The late taipan Henry Sy Sr. spent a lifetime building the country's largest business empire, helping fuel economic expansion for decades and whose SM Group continues to provide jobs to thousands of Filipinos.

His rise from the young boy who had left an impoverished village in China's Fujian province to top Filipino billionaire remains among the great success stories in Philippine corporate history.

The lesser known legacy of "Tatang," as he was affectionately called, was his passion for learning and education that he had nurtured long before he passed away in 2019 at the age of 94. And while that legacy lives on through his children and successors, it also resonates deeply for his thousands of beneficiary scholars, including 20-year-old Jane Rose Sison.

Sison is part of the batch of 200 scholars of the SM Foundation during the tumultuous COVID-19 pandemic.

Like Sy, she was born into a family with limited means. Her father works on a per-project basis for an advertising company, installing stickers, tarpaulins and signs, while her mother is a housewife who augments the family income by selling various products for a small commission.

Their situation worsened during the pandemic lockdowns, when the Caloocan-based family was forced to sell charcoal-broiled food for extra income.

Whenever money was short, they would borrow from a "sari-sari" store, relatives and even loan sharks.

The situation could have easily spiraled into the typical debt trap that burdens countless Filipino families.

Sison, however, was bent on pursuing a college degree to help her family. She applied and then hurdled the stringent screening process for scholars of SM Foundation.

The scholarship was a game changer for Sison, who says her humble background did not stop her from dreaming and aspiring for more.

Sison is currently a third year accounting student at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and she hopes to become a certified public accountant and lawyer one day.

"I was inspired by Tatang every time I recall what he had gone through in life," she says in an email.

"I will forever be grateful to him for helping me with my studies in college. If not for the scholarship I received, I would not be where I am today. Thank you very much, Tatang. May your legacy live on," Sison adds.

8K scholar-graduates

The SM Foundation's scholarship program funds the education of thousands of students.

The foundation has provided deserving and qualified students with access to college education and technical-vocational studies since 1993. Every year, SM Foundation picks about 250 new scholars from less privileged families, covers their tuition fees and provides allowance. Likewise offered are part-time jobs and scholar engagement activities, like leadership trainings, recollections and scholar get-togethers. A special job fair is held for them after graduation.To date, SM Foundation has produced more than 8,000 scholar-graduates.

As the Sy family and the SM Group celebrate Tatang's birth month in October, they fondly recall the taipan as a man who was born to learn.

Born on Oct. 15, 1924, Sy was 12 years old when he left the poor little village of Hong Xi in Jinjiang, a county in China's Fujian province. He came to Manila to help his father manage their sari-sari store business in Quiapo.

This early exposure to life's challenges, coupled with the language barrier, encouraged him to return to school to arm himself with the necessary knowledge to thrive in his new home."Even when I was a young boy, I had a plan for my life," Sy once said.

He asked his father if he could go back to school to learn English.

He knew he had to start from scratch to learn the basics. "Start from the ground up," he reminded himself.

Sy, a renowned alumnus of Far Eastern University, went on to establish a small shoe store or "Shoe Mart" that grew into the multibillion dollar SM Group, a conglomerate that owns shopping malls, offices, banks and supermarkets.

He became known as the father of Philippine retail but his passion for education never waned. In 2008, it took on a more concrete form as the SM Group acquired National University (NU), a pioneering education institutional that had been founded over a century ago in the Quiapo district of Manila where Sy first laid down his roots in the Philippines.

The family went on to strengthen the university by upgrading facilities and building new infrastructure. The goal was to achieve excellence in academics and sports while making quality education more affordable.

Today, NU has six campuses and 40,000 students, according to Hans Sy, Tatang's son and chair of NU. In the coming years, NU will grow to at least 20 campuses nationwide with over 100,000 students.

‘Demanding character'

Tatang drilled into his children that "education is the greatest equalizer," and the same value is being passed on to the next generation.

Daughter Teresita Sy-Coson recalls her father's early lessons and their critical role in laying the foundation for their success later in life.

In a 2019 Inquirer article, she recalls how Sy wanted them to work hard and "to do our best."

"While we were not expected to do our best in school, once out of school and into the real world, we were taught to aspire to be the best in any endeavor we are actively involved in," Sy-Coson said.

"It took us a long time to understand my dad's drives and his teachings. We learned a lot though, amid all the arguments, hard feelings and complaints. We could not understand then why our lives and our discussion are all about business," she adds. Not one to express effusive praise, Sy would say "not bad," but the children thought they could do better, she shares.

"But we now see the wisdom of his demanding character. My siblings and I continue to grow and enhance the business based on his guidance and principles of business leadership." INQ