Seventy years supplying the machines that built Philippine industry
From a single partnership in downtown Manila to the company that installed the country’s first CNC machine — this is the story behind the show.
Seven decades, in brief
Drawn from MESCO’s own company history.
Colour, globe, pillars
Every part of the MESCO mark was chosen on purpose — the colour, the globe added in 2006, and the three rising pillars that double as an M.
Red
Red is a Chinese colour of good fortune — the colour behind the MESCO wordmark from the start.
The globe
Added when the logo was redesigned in 2006, the globe marks the ambition to be known internationally, not just at home.
Three rising pillars
Each triangle is a promise: before a customer buys a machine, MESCO engineers produce that customer’s own part on an identical or similar machine, so its accuracy can be verified, its cycle time timed for productivity, and its economics calculated — not simply promised. The pillars also grow taller left to right, for the ambition to be the best and the biggest, and together they trace the letter M.
Seventy years, at a glance
In 1982 the company ran a 120-person workforce, thirty of them engineers.
Figures as of October 2026.
From the archive
A small collection from MESCO’s own records. Select any photograph to see it larger.
Peter and Mercedes Lee. He founded MESCO in 1956 and ran it as president and general manager; she was executive vice president.
The whole company, photographed formally as it was most years. By 1982 the workforce numbered 120, thirty of them engineers.
Punched tape running out of the office teleprinter. Ordering machine tools from Japan, Europe and the United States in the sixties meant telex, and a good deal of waiting.
A machine on the floor, with someone standing at the end of it — the only reliable way to photograph the scale of this trade.
Mr Numata of Mitutoyo on a visit to MESCO. Mitutoyo is back in the building this October to talk about smart measurement, sixty years into the relationship.
Messrs Yamazaki and Niwa of Yamazaki Machinery Works, in the MESCO showroom. Mazak YMS and Mazak YMT are on the schedule again this October.
Timber scaffolding at Reliance corner Brixton, and a hand-lettered apology: “The future site of MESCO office bldg. Entrance behind. Please excuse us for the temporary inconvenience.”
The name in full on the banner behind a training intake: Manufacturers’ Equipment & Supply Co. — Equipment and Supplies for Industries. MESCO has been the short version since 1956.
The training programme. MESCO had started sending its own people abroad to train earlier that decade, then began teaching its customers — which is more or less what the seminars this October still are.
Finished, with the name across the front. The same building hosts the show this October.
The staff assembled for Peter Lee’s birthday on September 1, 1976 — the sign propped at the front says so.
MESCO & Mitutoyo — Precision Measuring Instruments & Machine Seminar, November 1977: the first Mitutoyo seminar held in the Philippines.
Signing for the IBM System/34, which went in to keep track of more than six thousand stock items. On the wall behind: three framed panels reading Accuracy, Time, Profit.
A Mazak Quick Turn under a ribbon on opening day of the 8th In-House Machine Tool Exhibition.
The invitation to the 30th: cocktails at six, at the MESCO building, Barong Pilipino or business suit, opening the 8th In-House Machine Tool Exhibition. Forty years on, the 70th asks for much the same.
The building dressed for the MESCO Metal Manufacturing Technology Show.
See what seventy years looks like in person
Join us October 14–16 for the anniversary in-house show.