in the locality, and paid six per cent annually to our depositors. Even with these total resources, we could not cope with the demands of our farmers and small merchants for credit." Most loans to farmers were short term for the purchase of work animals, pigs or poultry, small pieces of farmland, capitalization of small retail stores, fertilizers, water tanks or deep wells. The bank also helped finance the Tanauan municipality project of rebuilding the townspeople's stall in the market.

Loans were granted not so much on the borrower's productive capacity or proof of his ability to repay as on his character. As TAPIA has said, "You must first in your on-the-spot inspection be convinced that he is a really good operator, that he has the know-how, that the project he intends to use the money for is good. Maybe the collateral he is offering is not sufficient, but if we believe in the project and believe he is a good operator, then we give the loan. Maybe, because of an attack by pests, our loan is not paid. That is sometimes our experience. But then we do not regret that not all our decisions are right."

Word of the association's bank-like practices spread to Manila, where bankers were debating the possibilities of rural banking as a way of extending credit to farmers on a national scale. Felix de la Costa, then President of the Philippine Bankers Association, was quoted as saying, "MR. TAPIA, you may not know it but the eyes of all Manila bankers are now focused on the town of Tanauan to see whether the experiment you are doing there will be successful."

Farmers in nearby barrios, too, heard of the association's services and came to apply, feeling they might have a better chance of securing a loan there than in the more remote banks of Manila. Soon the Square Deal's scope of operations included the barrios of Santo Tomas, Talisay, Malvar, Lipa City, San Pablo City, and Batangas, Batangas.

Efforts to meet this increasing demand for its services were handicapped by the association's limited financing. On December 24, 1960 a meeting was held at the residence of the Carandangs to consider plans for expansion. It was unanimously decided to convert the members' savings in the association into shares of stock and request permission of the Central Bank to operate as a commercial bank.

The following January Central Bank officials visited the association, found its management efficient and its banking procedures sound—not always common, they noted, in savings and loan associations—and recommended its conversion to a commercial bank. With Central Bank approval on February 22, 1951 the Square Deal Banking Corporation was incorporated with an authorized capital of P400,000. There were 90 shareholders, 25 of whom were farmers. The biggest shareholder held 100 shares, or P10,000 interest, in the bank. Vicente Sabalvaro was named Chairman of the Board of Directors, TAPIA was named President, and Basilisa Carandang was appointed Vice-President.

As TAPIA frequently pointed out, the confidence of the farmers and townsmen in the institution was engendered by the active participation of such prominent Tanauan citizens as Dr. Jose P. Laurel (legal consultant), Alfredo Yatco (banking consultant) and Vicente Sabalvaro (business consultant).

Looking back on their beginnings TAPIA recalled, "It was a time that called for voluntary efforts on our part to help right the abuses and provide the cures. We saw in this setting the problems of promoting consciousness and awareness among our people, of mass educating them, of providing capital, all for improving their standards of living and promoting the growth of our community."

Sharing space in the new building housing the Square Deal Banking Corporation was the sister organization, the Tanauan FACOMA. It, too, had its roots in the pre-war efforts of Dr. Pagaspas and others to help farmers, and had been set up again in 1948 by the same five people who revived the savings and loan association. Initial capitalization of P2,500 was borrowed from the savings association. TAPIA served as a manager of both.

The cooperative's purposes were to provide farmers with needed goods and services at the lowest possible cost and to help them in the efficient marketing of their produce. It was first registered under the Cooperatives Administration Office and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Later it affiliated with the newly established Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Financing Administration to enjoy ACCFA's loan benefits and became the Tanauan FACOMA. At the time of the 1951 reorganization PABLO T. TAPIA was named Secretary and Manager, Warehousing Unit.

The cooperative's first project was a grocery store. In 1951 a bonded warehouse equipped with a mechanical drier and grain elevator was added and made available to both members and non-members. In 1954 a rice and corn mill was constructed which also stored crops the farmers were unable to sell and the Tanauan Press was set up in a separate division. The grocery store was absorbed into a combined grocery hardware store in 1957, and two years later a lumberyard, selling lumber and other construction materials, was added.

