The webpage of Green Cross Incorporated starts off with a lie: “It was in 1952 when Chinese immigrant Mr. Co Ay Tian founded the company.”
The real founder was not the father, but his son. Gonzalo Co It, who has written the book “The Green Cross Saga My Authobiography.” Gonzalo is now 94.
In 1952, Gonzalo Co it started a single proprietorship called Gonzalo Laboratories which he owned 100%.
It produced the Green Cross Rubbing Alcohol. The next year, he introduced a second product – Zonrox.
Notes Gonzalo in an affidavit: “In 1968, I hired my brother Anthony A. Co He is next to me but twenty (20) years younger.”
He also brought in his other siblings. Joseph, Mary and Peter. It was Joseph who convinced him to change his single proprietorship to a corporation with his siblings and parents as incorporators. Gonzalo did not suspect his siblings who all had past experiences with failed businesses had a devious plan. He would have been better off if he made his eight children, instead of his four siblings, as the incorporators of Gonzalo Laboratories Inc. (later to become “Green Cross, Inc.”)
Writes Gonzalo in [h]is autobiography: “I did not realize then that, by agreeing to convert my single proprietorship into a corporation, I was opening the doors to my brothers and sister to take over my business. It was a devious plan that took three decades to unfold and all that time, I had no inkling whatsoever of their maneuverings. If you ask me how it was possible that I did not even suspect what they were doing, I will tell you that I loved them and I trusted them completely. Never once did I think they would betray me. But they did.”
Eventually, on the 50th anniversary of the company – 2002 – the daughter of Anthony announced that the founder of the company was the father – Co Ay Tian. Gonzalo’s children wanted to go up on stage to correct the lie but eldest son Syril says that his father held him back.
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In a letter he sent to the Philippine Kho Association, which is a family association that handles problems within the Chinese community, Gonzalo explains:
“I wish to emphasize that I was the only one who paid the whole P70,000 paid-up capitalization. All the subscription right also belongs to me.
“None of my brothers and sisters nor my parents paid with their own money for the shares which I placed in their names only by way of implied trust.”
“I had to name them incorporators, because at least five (5) incorporators are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).
“Also, I wanted to give them self-confidence. I wanted to encourage them. They had no money. They did not do well in their own undertakings. Anthony resigned as an architect in the William Golamco Construction in Angeles City.
“After a while, Anthony engaged in the garments business. It failed. Joseph’s furniture business was also unsuccessful. Peter was working with Ajinamoto in Bulacan, Mary was with a private company in Binondo. Both were monthly paid employees. They had no successful business track records.”
So, since they could not do it on their own, they decided to take over their kuya’s successful business.
Gonzalo’s letter to the Philippine Kho Association continues: “What is now clear is that by 1991, Peter, Joseph and Anthony had reported in their names 29.1 % each while Mary had 12.7%. That is a total of 100% of the shares of the corporation in their names.
“Although I only entrusted those shares to them as my trustees, they took advantage of my trust and had the title of ownership transferred to them. They took over my business.
“It was not my intention to give it to them. As their eldest brother, my intention was only to help them and share the fruits of the business. Instead, they took the business from me.
“I was ousted. I am not even recognized as its Founder as if they do not want to look back at those long years when I planted the seed of the business.”
The letter to the Philippine Kho Association was written in August 2006. Eight years later, nothing has happened. Now, Gonzalo Co It is trying to get back his trademarks, which have been taken over by the Green Cross Incorporated, which by all rights should be his but is now controlled by his siblings who never did anything for the corporation.
Let’s hope he will live long enough to get back what is, by all rights, his to pass on to his eight children and to his grandchildren as I am sure his parents – Co Ay Tian and Ang Si and his wife Katherine Sia Siu Eng, who have gone ahead, will do what they can to help this old man find his way.
What is wonderful about the autobiography is that, for all the slights that he suffered from his siblings, he never wrote a bitter word about them. Throughout, Gonzalo was still the kuya who forgave all. He never forgot that he loved his siblings no matter what they did to him or the way they treated him. In fact, in the photographs of his siblings and their mates and children in his autobiography, he presents their pictures in the same way that he presents his own children’s photos, without rancor or bitterness. What a great man he has shown himself to be.
This shows the greatness of Gonzalo Co [It]. He exemplifies the Rotarian, which he is, as someone who dedicate his life to service above self.
On the personal level, I hope that my fellow Rotarian succeeds in what he wants to accomplish – to find a measure of fairness in his life as a businessman. Life and his siblings have been unfair to him. That he continues to love them is a measure of how great a man Gonzalo Co [It] is.
