See integrity in action as the writer recalls events that transpired during FPHC’s hard times in the 1980s. I joined First Holdings as a senior manager in 1979 and availed of the managers’ car plan shortly thereafter. It was the basic Mitsubishi Galant GL model, manual shift. They would not even call it a Super Saloon. Because First Holdings’s fortunes went downhill several years afterward, the car plan was abolished. In the meantime, by around 1987 or 1988 when this story took place, our cars were rather dilapidated. The air cons weren’t working very well, the seat covers had long since given way and the seats themselves were getting rather worn and weary, like everything else in the car.

One time, I was asked to accompany Jess Vergara, a very prominent businessman during the early martial law era, to Malvar, Batangas near Lipa City to look at a small manufacturing plant for exportable baby clothes in connection with an apparel business that he was offering to sell to First Holdings. Later in the afternoon, returning to Manila, we were caught in traffic in Santo Tomas and the air con decided to quit on us. Eventually, we got back to Manila, and when I dropped Mr.

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