That was the UP Fighting Maroons she saw in 2010, a struggling basketball team enduring some of the darkest seasons in its history.
It was also the early Robinsons Retail, which her family built from a single store at a time when many suppliers doubted it would succeed.
A familiar struggle
“No one wants to support a losing team. But I’ve been in business for 40 years. When Robinsons Retail started 46 years ago, we were building the business from the ground up with a single store,” Gokongwei-Pe said.
“Very few suppliers wanted to support us because they weren’t sure we knew what we were doing. But there were a small group of suppliers who saw in our eyes that, with their support, we could be successful one day,” she added.
“It was the same with the UP Fighting Maroons. We saw it in their eyes,” she said.
Staying through the losing years
Robinsons Retail kept its sponsorship through UP’s winless campaigns, rebuilding years and long absence from championship contention.
“Supporting the UP MBT was never just a sponsorship. It was one way of giving back to the university that helped make us who we are today. There are many ways to help one’s school, and this was one way we could help,” said Gokongwei-Pe, who chairs Robinsons Retail.
The partnership eventually brought in Robinsons Supermarket, Handyman, Robinsons Appliances, Daiso Japan and TGP, connecting several of the retailer’s brands with generations of Fighting Maroons.
From winless to champion
The long bet began paying off when UP returned to the UAAP Final Four in 2018 after a 21-year absence, before ending a 36-year championship drought in 2022.
The Fighting Maroons have since made five consecutive Finals appearances and captured another championship in 2024.
“When the team reached the finals for the first time in 32 years during Season 81 in 2018, our ninth year of sponsorship, that’s when I realized, ang layo na pala ng narating natin,” Gokongwei-Pe said.
(“That’s when I realized how far we had come.”)
Asked what the journey since 2010 had given her beyond the championships, she answered: “A lot of joy, and a lot of friends made along the way.”
Now in the partnership’s 17th year, UP has become a perennial contender and its longtime supporter has become part of the program’s transformation.
—Edited by Miguel R. Camus
