Ave!
Just one word, but filled with meaning and emotion, evoking piety and honor.
Before Gladiators engage in battle, they cry their hearts out: Ave Cesar! Those who are about to die salute you!
Just before the greatest event in human history, an angel appears to a virgin in a small Jewish town with news that she would conceive and give birth to a Son: Ave Maria! Full of grace!
And when that Son grew in wisdom and age, he was condemned to death and mocked: Ave Rex Iudaeorum!
Ave! I speak this word, thick with meaning and emotion, in honor of my very good, no, my very great friend, Minyong Ordoñez. To others, HGO. To some, Mr. O. Or simply, Minyong.
But to me, he was, and always will be, Minyonggi. Ave Minyonggi!
“Which is better?” he’ll say it’s the bikes.
We were like the most intimate of brothers, calling each other with terms of endearment. I call him Minyonggi, he calls me Manoling.
At times, I would even add: Minyonggi PhD, because his intelligent, creative and imaginative insights had depth, dimension and meaning. He possessed a beautiful mind, simple and guileless, able to capture reality with such vividness and color. This made him an advertising wunderkind.
I first met Minyonggi almost half a century ago, thanks to a common friend, another top advertising man, Tony Mercado. Tony was one of the shining stars in Manila’s ad agency galaxy in the 1960s and ’70s, who started Basic Motivators (Publicis JimenezBasic today).
Tony was a very good friend with whom I worked closely, and Minyonggi tagged along and lapped up all he could and eventually surpassed us both, though he’s too modest to admit it.
Creative blockbusters
Everyone who knew Minyonggi would know his classic and legendary contributions to the advertising industry.
Creative blockbusters like: Jollibee’s Langhap Sarap… Chiclet’s Tsikletin Mo Baby… Palmolive’s I can feel it… Benadryl’s Reseta ng Duktor… UFC’s Tamis-anghang ketchup, Sarsi’s Angat sa iba and DBP’s Palabra de Honor (I worked closely with him on these two)… Duty-Free’s Babalik ka rin…
Many know him as the great advertising icon who transformed young brands into market leaders.
Others know him as the BMW-riding marketing honcho who zoomed past everybody in the skyway, a hobby he chose as soon as he retired.
Many remember him as the American muscle-riding CEO who often rode his 1967 Ford Mustang convertible along Ayala Ave. on Saturdays.
A few select ones know that on weekends, he hides away secretly in his very own Eden in Majayjay, Laguna (now turned into a beautiful bed & breakfast) that rests at the foot of Mt. Banahaw in the midst of the soothing sound of rushing river.
But I was very fortunate to know him as Minyonggi, the dedicated father to four kids, faithful husband to two wives (but not at the same time, he would quickly add), gentlemen to many women (before his two marriages), and nurturing mentor to his people with whom he dealt in his unique, demanding and sarcastic, funny and kind affection that commanded extreme gladiatorial loyalty.
Lola Genia
Thanks to his Lola Genia, who taught him how to pray and behave when he was 3 years old, he grew up to be a very deeply spiritual man, with whom I spent many years exchanging theological and philosophical insights into the mysteries of the human soul—a soul to which he attributed his creativity and his life’s resilience.
Later on this would be the basis for his DBP advertisements emphasizing Filipino values and virtues as the thrust of the bank’s public relations campaign.
Devastated by the sudden loss of his first wife, he found himself having to admit that he needed help to raise two young daughters. Rather than wallow in depression, I saw him swallow his sorrow and, being an up-and-coming ad legend, began advertising to women that he was available.
I used to joke him that he was good only in selling millions of household products, but sucked at selling himself, and we laughed in a ho-ho-ho-ha-ha-ha-hee-haw way…
After being a widower for six years, he convinced Encar, whom he called “my beautiful one,” to marry him in his middle age, and I agreed to be their ninong.
Minyonggi was back on track, with his creative juices overflowing. The rest, to quote a cliché, is well documented in Basic’s history, until his retirement.
Advertise your mind, write!
The day he retired, he called me, and we talked a very long time. Many times.
“What now?” he asked.
“Let’s try to change the world!” I answered.
“How?” he countered.
I counseled: “Advertise your mind! Write. You’re a good wordsmith with a guileless mind able to simplify this complex world in ways people would understand.”
Thus, Gut Feel was born, his book published in the early 2000s, a pseudo-autobiography that tackles the wide range of Minyong’s experiences since he was a young boy in Majayjay, and later on a player in the corporate advertising world in Makati.
A few years later, his mind’s factory would give birth to the Gut Feel column, now a classic newspaper column in the Inquirer Lifestyle with his passing.
He gave me a free copy of his book that I won’t sell, and pass on to my grandchildren as an heirloom.
Not seriously
In the last few years, the two of us became closer. We called each other to bounce off ideas. When we’re not in and out of the hospital and recuperating at home (we would take turns visiting each other: he in my home in Greenhills, and I in his home in Alabang). We’d have tea, or coffee, or merienda or lunch anywhere.
There we were, hurling brickbats at each other’s crazy ideas, until one would stick and grow into an article, which he would then dutifully dissect and analyze until he found it appealing to his column’s readers.
We never took ourselves seriously. We were very alike in not being bothered by those who disagreed with us, laughing at our mistakes and laughing at our home runs.
“Luck,” Minyonggi said, “accounts for 99 percent of success, and only 1 percent is due to hard work, but it better be really hard, bloody work.”
And then came the end. We knew it was coming, and Minyonggi would text me, asking for prayers, not really for himself but for Encar and their children.
He has lived, he told me many times, a very happy life, full of serious faults (for which he has asked forgiveness), but a life in which he enjoyed the tremendous love of his family.
In our last conversation, he admitted, he was most proud and happy for his children, who have been through a lot in life, but who in his or her own way found themselves and had come to terms with who and what they are. He was one very happy dad and lolo!
In one final interview conducted with Minyonggi, a young marketing educator asked him, “How would you like people to remember you?”
Minyonggi said, “Icons (including Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great) ultimately end up in the dustbin of history. I’ll be happy to be remembered as the promdi who made the biggest tsamba in advertising when he wrote “Langhap-Sarap” beneath the Jollibee logo 35 years ago.”
His reply was succinct. It reflected his outlook—cheerful, humble and candid. The same way he will always be remembered by those who knew him and were dear to him.
Ave Minyonggi!
