The Lopez family has always practiced the concept of their business reaching out to their communities, and to the nation in general, not only in times of calamities but also as customary behavior.

The Lopezes trace their roots to Basilio Lopez, a Filipino-Chinese mestizo. He was one of the first entrepreneurs who made the Jaro-Molo area of Iloilo Province a dynamic and prosperous community in the mid-1800s. Lopez was the cabeza de barangay, the district leader and tax collector for 20 years, and in 1850, was elected gobernadorcillo or mayor of Jaro.

One of Basilio and Sabina Jalondoni-Lopez's 16 children, 10 of whom reached adulthood, was the first Eugenio Lopez, their eldest son, whose entrepreneurial ability was well-known. Eugenio had the first steam-powered sugar mill in Negros at a time when sugar prices were soaring in the world market. He also accumulated thousands of hectares, mostly in the virgin lands of Negros, which he and his children leased to other planters or sold at a profit.

When a province-wide famine struck Iloilo in the 1870s due to drought, locust infestation, and the dislocations caused by the shift from rice to sugar as the dominant agricultural produce, Eugenio and brother, Claudio, organized a Lopez family relief operation. They distributed rice and money to the countless families who flocked to the Lopez homes for help. Eugenio even had to sell an hacienda to help hundreds of people, whose family members were dying from hunger and sickness.

During the height of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II, Iloilo experienced a severe food shortage, as foreign troops were commandeering most of the food supply. Ramon, a son of Eugenio, began to push a cart through the city streets, distributing rice and fish. His niece sold her diamond jewelry to help raise funds for the relief effort. From the proceeds, they were able to feed hundreds of starving children every day.

This balance between the two sides of Eugenio and his family — big-time entrepreneur accumulating wealth and land on one hand, and a leader with a strong sense of social responsibility for public good on the other — is a trait that would appear and reappear in generations of Lopezes.

The Lopezes and their companies are into Corporate Social Responsibility. Their focus is poverty alleviation, education, environment, and health .