AUDACITY. SPUNK. Easily (mis)construed for conceit, for arrogance, arising from success. As easily pinned on a woman making it, nay, excelling, in a traditional male domain.
Instant biases compounded, first, not necessarily lasting, impressions there impacted on one Leonora Capule-Wong, sneered at – by detractors and rivals – as pretender to the mayorship of somnolent San Simon.
Prejudices get either re-affirmation or total negation only when one gets up close and personal – if only for a few hours – with the person. So what did I get over Max’s halo-halo out of Ms. Wong?
A woman of substance.
Of sense and sensibility in the intercourse of the intellect, Ms. Wong can well hold herself in wide-ranging disciplines, from politics and history, to economics and philosophy, even to feng-shui.
St. Scholastica’s Academy. Assumpta Technical High School. Lyceum of the Philippines. Truly fertile grounds whence spawned the well-educated Ms. Wong. Her formal degree in foreign service and political science, serving her in good stead in this new endeavor she has embarked upon.
Motherhood – the very essence of woman – becomes Ms. Wong too. The nurturing, caring – and disciplining – nanay reared Joyce, a graduating law student at the Ateneo de Manila; Melody Anne, a BS Psychology graduate from De la Salle; and Lewis Jr., third year high school at the Makati Chinese School (MKS), plus a nephew, Carl, first year at MKS.
The wit of the Tagalogs well manifest here: Kung ano ang kalinga ng nanay sa tahanan, ganun din ang kalinga ng nanay sa bayan.
A woman of independent means.
No, not in the mould of an Ivana Trump or a Paris Hilton whose means of independence came by way of alimony or inheritance, Ms. Wong’s was hard-earned, in equal-partnership with her husband, the Singaporean Lewis Wong.
Her corporate resume reads: general manager, CopyStar Office Automation; president, PowerStar Trading, Inc.; owner, Five Star Metal Scrap; owner, Pegastar Pumping Station. The companies’ line of products ranging from photocopiers to chemicals, from marine and aviation lubricants, diesel and oils to scrap metal. Not your run-of-the-mill SMEs there but investments by the hundreds of millions.
The prevalence of “star” in her companies is no accident, the brilliance of a star being primary benchmark of success in the business world. And San Simon now the brightest star she quests for.
Independent of power players, free of vested interest groups – they who usually serve as king-, in her case, queen-makers – Ms. Wong is not beholden to anyone, and therefore with no political debts and IOUs to settle once she assumes the mayorship. Her total focus thereby is on the welfare of her constituency.
Success in the corporate world applied to local governance, New York City’s Michael Bloomberg, may find a counterpart, albeit on a micro level, in San Simon’s Ms. Wong in the still novel field of corporate governance.
A woman of compassion.
A sensitivity to the needs of her people, especially the depressed, displaced, and dispossessed to whom she has been returning, whom she has been serving with the ways and means of corporate social responsibility for the past 20 years.
A sensitivity inhered as a value early on as the daughter of a poor farming family who struggled to rise out of poverty and reach for the stars: “What I have achieved, what I have gained, I want to give back to my people. I move around San Simon and it pains me to see how poor the people are. (As) I love San Simon, (so) I have to come into their lives.”
A woman of the noblest goals.
Her vision: San Simon as a highly productive agro-industrial town, where the opportunity of good education shall be open to all – this dictated by her own article of faith that “education is the best weapon with which to face life,” where health services are 24/7, where livelihood abounds, where women are empowered, transformed from simple housewives to leaders and entrepreneurs. Of the latter, Ms. Wong herself makes the best template.
A woman of new generation.
Aptly acronymed WONG, for now, in this campaign for the mayorship. A whole new meaning to evolve once her own brand of corporate governance gets going – women of new generation, rocking the cradle of development in San Simon.
Instant biases compounded, first, not necessarily lasting, impressions there impacted on one Leonora Capule-Wong, sneered at – by detractors and rivals – as pretender to the mayorship of somnolent San Simon.
Prejudices get either re-affirmation or total negation only when one gets up close and personal – if only for a few hours – with the person. So what did I get over Max’s halo-halo out of Ms. Wong?
A woman of substance.
Of sense and sensibility in the intercourse of the intellect, Ms. Wong can well hold herself in wide-ranging disciplines, from politics and history, to economics and philosophy, even to feng-shui.
St. Scholastica’s Academy. Assumpta Technical High School. Lyceum of the Philippines. Truly fertile grounds whence spawned the well-educated Ms. Wong. Her formal degree in foreign service and political science, serving her in good stead in this new endeavor she has embarked upon.
Motherhood – the very essence of woman – becomes Ms. Wong too. The nurturing, caring – and disciplining – nanay reared Joyce, a graduating law student at the Ateneo de Manila; Melody Anne, a BS Psychology graduate from De la Salle; and Lewis Jr., third year high school at the Makati Chinese School (MKS), plus a nephew, Carl, first year at MKS.
The wit of the Tagalogs well manifest here: Kung ano ang kalinga ng nanay sa tahanan, ganun din ang kalinga ng nanay sa bayan.
A woman of independent means.
No, not in the mould of an Ivana Trump or a Paris Hilton whose means of independence came by way of alimony or inheritance, Ms. Wong’s was hard-earned, in equal-partnership with her husband, the Singaporean Lewis Wong.
Her corporate resume reads: general manager, CopyStar Office Automation; president, PowerStar Trading, Inc.; owner, Five Star Metal Scrap; owner, Pegastar Pumping Station. The companies’ line of products ranging from photocopiers to chemicals, from marine and aviation lubricants, diesel and oils to scrap metal. Not your run-of-the-mill SMEs there but investments by the hundreds of millions.
The prevalence of “star” in her companies is no accident, the brilliance of a star being primary benchmark of success in the business world. And San Simon now the brightest star she quests for.
Independent of power players, free of vested interest groups – they who usually serve as king-, in her case, queen-makers – Ms. Wong is not beholden to anyone, and therefore with no political debts and IOUs to settle once she assumes the mayorship. Her total focus thereby is on the welfare of her constituency.
Success in the corporate world applied to local governance, New York City’s Michael Bloomberg, may find a counterpart, albeit on a micro level, in San Simon’s Ms. Wong in the still novel field of corporate governance.
A woman of compassion.
A sensitivity to the needs of her people, especially the depressed, displaced, and dispossessed to whom she has been returning, whom she has been serving with the ways and means of corporate social responsibility for the past 20 years.
A sensitivity inhered as a value early on as the daughter of a poor farming family who struggled to rise out of poverty and reach for the stars: “What I have achieved, what I have gained, I want to give back to my people. I move around San Simon and it pains me to see how poor the people are. (As) I love San Simon, (so) I have to come into their lives.”
A woman of the noblest goals.
Her vision: San Simon as a highly productive agro-industrial town, where the opportunity of good education shall be open to all – this dictated by her own article of faith that “education is the best weapon with which to face life,” where health services are 24/7, where livelihood abounds, where women are empowered, transformed from simple housewives to leaders and entrepreneurs. Of the latter, Ms. Wong herself makes the best template.
A woman of new generation.
Aptly acronymed WONG, for now, in this campaign for the mayorship. A whole new meaning to evolve once her own brand of corporate governance gets going – women of new generation, rocking the cradle of development in San Simon.
