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Good advice on pre-nuptial agreement. :)
Since it’s Valentines’s Day, I’ve decided to delve into the business side of love since this seems to be an important topic often overlooked by most people and most especially by emotionally charged younger people with stars in their eyes who think love conquers all.
My advice? Do not splurge excessively on your wedding like a fiesta to the detriment of your family future. The size or lavishness of a wedding does not determine the classiness or beauty of your celebration.
Here are a few of my thoughts on the topic of love and money:
• Use the head, not only the heart, in choosing one’s spouse. As a history buff, I have studied the lives of many successful people and families — whether in business or politics — whose long-term success and happiness have been affected by their wise or foolish choices of spouse. How many people have ruined their lives and the future of their families with purely emotional and often irrational choices of spouses?
In Philippine business, those tycoons who’ve chosen good spouses that are great assets to their amazing entrepreneurial careers include John Gokongwei Jr., whose wife is the humble and simple-living Elizabeth Limsico Yu; Senator Manny Villar, whose wife is his University of the Philippines (UP) classmate — herself a humble business whiz — Cynthia Aguilar Villar; Metrobank Group boss George SK Ty, whose wife, Mary Vy Ty, is well-known as a humble and devoted wife who serves as Ty’s hardworking assistant on key financial matters such as the compensation of top executives; Filinvest Group and East West Bank founder Andrew Gotianun, whose wife is UP summa cum laude graduate and talented businesswoman Mercedes Gotamco Tan; SM Group founder Henry Sy Sr., whose wife, the self-effacing, religious Felicidad Tan Sy, successfully raised good kids who are not spoiled brats but hardworking and obedient children.
• Sign a prenuptial agreement. This is the one thing the public should learn from Kris Aquino (whose birthday is today) and her late mother, President Cory C. Aquino. Unlike Megastar Sharon Cuneta, who signed a prenup before marrying Senator Kiko Pangilinan, Kris last year tearfully and publicly admitted that she regretted not heeding her mom’s wise advice on first signing a pre-nup before she married basketball athlete James Yap. Kris and James are now separated and in the process of annulling their marriage.
• Be monogamous and loyal to your spouse for the sake of efficiency. A young tycoon once asked me if he should indulge in adultery or polygamy, and I replied — not using Christian moral values but talking to him in a straightforward business sense —that we human beings in general have finite physical resources, energy and time (only 24 hours a day).
• Heed the advice of parents and family elders. One of the most unappreciated and misunderstood facets of love in the modern era is the often very wise role of parents of previous generations guiding people to choose their spouses. Hollywood and even our Tagalog movies love to poke fun at or demonize this aspect, but in most instances, parents mean well and care. Also, marriage is not only between two persons, as it seems in the more individualistic Western view, but it also affects entire families and future generations ad continuum.
Business leader John Gokongwei Jr. once told me that in Chinese culture, it is believed that a person who played a successful role in arranging a good kaysiaw that ends up in a good marriage ideal for two lovers’ families would be blessed with good fortune.
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