José Cojuangco

In the 1940s, with less than a day's notice, he left the Cojuangco mansion (built in 1933 the year Cory Aquino was born) along Agno Street (near De La Salle University), Malate, Manila for the safety of Antipolo, Rizal (political bailiwick of his wife's relatives). Meanwhile, his aunt Ysidra and brother Eduardo fled to Baguio city where they thought the Japanese would not go and where there were large Cojuangco apartments. (Eduardo Sr's mother-in-law Gregoria Beley Murphy was in Baguio as well.) His relative Antonio stayed behind due to his son's fever.

While Ysidra Cojuangco y Estrella and her nephews and their families sought shelter at the Baguio cathedral during the bombardments, the Antonio Cojuangcos were trapped in the De La Salle University chapel where they were massacred by the desperate Japanese. Only two survived, siblings Lourdes or "Lulu" and Ramon or "Monching". Ramon's first wife Natividad "Nene" de las Alas, the sister of Pacita "Ching" (the wife of Sergio Montinola), Lourdes "Lily" (wife of Senator Ambrosio Padilla and arch-enemy of Imelda Marcos) and Carmencita "Menchu" (wife of Raul Concepcion was also hacked to death). "Lulu" who was saved when the bayonet hit the baby (Monching's firstborn) she was carrying instead. She would later marry Luis Tirso Rivilla of Ormoc City.

As the eldest male Cojuangco, Pepe felt partly to blame for the near decimation of the Antonio Cojuangco branch. From that day on, Cojuangco and his relatives never lived in Malate ever again. He sent Monching, Lulu and his own children to the United States for their studies. (Ravenhill Academy, College of Mount Saint Vincent, et al.). He cared for Antonio's children as if they were his own.

As his businesses outside of Tarlac flourished, he invited the rest of his family to join him. His brother, Itoy, and Antonio's son, Monching, benefited from this arrangement. Danding Cojuangco, his nephew by ex-Governor Eduardo "Endeng" Cojuangco Sr, declined.

In 1953, Cojuangco's youngest brother, Endeng (Danding Cojuangco's father) was sick and needed treatment in the United States. At that time, dollars was strictly regulated. Don Pepe's wife and holder of the entire clan's purse, Doña Metring (Cory Aquino's mother) was unable to obtain the necessary funds to facilitate the young Endeng Cojuangco's medical expenses. Danding's father later died of kidney failure. Also in 1953, President Ramon Magsaysay offered to sell Hacienda Luisita to Don Pepe, as the Hukbalahap rebels caused much fear and the Spanish owners, Compañía General de Tabacos de Filipinas (Tabacalera), wanted to sell. (President Magsaysay was avoiding the wealthier hacenderos from Negros island and Iloilo, specifically the brothers Fernando Lopez and Eugenio Lopez, from owning too much as they already purchased the PASUMIL consortium in Del Carmen, Pampanga.) Negotiations started but President Magsaysay died when his airplane crashed on Mount Manunggal in Cebu. The deal was closed five years later in President Carlos Garcia y Polistico's term who was a close ally of then Senator Ferdinand Marcos y Edralin.

In early 1958 Cojuangco purchased the Hacienda Luisita, the second biggest contiguous piece of property in Luzon island. This time, he was able to secure American dollars required by Tabacalera. Unlike before, he called on his friend, Philippine Central Bank governor Miguel Cuaderno to help him. The hacienda is separate from the lands his aunt Doña Ysidra Cojuangco y Estrella assembled in the past decades. He and his son-in-law, Ninoy (Benigno Aquino Jr.), introduced strong social programs favoring the farmers of the hacienda.

While Don Pepe was genuinely loved by the farmers under his management (free healthcare, free schooling, adult education, veterinary medicines for the farm animals), designated areas for employee housing), the stark treatment concerning the dollars relating to Endeng's survival and his subsequent death versus the grand business move Cojuangco made in purchasing Hacienda Luisita added insult to injury to Doña Nene and her now fatherless six children (Eduardo, Mercedes, Aurora, Isabel, Enrique and Manuel). Besides the opposing views in politics and the abandonment of the Antonio Cojuangcos in Manila during the war, the situation concerning his younger brother's death would eventually cause for a collision course between Cojuangco's and Endeng Lalake's heirs.

