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Marilou Kahn-Magsaysay’s art of managing the household

By Rogelio Constantino Medina, Contributor

01/04/2009

Marie Louise Kahn-Magsaysay, or simply Marilou, is not really the glamor wife some people think. She is just a simple person who knows how to manage the household in a democratic way. She loves to work, and to do her work well.

She has her moods, her temper, like anyone else. She values her privacy and wants to remain low-key as much as she could. She is a fairly easy person to get along with if you know her well enough.

“I always have meetings with my girls (maids) at home,” started she as I gazed at the glint in her eyes. “I’ve meetings at least once a month, especially if there is any problem to be settled in the house. I want all cleared out in the open so that there would be no back-biting. I allow them to speak out what they want to say if there is something I’ve done that hurts them so that I can straighten it out.”

She believes that if you are good to your maids, they will take care of you. She adheres to give-and-take relationship in life. For her, there is no such thing as señora.

“You have to treat them like part and parcel of your family,” she pointed out.

Oftentimes, she and her hubby, former Sen. Jun Magsaysay (son of the late President Ramon Magsaysay Sr., who died in a tragic plane crash many years ago), give their household members a vacation leave with pocket money so they can also relax with their family. “I am amazed that my girls are so efficient,” Marilou says.

Usually the maids who stay longer in the Magsaysay household are assigned their own space. If something goes wrong, Marilou knows whose she is going to talk to. A particular room is under one girl and she knows how to put it in order.

Marilou applies the same democratic manner in the office and frequently her employees are able to confide in her. She said she is very fortunate to be blessed with good people.

“Marilou is my guiding light. She teaches me how to be humble. She is a reality. She is a very sensitive person. When I am demoralized or discouraged, she tries to comfort me,” revealed Jun Magsaysay to this journalist.

A product of Assumption in Herran, Manila, Marilou moved to Switzerland in college to take up French language. When she returned from abroad, she worked with Air France. She is fourth among a brood of 13. Her grandfather was pure French and her grandmother was a Spanish-Filipina.

She lived for 10 years in New York, California and Florida, USA. In 1979, she, together with a lady friend, established a ballet school in San Jose, California. Years later, she worked in Intel and later moved to New York to do real estate business.

In the Philippines, she founded the Balete Realty in 1989. When her husband became a senator in 1995, she stopped her real estate business for a while to assist him on civic works.

She continues to be involved in a hair and scalp treatment business, the J.F. Lazartigue, a franchise she got in Paris, France.

J.F. Lazartigue offers a complete range of products specially formulated to treat hair problems and to beautify the hair. It has over 160 branches in France and around the world. “We usually hire nurses because it is easy to train them, and our products are also available in drugstores and supermarkets,” Marilou says.

Foremost to Marilou is her family. She said her husband Jun works so hard. “If we eat one meal together, masuwerte na iyon (we’re lucky). Sometimes when he comes home, I‘ve already had dinner because he has already meetings outside at night and he leaves early in the morning. He is very focused. When he is thinking of something that he wants to do, he writes it all down to make sure that he does not forget it,” she confided.

She said that her hubby Jun, who “is strictly private” and a busy businessman, sleeps at about 11 p.m. or 12 midnight. By 4:30 a.m., he is already at the computer. “He is an early riser. There are times he is really tired. So I don’t let anybody disturb him so that he can get enough sleep.”

It is curious to know that Marilou met Jun Magsaysay through a blind date arranged by friends Jojo and Henry Zabarte. At first, she is not attracted to him. From her mind, he is just another friend until “Jun told me he is a friend of my uncle, as if there is already a connection.”

At that time, she told Jun she was doing a project study on putting up a Chinese restaurant in West Palm Beach, Florida. “He said he would help me. So he brought me to his friend, Frederick Tan, the owner of Peach Blossoms. Frederick told me that I should not pursue the project for mamamatay ka sa hirap (you would die in hardship). You would lose a lot of money if you don’t do the purchasing yourself and if you don’t have the variety in Florida as you do here, of the markets, the fresh seafood. It’s too expensive there. Frederick suggested that I didn’t pursue the project. So, I dropped it and went back to the real estate business, which is really my line.”

Marilou believes in time management, but she cannot practise it: “I never know what is going to happen.” Sometimes, her staff at J.F. Lazartigue would call her up if they have a problem in the shop. She would cancel her appointments and go to the shop to attend to it. She also gets a lot of calls from people who need help.

“If the problem does not happen, then I would know what to do on a day-to-day basis,” she reasoned out.

As far as motivation is concerned, she believes in profit-sharing, giving the staff some incentives.

It is interesting to note that she, together with her hubby, is involved in community work. They put together all the operators of the barber shops and beauty parlors who eventually put up a co-op. “The country club has gotten them as a joint-venture, so that they won’t have a boss. They are their own boss.”

The venture’s goal, Marilou said, is to own their own houses and be fully covered for medical benefits. “They are paying the house rental all their lives and nothing happens to them. Many of them have been working for 15 years and until now they don’t have a small house. This is what we want to do for them. This is through the help of other five members to grant by funding. So far, so good.”

If Jun is a good person and is highly respected, so is Marilou, who is a good wife and mother and a kind-hearted lady boss.

The Magsaysay children, Margarita and Francisco, are already married and have their own families. Francisco, or simply Paco, together with his Japanese wife and kids, lives two blocks away from Acacia street in Ayala Alabang village where Jun and Marilou happily reside.

She said she is happy that career women are finally given a chance to show what they can do. “We lived in a male chauvinistic society for a long time. They say that if women can run a home, they can do so many other things. But, it is not as easy as people perceive it to be. People have changed. A lot of women are really aggressive. It is not to put men down, but we can be a very good ally to our husbands and to society in general. If we’re just given the chance, I think women have fantastic potential. We can be very focused.”

Wit her kindness, intelligence, warmth, honesty and true grit, Marilou Magsaysay has gained happiness and satisfaction in her work in the house and outside the household chores.

Now, she, together with her hubby, is abroad to visit her aged mother and siblings, staying there for quite some time to unwind and reflect for a while during this Christmas season of giving love.