Federico “Piki” Lopez did not ignore the elephant in the room.

On Friday, April 17, he walked into a town hall with employees of First Gen, the Lopez group’s power company focused on gas and renewable energy, in Makati. In the middle of a court battle over moves to oust him as president of Lopez Inc., he opened by asking, half-joking, what they were going to talk about. “There’s this big elephant in the room that we’ll pretend is not there,” he said, according to a transcript obtained by Rappler. “But anyway, I decided to just talk about it. But first of all, I don’t want to turn this town hall into a rally that foments hate. It’s not my style. It’s not the way I think we should be dealing with these kinds of problems.” 

He then reframed the fight. “In a nutshell, I just wanted to say that this is really… I don’t want to say shareholder battle, but it’s really a shareholder conflict that’s going on,” he said. “There’s no need for you to take sides.” He added that “shareholder disagreements,” after all, “have a way of working themselves out. And they will, despite all the animosity that you see there.” 

In Quezon City, ABS‑CBN held its own town hall earlier this week.

The Lopez family’s flagship media company and former dominant TV network now operates as a multi‑platform content producer after losing its franchise in 2020. The message to staff and management was similar but more emotional.

According to an officer present, CEO Carlo Katigbak, speaking mostly in Filipino, acknowledged the Lopez family dispute but urged employees to “stay the course,” “keep serving audiences,” and “ignore the noise” around the feud. He reminded them that the company, despite its losses, is not a failing enterprise. Those themes are spelled out in a series of statements filed with regulators and released publicly on March 28, April 15, 16, and 17. 

Holy Week, suffering, and ‘moments like this’

Piki began his Makati town hall not with numbers but with Holy Week.

He told employees that over the break, he and his wife Monina had stayed in Metro Manila. “Monina and I spent it just here. It’s nice and quiet. There’s no traffic,” he said. “For Good Friday, rather than just doing our regular prayers, we watched The Passion of Christ, the Mel Gibson movie.” 

He turned to his wife with dark humor. “I kept telling her, so which stage am I? Agony in the Garden or Crowning of Thorns?” he said, drawing laughter in the room. The jokes led to a more serious point. “Sometimes you feel a lot of the backstabbing, even from people that you’ve known for a very, very long time,” he said. “But the one conclusion that we came out with was, everything that we’re going through is nothing compared to what Christ went through for us.” Then he quoted his wife: “You know, Piki, your whole life has been in preparation for moments like this.”

Fighting weight and discipline

He followed that with something more prosaic: his weight.

“For the longest time, maybe about a year, I’ve been trying to get down to 61 kilos, my fighting weight,” he said. “I could never do it… Today, I’m down to 61 kilos.” The room applauded. He told them he knows “exercise is very important for you, especially under stress,” and that he has been swimming “faster, and maybe better than I ever have been, maybe in the last 20 years.

Without saying it directly, he was telling engineers and managers at First Gen that he is not crumbling. He is in “fighting weight,” his health metrics are improving, his routines are more disciplined than ever. They, too, he implied, should respond to the family crisis with discipline rather than panic.

‘Professional way’ and who backs him

And then he turned to governance.

“At FPH (First Philippine Holdings), we have been managing this company in the most professional way,” he said. “Our way of managing is probably, maybe somewhat misunderstood, because it’s rigid. It’s very regimented, even with regards to our fiduciary responsibilities.” 

He argued that this “rigid” approach had earned the group the confidence of investors that matter. He said that at FPH, First Gen’s parent, the state pension fund Social Security System (SSS) is among the biggest institutional shareholders. Ownership summaries list the SSS asset-management arm at just over 1% of FPH, with institutions holding around 9% to 10% and Lopezlinked private companies about 69%. 

Then he pointed to New York-based KKR as a vote of confidence. KKR, he reminded them, is a shareholder in First Gen. Public filings show that KKR first bought about 12% of First Gen in 2020 via Philippines Clean Energy Holding Inc., then raised this to roughly 20% through a follow-on voluntary tender offer in 2021. 

For Energy Development Corp. (EDC), the geothermal unit of First Gen, he cited the consortium between Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC. “They would not be there, and they would not be as supportive if we did not manage our fiduciary responsibilities in the way that we did,” he said. In 2017, that Macquarie–GIC joint venture, Philippines Renewable Energy Holdings Corp., agreed to buy over 31% of EDC for about US$1.3 billion through a tender offer. Later reporting pegs its current voting stake at around 35%, with First Gen retaining approximately 65%.

He then hinted at the most controversial part of that confidence: loan covenants that effectively tie the group’s financing to his presence.

A First Gen disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange said that BDO Unibank, the largest in the Philippines, has issued standby letters of credit (SBLCs) worth ₱9.9 billion and ₱14.85 billion to support First Gen’s acquisition of a 33% stake in Prime Hydropower Energy Inc., the Razon-linked company building the Wawa and Pakil pumped-storage projects. Those SBLCs, the filing states, are conditional on “leadership continuity” covenants across the FPH group. A “Change of Management Control” is an event of default if, among others, Piki or his designee ceases to be CEO of First Gen, if his designees cease to be a majority of the First Gen board or executive committee, or if his and his family’s stake in Lopez Inc. falls below a set threshold. 