In the 1960s, Cojuangco's bus company and banking arm expanded to open satellite offices all over the country. The Philippine Bank of Commerce (PBC) was the preferred intermediary/ local bank of American companies in Manila. He then divested from PBC less than a month before the stockholder's meeting to avoid the embarrassment of being unseated by his brother Itoy, his nephew Danding and his other nephew Monching, who wanted greater influence in the bank. Afterwards, he opened First United Bank. With perseverance First United became a major bank under his helm.

Due to the geographical proximity of his Hacienda Luisita and the Paniqui Sugar Mills, which he managed on behalf of the entire family, there were times when more than 90% of all raw sugar milled in central Luzon were processed through Cojuangco-owned companies. The Cojuangco family owned so much land in Central Luzon that they could dictate the price of rice and non-Visayan sugar.

When the 1970s set in, Don Pepe had already resigned from his Philippine Bank of Commerce (PBC) position and sold all his shares to avoid a boardroom coup by the other branches of the Cojuangco family. This was particularly sentimental for Don Pepe, as he was the one who founded PBC and nurtured it from bankruptcy. It was also the one company where he insisted that all four families of the Cojuangco co-own, not knowing that the same generosity will swallow him in his twilight years.

Meanwhile, his bus company Pantranco was coerced to file for bankruptcy after the Marcos-led administration refused to allow rate hikes even when market forces deemed an increase in bus fares. The same happened to Mantrade. Unable to expand his businesses due to political pressures, in 1975, he sold First United Bank. The buyer was the Philippine Government which would evolve the bank to become the United Coconut Planters Bank.

Cojuangco was representative of the First District of Tarlac to the 10th Philippine Legislature in 1934-35, the First Philippine National Assembly in 1935-1938, the Second National Assembly in 1938-1941 and the Third National Assembly in 1941-1946.

He represented Tarlac in the same way that his father Don Melecio Cojuangco did as the first ever representative of Tarlac in the First Philippine Legislature of 1907-1909. (Don Melecio's political career was cut short when he suffered a fatal heart attack in the Urdaneta-Manila train while defending his sons Jose (Pepe) and Juan (Itoy) from American soldiers wanting to sidestep the youngsters from their seats. Mauricio Ilagan served the remaining 4 years (till 1912) of his term).

While in Congress, Don Pepe was one of two representing the province of Tarlac. The other one was Benigno S. Aquino Sr., whose son from his second marriage, Ninoy Aquino became the husband to Don Pepe's daughter, Cory Aquino. In essence, the current Philippine President Noynoy Aquino's paternal and maternal grandfathers sat side by side for Tarlac from 1935–1938 and again from 1941-1946.

Don Pepe Cojuangco retired from politics after World War II and thus avoided a clash with his younger brother, Eduardo Sr. or Endeng Lalake, the charismatic governor of Tarlac province. When he quit politics, his personal wealth was preserved unlike his good friend and future in-law Benigno Aquino Sr's, whose lands and cash holdings decreased dramatically by using it for social welfare programs in their home province.

He died on August 21, 1976.

He died during the darkest days of the Jose Cojuangcos. All of his businesses were under extreme scrutiny by the Marcoses.

Many banks refused to extend credit for fear of government retaliation. Only Chinabank of Binondo, whose owners Don Pepe assisted when they themselves were just starting out, defied the government and helped him. (His granddaughter Victoria Eliza Cojuangco Aquino or Viel, would later marry into this banking family now headed by former Ambassador to the Vatican Howard Dee).

His sons Pete and Peping lost the bid to own the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company after it was awarded to Monching Cojuangco, Antonio Meer, and his Ongsiako brother-in-law. (Imelda de la Paz Ongsiako Cojuangco, Monching's wife, was a Blue Lady of Imelda Marcos, and wedding sponsor to presidential daughter Irene Marcos Araneta).

