(The two top world billionaires Bills Gates (Microsoft) and Warren Buffett (Berkshires Holdings) had been struck by lightning - and are spending more time sharing their wealth with others than earning them today - through foundations and charity. The same bug has bitten an unlikely taipan in the Philippines today. One of his firms Robinsons Department Store and Supermarket alongside the Gaisanos and the Shoemart Group - were at one time or the other interested in setting up businesses in the city. They have been deferred, momentarily, with the thought that the market is not yet big enough to have surplus from those currently serviced by the Ong and Alturas Groups. Here is the taipan's story.)

There is nothing small about "Big John" Gokongwei.

He thinks big, not small. Big are his visions. Big his plans. Big the edifice. Big his airplanes. Big those balance sheets.

At age 80, "Big John" stunned the business world - by showing them where he had it the biggest - his heart.

In a philanthropic move dubbed as the biggest endowment in Philippine business history, the true-blue taipan, born in China but who grew up in Cebu, relinquished half of his personal holdings at the JJ Summit Holdings - worth at least P20-Billion - to charity.

So, he taught his children - not business stratagems or corporate bluffs - but the legacy of "sharing" of a "life that has been good to me" amidst crass materialism and hedonistic decadence of the 21st century.

"Big John" walks ten feet tall today after his August 11 announcement at his Crowne Plaza Hotel birthday celebration before an awe-struck crowd of 1,500 people. For the man worked his butt off to business superstardom, only to relinquish half of his wealth to faceless beneficiaries - specifically in the area of quality education.

And to show the world where part of his big heart beats for - he immediately made the University of San Carlos (where he spent his high school days) the recipient of P50-Million to build the Gokongwei School for Engineering. He had already spent a fortune in building facilities for schools like the Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle University and Xavier School, notwithstanding the fact that he made his wealth largely through understanding the lessons from the "university of hard knocks."

It was not luck, but the gift of a sharp mind, that "Big John" built his empire on. All the more reason his charity has focused on education - the one investment that yields the highest dividend, barring none. His gift to the Filipino people is "quality education" in order to give them a future way beyond their means.

"Big John" and the happy ending - is a fitting climax of a "feel good story" that started with the struggle of the young Gokongwei, at the age of 13, becoming an orphan and the business kingdom of his father collapsing in the midst of foreclosures. He lived by the day, as a trader "on bicycle" and a sea-faring merchant in the difficult years of World War II. He started the holding company in 1956 with a measly P1-Million in capital - where today the JJ Summits Holdings has P200-Billion in assets.

The Gokongwei conglomerate covers an expanse of consumer goods, textile and garments, airlines, petrochemicals, real estate, telecommunications, banking, hotel, electric power, publishing, among others. Today, it has land and shareholdings in prominent sites in Mainland China and progressive Singapore. Among his known products and services are Jack and Jill snacks, Nissin, Cebu Pacific, Robinsons Department Store, Robinsons Land, Sun Cellular, Robinsons Savings Bank, Summit Publishing (FHM etc.) and Manila Midtown Hotel.

But like economic cycles, the Gokongwei Group did not always have good times. When it sold out its PCIB shares where "Big John" cast a giant shadow as a demanding chairman of the Executive Committee - the financial pool was directed elsewhere. The 1997 Asian financial crisis, however, dampened many of its landholding values and maybe doubled its foreign denominated obligations. The petrochemical industry was slowly killed by smugglers and the textile industry in the doldrums.

The resiliency of the Group and "Big John's" mastery of the long-term economic horizon bailed out the group into today's business prominence. Gokongwei competes head-on with taipan Henry Sy's Shoemart in the supermarket-department store categories. The two taipans reportedly tossed a coin to determine who gets which location in prime Ortigas where the Sy's Megamall and John's Robinson Galleria proudly stand today.

But Gokongwei has the edge in filling his stores with his own manufactured consumer goods and garments. He invested in buildings, subdivisions and hotels. "Big John" is not scared of big competition.

His group has taken on Asia's pioneer airline of Lucio Tan (PAL) for domestic passenger supremacy through Cebu Pacific Airlines. It has launched Sun Cellular against the biased advice that the market was saturated and no one messes with the Ayalas and the PLDT-Smart group in the telecommunication industry.

Because of the extraordinary success, John Gokongwei has been alternately praised and criticized by fans and rivals alike. Depending on what suit one is wearing, "Big John" was either astute or ruthless, smart or devious, aggressive or predatory and strong personality or bully. But no one can debate success.

He gave his children the best education money can afford and to young Lance, a free hand to commit and learn his own mistakes as CEO. When daughter Robina said she wanted to be an editor, Big John bought her the "Manila Times." There.

The cynics and the jealous can turn blue saying John Gokongwei is just a "second-rate trying hard" copycat of the world's top billionaires, namely, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who are now first-rate philanthropists zeroing in on poverty, ignorance and disease.

But no one has a monopoly of virtue. In his heart, a big one - we tell you - John Gokongwei knows that to him, who much has been given, much is asked. Or put in another way, "Those who obtain have little, those who scatter have much." A universal law.

"Big John" has gone full circle. He has seen the world and more. He is back to the Little Prince who says: "It is only through the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eyes."

"Big John" Gokongwei - he with that big heart.