In its own words, First Gen said BDO’s issuance of SBLCs “demonstrates the bank’s recognition that the continued active involvement of FRL in the FPH group is necessary, vital, and indispensable,” and that replacing him would trigger defaults in FPH’s loan agreements. At the town hall, Piki translated that bluntly: without their continued role, he said, “loans will become due and demandable.” 

Those covenants are tied to the very deals that have sharpened the cousins’ dispute. Under Piki, the Lopez group sold a controlling stake in its gas-fired power assets to Enrique Razon’s Prime Infra and agreed to invest alongside the Razon camp in massive hydropower projects: the 600-megawatt Wawa and 1,400-megawatt Pakil pumped-storage plants. First Gen is investing P62 billion for a 33% stake.

First Gen and parent FPH have cast these as long‑range renewables bets that expand the group’s clean energy portfolio.

Cousins led by former ABS-CBN chairman Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III have questioned the secrecy and risk. So when Piki tells staff that banks like BDO — and earlier, Prime Infra under Enrique Razon, through “key man” provisions — want him in place, he is effectively saying lenders share his view that these multi‑decade bets need continuity, not a reset.

Shutdown proposal and Kapamilya promises

Across the city in Quezon City, the messages from Gabby’s camp and ABS-CBN have leaned heavily on stewardship and survival.

On March 28, ABS‑CBN’s board issued a statement “in view of recent news reports concerning a dispute within the Lopez family and references to ABS‑CBN.” It said, “We wish to state that ABS‑CBN is not a party to this case,” stressing that talk of “unresolved audit findings” and alleged executive payouts as unfounded. “There were no audit findings. There is nothing to resolve. This claim is unfounded…. No such payouts have been made. No such payouts are planned. This claim is equally baseless.”

Since losing its franchise in 2020, it added, ABS‑CBN “has not stopped fighting to ensure its continued existence…. The last thing it needs is for its people to be misrepresented in a dispute it is not involved in.”

On April 15, ABS-CBN released an official statement that, for the first time, acknowledged a shutdown proposal inside the boardroom. “There have been continued PR attacks against ABSCBN as part of a family dispute over the company’s future,” it said, adding that “one of our directors proposed shutting down ABS-CBN without so much as discussing how it would meet its obligations to its people,” while “the majority of the directors argued for continued financial support rather than liquidation” to protect employees, retirees and other stakeholders.

A day later, in a clarification filed with the stock exchange, ABS-CBN confirmed that “a proposal to shut down ABS-CBN Corp. had been raised during board discussions but was ultimately rejected.” It stressed that, “This is a family dispute, and while ABS-CBN continues to receive public PR attacks, this does not affect the business operations, financial condition, and prospects of ABS-CBN.”

ABS-CBN did not name the director, but a separate April 14 press release from the Gabby-led 71% majority bloc of Lopez Inc., identified him as Piki. “We simply do not trust him,” the cousins said.

“The 71% majority of Lopez Inc. asked Federico ‘Piki’ Lopez to accept that they no longer trust him and for him to respect his perfectly legitimate dismissal by a 5–2 vote of the board for cause and loss of confidence.” It accused him of using ABS-CBN issues as a “diversion” to block his removal and of issuing “misleading” public statements as a “desperate attempt to cling to power.”

The majority added that “Piki, in refusing to fund the network, proposed instead to close down and liquidate ABS-CBN last year. He showed no concern for the nearly 4,000 employees who would lose their jobs, how creditors would be repaid, and how the public would continue to be served.” They said that, “in a gesture akin to their parents’ commitment to serve,” they voted against liquidation and “contributed hundreds of millions of pesos — both personally and through their family corporation — to keep the network operating.” 

Between the lines, the majority cousins were telling ABS-CBN’s people that they, not Piki, are living up to the promise of “Kapitan Geny.” Eugenio “Geny” Lopez Jr., the Lopez patriarch, built the network into a media powerhouse after martial law.

In their words, the majority cousins were the ones who refused to pull the plug on ABS-CBN. Geny’s son, Gabby, and the other cousins put in personal and corporate funds “to keep the network operating,’ and will “make sure” that ABS-CBN “will survive and grow once more.” That is the voice employees heard in Quezon City: Cousins casting themselves as guardians of the Kapamilya (family) institution, not just shareholders in a fight. 

The April 15 ABS-CBN statement anchored these claims in Kapitan Geny’s words. “It was Kapitan Geny who said, ‘Our reason for being is and always will be to be in the Service of the Filipino.’ In Kapitan Geny’s own words, ‘Profit alone is not enough reason to go into business. But if we serve our people, then I think that our growth and success will follow. If we take care of our people, they will take care of us. That’s the kind of culture a company should have.’” The statement concluded: “This is a family dispute and should remain so. We also believe it should not be fought in public. However, ABS-CBN will not shy away from defending itself and any untruths leveled against it.” 

