An ongoing investigative series on a family business in crisis, and the corporate governance war it has become.
The Lopez family built an empire out of the things Filipinos cannot live without.
ABS-CBN put television into Filipino living rooms. Meralco powered the cities. Maynilad piped water into Metro Manila’s west zone. Bayantel connected phone lines. SkyCable brought cable into homes. The North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) carried traffic out of Manila. Rockwell Land built a city within a city in Makati.
For more than half a century, the Lopez family sat at the center of the country’s infrastructure, media, and energy landscape, accumulating not just wealth but the kind of institutional power that shapes public life.
Then the family fractured.
Today, a dispute between two sets of cousins, Eugenio “Gabby” Lopez III on one side and Federico “Piki” Lopez on the other, is playing out across boardrooms, court filings, and closed-door family meetings. The dispute touches billions of pesos in energy assets, the future of ABS-CBN, and a fundamental question about who controls Lopez Incorporated, the private family holding company at the top of it all.
This series tracks that dispute from the inside: its origins in decades of high-risk bets and presidential pressure, the deal with tycoon Enrique Razon that broke the dam, and what it means for the companies, the family, and the people whose lives these businesses touch.
The Series
Part 1: Debt, discipline, and daring: Inside the Lopez Group’s high-risk bets →
Part 2: The Lopezes, presidents, and the cost of dissent →
Part 3: Lopez vs Lopez — the secrecy fight behind the Razon power deals →
How the Lopez family lost Meralco →
The 13-hour Meralco meeting: Inside one of the most dramatic shareholders’ battles I’ve covered →
More pieces forthcoming.
About This Series
Lala Rimando has covered the Lopez Group for over two decades — through the Meralco boardroom wars, the ABS-CBN shutdown, and the family’s long reconstruction after Martial Law. This series draws on that history, current reporting, and primary documents.
Published in Rappler, Esquire Philippines, and lalarimando.com.
Lala Rimando 