The epiphany of Jacinto Ng Jr.
(Second of four parts)
Last week, we saw how for 25 years, Jacinto “Jack” (or “Jun”) Ng Jr., Ernst and Young 2024 Entrepreneur of the Year, helped his father and external partners grow an existing low-income housing business to join the middle-income segment and lead their foray into the commercial hospitality industry. Instead of returning to the former real estate enterprise, Jack followed the advice of his father and their partners and started another company, Elanvital Enclaves, to refocus on the middle-income market.
“At first I was confident since the old team is back together! We had many millions of hours of experience in our target market,” Jack says. “When we launched in 2013, I was positive that it would be well received based on our former reputation. It was the complete opposite. In the years when the old business was rudderless and I was trying to manage it through secret meetings, many operational difficulties [ensued] that I wasn’t aware of. Customers and brokers lost trust, and Elanvital would have to work hard to overcome that negative reputation.
“I then also realized the point of my father’s no-moonlighting policy—because my attention was split, I could not keep up with all the relevant context.
“At that time, I was sinking into a rolling depression. In public, I appeared firm, but in private, I was lost. I became abrasive, quick to find faults in others mostly because of how I was feeling. And I hated myself for acting that way.”
“2006 to 2016 was my lost decade,” Jack says. “I was here, there, everywhere. Like in the game Donkey Kong, when you climb up so many ladders, then the gorilla throws a barrel at you and you have to start again from the bottom. I was blaming myself for everything.”
On Black Saturday of 2016, which Pope Francis deemed the Year of Mercy, Jack emulated his mother’s faith, carried his Bible and went to Mary the Queen Parish Church in San Juan City. He wanted to know—“Was Jesus happy doing what He was doing, all the way until his death?”
“I hoped for yes, but I don’t recall that in the Gospels. To me, if Jesus was not happy in His trials, and He’s already God, what more [for] myself?”
Jack searched for Bible passages as evidence that Jesus was happy with His tasks.
“Happy” did not produce hits, but when Jack typed “joy” into his phone, up came the verse John 17:13.
Prior to the Agony in the Garden, Jesus prays to His Father on behalf of His disciples: “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.”
Relief—and joy—flooded through Jack. “Jesus was happy, despite trials, miseries, rejection. In fact, more than happy, He felt joy, which is deeper. That realization opened me up. I was able to forgive myself. I allowed myself not to be miserable. Now I can be a joyful person despite challenges.
Then and there, “I reviewed my life—what have I done for others, for the country and for the poor who are the majority? Not much. I remembered my calling, to be a man for others, a scholar for the country, a light for all. I lost my sense of purpose, because I centered my life upon the self and pleased my father for the sake of myself, rather than for others.
“In 1992, studies [showed] that the backlog of homes for the homeless was around a million. In 2015, five million, and in 2030, projected to be over 12 million. It was low-income housing that inspired me in the first place, yet I never did socialized housing for our most unserved sector. I knew what I had to do—home the homeless!”
At the time, the maximum loan from Pag-Ibig for a minimum-wage prospective homeowner was P450,000. Most developers sold at a higher price, and the buyer shouldered the difference.
But his spiritual epiphany, Jack vowed, “Instead of putting myself at the center, I will put the customer—the buyer of low-income housing—there.”
With Jack’s heart, mind and spirit aligned, business soared.
(To be continued next week)
Queena N. Lee-Chua is with the board of directors of Ateneo’s Family Business Center. Get the print version of her book “All in the Family Business” at Lazada or Shopee, or the e-book at Amazon, Google Play, Apple iBooks. Contact the author at blessbook.chua@gmail.com.