That line was amplified on April 17 by ABS-CBN’s directors and advisers. In a one-page statement, they declared that “ABS-CBN is more than a media company. It is an institution that has served Philippine democracy and the Filipino people for generations — a mission that remains vital and very much alive. We are committed to its employees, its artists and journalists, and the public it continues to serve.” 

For ABS-CBN employees, the effect was to see their bosses and the board — from Katigbak and chairman Mark Lopez to advisers like Charo Santos-Concio and former finance secretary Cesar Purisima — standing shoulder to shoulder with the majority cousins. The statement never mentioned Piki by name, but its insistence that ABS-CBN is “more than a media company” and an institution that has served democarcy was clearly meant to reassure staff and management that the owners are still willing to fight for the network’s future.

Phoenix and compounding

Back in Makati, Piki used his town hall to articulate his own philosophy of stewardship.

Talking about First Gen’s prospects after president Giles Puno’s presentation, he said they were “very excited” because they were now seeing the power of compounding. “This is the whole thing of compounding,” he said. “Many of the things that we’re doing are not the product of basically just one year or two years. This is the product of maybe 25, 30, even 40 years of doing the things we’ve been doing, building on it.” 

In the context of his recent deals with Razon, that line lands differently.

In SEC filings and company press releases, First Gen has presented both the sale of its gas-fired power assets to Razon’s Prime Infra, and the joint investment in Wawa and Pakil hydro projects as part of a multi-decade transition away from coal and its cleaner baseload and storage, a continuation of the renewables path Piki set years ago when the Lopez group vowed to avoid coal. When he tells employees that what they are seeing now is the result of 25, 30, even 40 years” of work, he is inviting them to see those controversial transactions not as one-off gambles, but as the latest layer in a compounding story.

He then quoted a famous line often attributed to Albert Einstein: “Remember this, it’s Einstein who says that compound interest is probably the most powerful force in the universe. ‘Those who know it, reap it. Those who don’t know it, pay’.” He cited Warren Buffett’s partner Charlie Munger saying the same thing: “It’s so powerful, but just don’t interrupt it, because the moment you keep interrupting it, then it falls apart, and then you have to start again from scratch.” 

That set up his most pointed break with family mythology. “That’s also one reason why, again, I do not agree with the Phoenix analogy,” he said. “Because the Phoenix says, you burn down, you rise again. You burn down, you rise again. That stops compound interest, the most powerful force in the universe. I don’t want that for our companies. I want us to keep going and going and building and building.” 

On the other side, the majority cousins keep reaching back to Kapitan Geny’s language of service and to ABS-CBN’s role in Philippine democracy. For them, the story they want employees and the public to remember is less about compounding capital and more about a network that, in their words, “has served Philippine democracy and the Filipino people for generations.”

That Kapamilya sentiment has spread beyond the Lopez clan. At a reunion of TFC, The Filipino Channel, which is ABS‑CBN’s unit that delivers entertainment, news and features to Filipinos overseas, ABS-CBN journalist Niña Corpuz posted a photo on Facebook saying she “did not expect to see the man of the hour” and hear “an emotional speech… all the feels,” using heart-colored emojis in red, green and blue, the network’s colors. Corpuz was referring to Gabby Lopez.

Butch Jimenez, son of a major shareholder of ABS-CBN rival GMA7, posted that while he would not comment on the “corporate intramurals between the Lopez families,” his family has always acknowledged and appreciated ABS-CBN’s service. “In my humble opinion, their existence cannot be measured only by pesos and profit. They may have lost a lot, but the Filipinos they serve have gained much more,” he wrote. “God speed to Team Kapamilya.” 

‘Shelf life’ and staying the course

Before ending his townhall speech, Piki circled back to the media storm.

“You’re probably reading too much of it already,” he told First Gen employees, referring to the feud and the incessant media coverage. “Maybe the shelf life is going to run out soon. Hopefully, and then people go on to other things.” However long it lasts, he said, “it is what it is. Yes, and we will deal with it accordingly.” His advice to the Makati room was close to what Carlo Katigbak told the Quezon City room in Filipino: stay the course.  

In Makati, a chairman in “fighting weight” is telling his people to ignore the family noise, trust the judgment of banks and global funds, and keep compounding.

In Quezon City, cousins invoking Kapitan Geny and democracy are telling journalists and staff they turned down a shutdown, put in their own money, and will make sure ABS-CBN survives and grows. – Rappler.com

Lala Rimando wrote about Philippine business, and managed newsrooms, including Newsbreak, ABS-CBN, Rappler, and Forbes, for over 25 years. She’s now based in La Union, taking care of her mom with dementia, and working on the multimedia biography of the late John Gokongwei.