His First United Bank was renamed and was spun off by President Marcos as a front to illegally collect coconut levy funds, hence the reason why United Coconut Planters Bank is sometimes referred to as Cocobank.

The transportation companies he owned with the Lopa family were also lost to Marcos cronies. Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez, brother of Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, took over the First Manila Management Corp., the mother company of Mantrade (which handled the distribution of Ford Motors and other motor vehicles) and the Pantranco bus company (painted with vibrant hearts of every color, the fleet earned the moniker "Lovebus"), shortly after the death of Cojuangco's business partner, Manuel Lopa, Sr., in 1974. (With his death, the conglomerate lost their immunity from the Marcoses, since Lopa shared a close friendship with Imelda's late uncle, Daniel Romualdez y Zialcita, Speaker Pro Tempore of the Philippine Congress, who died suddenly via a heart attack, a few months before his niece Imelda Marcos rose as Philippine First Lady, in 1965.) Lopa's son (and Cojuangco's son-in-law), Ricardo "Baby" Lopa, was then ousted from the company.

Cojuangco no longer controlled the Bank of Commerce, which was closest to his heart, as it was the first non-agricultural company he founded. Also, it was the last company that, out of family solidarity, he formed insisting that all four branches of the Cojuangco should co-own. His departure from Bank of Commerce left Don Pepe's psyche bruised and his spirit betrayed.

His lawyer, Juan Ponce Enrile, a son of his old friend and attorney, the Spanish mestizo Alfonso Ponce Enrile (father of Armida Siguion Reyna and Irma Potenciano), has since not been able to help him speak to President Marcos even when the latter was the designated Defense Minister.

Neither can his nephew, Danding Cojuangco, a Marcos associate, could do anything to help Cojuangco. He himself comforted his old uncle, saying "Tio Pepe, huwag na po kayong umiyak" (Uncle Pepe, please do not cry).

One of his lasting words to his family was "Kawawa naman si Cory" (Oh how pitiful Cory is!), as he died broken hearted to see this daughter of his harassed and harangued by the Marcos government for being the woman Ninoy Aquino chose as his wife.

In 1979, his last surviving brother, Juan Cojuangco, died. Some of his wealth devolved back to his six nephews and eight nieces. The rest was left to his second wife, Doña Hati, who formed the Cojuangco Aldaba Foundation.

Ten years after Don Pepe's death, in 1986, Cory Aquino would be swept into the presidency of the Philippines, while President Ferdinand Marcos, Benjamin Romualdez, Danding Cojuangco, and their extended families, fled to Hawaii and mainland United States.

At present, Don Pepe Cojuangco's male line is preserved through his elder son, Pedro Cojuangco who has five sons. His younger son and namesake Jose Jr. (Peping), has 5 daughters.

His grandson through his daughter Corazon, is Senator Benigno Aquino III who sat in the Upper House together with Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, the former Cojuangco family lawyer. With the help of sisters Kris Aquino, Maria Elena Cruz, Aurora Corazon Abellada, Victoria Eliza Dee, plus Antonio Ongsiako Cojuangco, other relatives, Mar Roxas and his family headed by mother Judy Araneta Roxas, and most importantly, numerous volunteers, Noynoy Aquino campaigned and won the Philippine presidency that his mother Cory Aquino once occupied. (One of his opponents was Gilbert Teodoro, Danding Cojuangco's nephew through sister Mercedes).

Hacienda Luisita's ownership is currently being questioned in the media due to proviso verbiage in the sale indicating a land redistribution.

Meanwhile, the Antonio Cojuangco branch lost the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company through a sale brokered by President Joseph Ejercito Estrada.

The two junior branches of the family, the Eduardo Cojuangcos and the Antonio Cojuangcos, still control the United Coconut Planters Bank(formerly First United Bank) and the Bank of Commerce, respectively. However, recently, San Miguel Corporation (chaired by Danding Cojuangco of the Eduardo Cojuangco branch) acquired the controlling interest in Bank of Commerce from the Antonio Cojuangco branch.

• Aquino-Cojuangco Clan