The Tanauan FACOMA today has a paid-up capital stock of P60,000 and approximately 750 stockholder-members, the majority of whom are farmers. Its assets amount to over P100,000. The FACOMA sells general merchandise: groceries, agricultural chemicals, poultry feeds, kerosene, fertilizer, hardware, lumber and grains. It offers free delivery for bulk purchases. Transactions are usually carried out in cash, although credit is sometimes extended at the discretion of the manager or his assistant. The "character credit" bears no interest. A few years ago it became a National Marketing Corporation (NAMARCO) distributor, thus enabling purchasers to have the advantage of lower NAMARCO prices.

The FACOMA sells its goods to members and non-members alike. Members are those who own at least one share of stock and have paid the membership fee of P1. The FACOMA has paid dividends annually to members since its establishment. In addition members receive "patronage," "kerosene," and "fertilizer" dividends. The dividends, based on a percentage of purchases, are available either in cash or additional stock. The FACOMA has an incentive plan of cash prizes to the barrio with the largest number of members, the greatest amount of fertilizer purchased and the best crop production. It also sponsors scholarships for deserving student graduates of the town.

Like its sister bank, the FACOMA is open for business six days a week. It is closed on Friday but open on Sunday, the market day when most farmers from Tanauan barrios and neighboring municipalities congregate in town to transact their business.

Involved in the management of both the Square Deal Banking Corporation and the FACOMA, TAPIA’s standard operating procedure was to work at his desk from 7 to 11 in the morning, Monday through Sunday except Friday. At 11, with his lunch of bread and sardines, he traveled to the countryside, visiting with the farmers often until late in the evening.

Whenever the College of Agriculture at Los Baños held demonstrations, field days or exhibitions, TAPIA would borrow a truck and—with refreshments provided by the bank—he would take a load of farmers to see these new farming practices. On several occasions he borrowed a tractor from a friend and took it out to different barrios to demonstrate this method of increasing production. As a result, many farmers purchased tractors for themselves with the bank's help. He became a familiar figure at the graduation exercises of barrio schools, taking the

opportunity to further explain the benefits derived from savings and the use of credit.

To encourage farmers to increase production and diversify crops, he set up an incentive loan system. The bank gave loans at four per cent interest to farmers who planted black pepper, bought water tanks or drilled wells; six per cent loans for fertilizers; and eight per cent loans to buy work animals. The bank offered cash prizes to the barrio with the largest number of depositors, the greatest total deposits and the largest number of borrowers.

As bank manager TAPIA considered an important function of rural banking to be servicing loans. A bank, in his opinion, should extend short-term credit for productive purposes and then service the loans by going out to see that they are not being misapplied; collection then will be easy. "The Tanauan farmer," he said, "loves his farm and he will make it produce given the capital and the extension service."

TAPIA’s services to these farmers was recognized by the Tanauan Institute, which awarded him its Pearl Jubilee Award on November 28, 1954. The citation, signed by Jose P. Laurel, Sr., President of the Institute, reads: "To PABLO T. TAPIA, 1928, LLB, in recognition of his success for years in alleviating the living conditions of farmers in Tanauan, and for his achievements which have done honor to the Alma Mater."

Before long the Square Deal Banking Corporation was doing an annual volume of business of more than P2.5 million, but additional funds were needed to meet increasing demands for the bank's service, funds which could no longer be raised locally as most of the people of Tanauan were already depositors. Bank officials decided to establish a main office in Manila where more resources would be available. Preparatory to this expansion, the Square Deal Banking Corporation was reorganized. Dr. Jose P. Laurel, Sr., agreed to serve as President and Chairman and PABLO TAPIA as Executive Vice-President.

With the assistance of Dr. Laurel, negotiations were begun which resulted in establishment of the main office in Manila on September 2, 1957. The name was changed to Philippine Banking Corporation, with an authorized capital of P5 million. In a Fact Sheet issued by the bank to announce the opening, it was noted that "this bank is the only one of its kind to move its head office from a rural community to metropolitan Manila. The Tanauan bank will continue to operate as a branch. . . . Four members of the staff who were with the Tanauan institution during its early days of operation are still with the new expanded bank. They are Atty. PABLO T. TAPIA, Vice-President in charge of the Tanauan Branch; Vicente Sabalvaro, member of the Board of Directors; Teodoro F. Valencia, columnist of the Manila Times, also a member of the Board of Directors; and Agapito M. Leus, Auditor."

