Jose ‘Joecon’ Concepcion, Jr., a tireless advocate of Filipino-led industrial development passed away last week, leaving a sterling record of public service for emulation by younger generations of Filipinos.
For the snap presidential elections held on Feb. 7, 1986, he organized and led the National Movement for Free Elections. NAMFREL mobilized citizens by the thousands to perform poll watching duties and safeguard the integrity of the elections. He inspired them to overcome skepticism: “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” They manned election precincts, and accompanied the teachers who served as election officers to the designated areas for the counting and tabulation of election results.
He popularized the battlecry, “Yes, the Filipino can!” while serving as Secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), “to challenge every Filipino to make a difference by taking positive and constructive action in his own community. He organized what is now known as DTI’s One-Stop Shop for business permits and licenses.
In 1975, he was a founding member and organizer of two vital organizations: the Bishops-Businessmen Conference for Human Development (BBC) and the ASEAN Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASEAN-CCI).
As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1971, he championed the democratization of the nation’s capital base to allow Filipino manufacturers to thrive.
After serving in government, he took over the helm of RFM Corporation, shepherding its diversification into animal feed milling, poultry and livestock. Its growth led to the expansion of the RFM Group of Companies into diversified fields, such as real estate, semiconductors, and banking. At one point, it became one of the largest food and beverage food companies in the country, guided by its vision of “putting food on every Filipinio family’s table” by offering mass-based, high-quality and affordable, low-cost products.
He has been hailed as “the epitome of the patriot-industrialist” by dint of his unflagging belief in the Philippines’ capacity to achieve inclusive economic development that brought maximum benefit to Filipinos. He was always at the forefront of civic movements, among which was the Pasay City Citizens League for Good Government that succeeded in electing a new breed of public officials who were not traditional politicians.
Even in his youth, his pioneering and entrepreneurial instincts were evident. Aside from earning an Associate’s Degree in Commercial Science from De La Salle University, he also obtained a Bachelor’s Degree from the Araneta University, majoring in soils and agricultural sciences. He was the first to use radio-isotopes in the Philippines, applying it as a mechanism to find out how much phosphorus was needed in fertilizers to encourage growth. He later published a paper on “Radio-isotope Phosphorus in Plants.”
Yet another memorable image of Joecon was his initiative in tackling problems hands-on, taking time to serve as Punong Barangay in Forbes Park and directing traffic at a busy intersection — demonstrating that, indeed, “Yes, the Filipino can!”