Robina Gokongwei-Pe, Teresita Sy-Coson talk school life, their future successors

Retail tycoon Robina Gokongwei-Pe switched hats and channeled her inner “queen of talk” to ask her friend and business rival Teresita Sy-Coson a slew of questions, including, "What's your secret to looking forever 59?"

It was a moment that drew laughter from the crowd, including Sy-Coson herself, who responded by saying Gokongwei-Pe “is a very good friend.”

At the 32nd National Retail Conference and Expo on Aug. 7, the Robinsons Retail Chairperson threw questions at one of the special guest speakers, Sy-Coson, who gamely answered each query.

Gokongwei-Pe, 65, narrated that a few people had asked her if she and Sy-Coson, 75, were batchmates at Immaculate Conception Academy.

“Are we not batchmates, or schoolmates at least?” Sy-Coson asked, tongue in cheek. “I like to be younger. I like to be batched with the younger ones also.”

Gokongwei-Pe also asked what Sy-Coson was like as a student, which the latter replied: “I was a very quiet student because my mind is always somewhere else. So they think that I am very attentive in school.”

“I was always crazy about what I can do in the store. You know, just (thinking) crazy things—just not maybe listening to the professor or the teacher,” she jokingly said.

Sy-Coson, chairperson of BDO Unibank, the country’s largest bank, further shared that her favorite subject as a student was mathematics.

Talking about succession, meanwhile, Gokongwei-Pe shared that there is currently a very small number of third-generation Gokongweis who are into the business.

As far as the third generation Sys are concerned, Sy-Coson said that not everybody is interested in the business.

“My own kids do not like to follow (in my footsteps), so I’m happy to have my nieces and nephews,” she said, again drawing laughter from the adoring crowd, which also included third-generation retail industry leaders like Mariana Zobel de Ayala of the Ayala Group as well as brothers Bryan and Brandon Liu of the Penshoppe Group.

It was truly an exchange for the ages between two of the country’s most beloved business personalities, who probably deserve a talk show segment of their own.

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Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Philippine STAR.