Lopez Group chairman emeritus Oscar M. Lopez (OML) passed away on April 22, 2023, threee days after his 93rd birthday.

OML was the second son of Lopez Group founder Eugenio “Eñing” Lopez Sr. and Pacita “Nitang” Moreno Lopez. “Oskie” was born in San Juan de Dios Hospital in Pasay. Had he been the girl his mother hoped for, he would have been called Gloria, as April 19, 1930 happened to be Sabado de Gloria.

OML spent his early years in Iloilo, his father’s hometown; Manila where the Morenos hail from; and Baguio during the war. Due to severe allergies that kept him indoors for days or weeks at a time, he developed a love for books at an early age and indulged in his father’s library in Iloilo with its “books stacked up to the ceiling.”

OML finished his Bachelor of Arts degree at Harvard, becoming the first Filipino to receive an honors degree as an undergraduate from the university. In 1955, he graduated again, this time with a master’s in public administration from Littauer School (today’s John F. Kennedy School of Government). In between, OML spent 10 months in Spain on a “spiritual quest,” thinking he was going to become a priest.

Back in Manila in 1960, OML, who was by then married to Connie Rufino, spent six years as publisher of The Manila Chronicle. He moved to Meralco Securities Corporation (now First Philippine Holdings Corporation or FPH) until, one by one, the Lopez companies were taken over during martial law.

In 1990, OML, working with trusted executives, brought FPH back to profitability only four years after taking on the challenge of reviving the company. He led the Lopez Group after his elder brother Eugenio Jr. (Geny), then ABS-CBN chairman emeritus, passed away in 1999. He stepped down as chairman emeritus of Lopez Holdings Corporation in 2020.

Through the years, OML was recognized by various organizations for his achievements and advocacies in business and corporate leadership, philanthropy and social responsibility.

When he was named by the Management Association of the Philippines as its Management Man of the Year in 2000, OML said: “I view and accept this award as a reminder to those of us in the practice of management that we must put our businesses in the service of the Filipino, first and foremost, assured that no good deed ever goes unrewarded by a grateful people.”

He was one of only two Filipinos in the list of the top 20 CEOs in Asia by the Asian Business Leader Awards in 2004. In 2005, he became the first Filipino businessman to be conferred the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany; and was named by Forbes magazine as a “Hero of Philanthropy” in Asia in 2007.

During one of his last major birthday celebrations, in 2015 when he turned 85, a “celebration of life” was organized for OML at the Makati Shangri-La. Before almost 500 of OML’s close family, friends and associates, FPH chairman Federico R. Lopez (FRL) shared how OML protested his parents’ controversial wedding anniversary party, driving a temporary wedge between Don Eñing and his son.

“… The story closed so many unconnected dots in my mind about Dad. It exemplified his conviction that wealth can empower you to do great things, but it also carried great responsibilities and he never believed that our happiness should ever have to evolve around its ephemeral trappings,” FRL said.

FRL also reflected on OML’s love for family, country, learning, music, books and nature.