As Vice-President in charge of the Tanauan Branch, TAPIA remained in Tanauan with his wife, the former Basilisa Carandang whom he had married in 1955. As part of the reorganization TAPIA resigned as a manager of the FACOMA to devote all his time and efforts to the bank. Mrs. Tapia remained as Secretary-Treasurer of the cooperative.

Now government entities and private groups sought TAPIA’s help in disseminating new technologies in agriculture, and he brought his experience and knowledge of farmers' problems to his membership on the Governor's Advisory B Committee on Economic Affairs. Offers of more lucrative jobs came his way—Rural Bank Adviser, ACCFA, and Manager, NAMARCO-but he chose to accept a travel grant from the Council on Economic and Cultural Affairs of New York which took him to the University of Florida for six months where he studied packing and refrigeration of oranges and marketing techniques, and a month in Japan for observation of agricultural credit and refrigeration.

While in the United States TAPIA heard about a bank which brought its facilities to school children. Upon his return to the Philippines in 1959 he organized a mobile team of the Tanauan Branch of the Philippine Banking Corporation and began the Tanauan mobile bank, another first of its kind in the country.

Equipped with a van and other necessary facilities, the team—composed of a leader, a teller and a security guard—traveled at first only to the elementary schools and high schools of Tanauan. The mobile bank was an immediate success. Children deposited their pocket money instead of spending it for candies. Teachers too made deposits. Because of its acceptance in Tanauan the mobile unit extended its services to other towns of Batangas. Today it makes a weekly visit to more than 20 schools, many of them in the remote barrios of Tanauan, Malvar and Santo Tomas. The mobile team gets an average deposit of P300 from children in each school. By the end of the week it may have collected deposits amounting to several thousand pesos.

"My children no longer ask for merienda (snack) money," said one parent, "They ask instead for bank money. I am glad because they are trying, as much as possible, to save at an early age." As TAPIA has noted, many of the school children who have been making regular deposits do not have to ask their parents for matriculation money for high school, and a recent high school graduate, he added, was able to enter college largely because of his mobile bank savings.

Soon the traveling bank added regular trips to the town market and to factories to serve vendors and employees, making loans as well as accepting deposits. It now operates five days a week, Sunday through Thursday.

"This bank teaches small wage earners to be thrifty," commented a farmer in Malvar town. "I didn't like banks before, but when this traveling bank went to my house one day, I was forced to open an account. Since then I have become a bank addict. I have now enough money in that bank for a rainy day." People from all walks of life, from pig-raiser to small backyard gardeners, have similar good things to say about the "walking" bank.

In September 1960 TAPIA was transferred to the Manila office of the Philippine Banking Corporation. As Vice-President in charge of Loans and Credits he brings his knowledge of rural banking to the supervision of all branch banking activities. He continues to spend each Sunday at the Tanauan Branch bank, to edit Tinig and to serve as consultant to the FACOMA, the latter two activities without pay. He is as concerned as ever with ways to improve the life of the rural population of the Philippines. The government, he suggests, should build more feeder roads, establish more irrigation systems and agricultural stations, encourage more cottage industries and maintain a veterinarian in every municipality to encourage piggery. Rural banks, he believes, should be organized in every town. He would also like to see cooperatives and credit unions organized at the barrio level, with the school teachers as leaders.

In a recent speech to a bankers convention in Manila, TAPIA expressed his own feelings about his long career. "Banking," he said, "offers the greatest opportunity to serve your fellowmen. For the bank is the hub of the community. Life of service to your fellowmen is a priceless treasure—the highest virtue that a man can ever possess in this terrestrial paradise."

August 1964
Manila

REFERENCES:

Amigo. "Trade Winds," Sunday Mirror, Manila. June 22, 1952.

Chanco, Mario P. "More rural credit at low interest rate . . . ," Manila Bulletin.

Undated.

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______. "The Tanauan Story: Tanaueño likes fiesta too. . . ," Manila Bulletin.

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1957: July, August, September, November.

1958: January, April, July

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1960: April, May, October.

1961: January

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