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The public life of Manuel “Manny” B. Villar, Jr. straddles both the
worlds
of business and
politics. His singular achievement is to have excelled
in
both. He was born to a simple family on December 13, 1949
in Moriones,
Tondo, Manila, the second child in the brood of nine of a government
employee and a seafood dealer. At
a very young age, he was already
helping
his mother sell shrimp and fish in the Divisoria market. “I learned
from my
mother what it takes to be an entrepreneur,” he revealed. “And it means
to
work really
hard to achieve your dreams.” In Divisoria, he marveled at
the
volumes of sales the Chinese merchants were making
and vowed early on
to
become an entrepreneur. Working student Manny Villar was a working
student
at the University
of the Philippines, the premier institution of higher
learning in the country, where he obtained his undergraduate and
masters
degree in business administration and accountancy. By then, he was
already
putting in long hours as
a fish and shrimp trader where the action
starts at
the ungodly hours of the early morning when the catch lands on
the
market.
After graduation, he tried his hand as an accountant at the country’s
biggest accounting firm,
Sycip Gorres and Velayo (SGV), but resigned
shortly
to embark on his own seafood delivery business. It was then that
his
innovative business mind was already apparent. When a restaurant he was
delivering stocks to did not pay him,
he printed out “meal tickets”
which he
persuaded the restaurant owners to honor. He then sold these tickets
at
a
discount to office workers. It took him one whole year to liquidate his
receivables. With his business down,
he worked briefly as a financial
analyst at the Private Development Corporation of the Philippines. His
job
was
to sell World Bank loans but despite the attractive rates there
were no
takers. Convinced that he could make a go
on his own again, he quit his
job
and promptly applied for one of the loans. Being an entrepreneur So
with
P10,000
initial capital in 1975, Villar brought two reconditioned
trucks and
started his sand-and-gravel business in Las Piñas.
Las Piñas then was
in the
thick of a construction boom as one of the premier residential suburbs
south
of
Manila. It is here while delivering construction materials to big
developers that Manny Villar came upon the idea of selling
house-and-lot
packages when the convention then was for the homebuyers to buy lots
and
build on them. When
developers were offering 240 sqm. lots, he started
to
build houses at 120 sqm. at very affordable prices. He priced
his
offerings
within the range of government-provided loans so that homebuyers need
not
fork out a large downpayment
and they can immediately move in. Manny
Villar
became the housing industry leader building more than 100,000 houses
for the
poor and middle-class Filipino families. Housing innovator He then
initiated
mass housing projects
to achieve economies of scale and introduced
development projects within existing subdivisions by buying off their
rights
of way. His various innovations practically created the country’s mass
housing industry the Philippine Center
of Investigation Journalism
calls him
“the dean of the [Philippine] real estate industry. By the mid-1980s,
in the
aftermath of the economic crisis spawned by the Aquino assassination,
Villar
consolidated his business
and collected on his receivables. Other big
developers, on the other hand, continued on their business expansion.
When
the crunch came with the deep devaluation of the peso, many big
developers
collapsed while Villar was busy buying
rawlands at give-away prices.
Villar
recalled that many developers then just packed their bags and left the
country
in the aftershocks of the crisis. But he stayed on and believed
in
the country’s eventual recovery. “I
was seeing the big taipans like
Henry Sy
building this biggest mall in the country and Lucio Tan and John
Gokongwei
all expanding. I said to myself that if I’m wrong then at least I’m in
their
company.” With
a traditional market shrinking, he began to offer his
projects to overseas contract workers who were then awash with cash
after
the peso devaluation. Overseas workers first bought small appliances
from
Henry Sy’s SM Malls
to fuel surging consumer demand. After which, they
started to buy the big ticket item from Manny Villar’s Camella
and
Palmera
Homes. When the economy bounced back with the assumption of the Aquino
government, Villar was already
holding an extensive landbank which
became
the foundation of his housing empire. “I continued in housing
development
seeing that I’m the only one left in the business,” he said. “Housing,
after
all, is a fundamental
need.” By 1995, when he listed his holding
company C&P
Homes at the stock exchange, he was already the biggest
homebuilder in
Southeast Asia. Awards and distinctions For his business achievements,
he
was made cover story
in the Far Eastern Economic Review and his life
story
featured in Asiaweek, Forbes, AsiaMoney and Asian Business Review.
He
garnered various awards such as the Ten Outstanding Young Men Award
(1986)
by the Philippine Jaycees, Agora
Award for Outstanding Achievement in
Marketing Management (1989), Most Outstanding CPA by the Philippine
Institute
of Certified Public Accountants (1990) and Most Outstanding
UP
Alumnus (1991). In 1992, Manny Villar entered another
turn in his
career
when he decided to run for congressman in the lone district of Las
Piñas and
Muntinlupa.
“Going into public service,” he said , “seems natural
because my
business, low-cost housing, has
a social dimension. It is a form of
public
service to make housing affordable to many of our people. Political
career
In a stunning political debut, Villar won with the most overwhelming
mandate
among Metro Manila congressmen. He
promptly applied his economic and
managerial expertise as a key member of the House’s economic team,
marshaling
in economic reforms measures of the Ramos Administration
such as
the New Foreign Investments Act and the restructuring
of the Central
Bank of
the Philippines. He was the House representative in the government’s
negotiations
with the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C.,
in
1992. He also oversaw various infrastructure projects
in his districts
like
concreting of numerous roads and building the Alabang-Zapote Flyover.
He
introduced
the “Friendship Route” to alleviate the traffic problem in
southern Manila by persuading subdivision homeowners
to open up their
roads
to the general public. He succeeded in passing Republic Act 8003,
Declaring
Certain
Areas in Las Piñas as Tourist Spots. The law formalized his
program
of rehabilitating historical and cultural landmarks
in Las Piñas
starting
with the world-famous Bamboo Organ and Church. The on-going project,
dubbed
“Las
Piñas Historical Corridor” covers the stretch of the Old District
and
may even rival the Intramuros and Vigan
restoration projects. A staunch
environmentalist, he initiated his own privately-funded tree planting
drive
in
his district. He developed a P10 million tree nursery beside his
home and
has quietly undertaken a dedicated tree-planting
drive, complete with
the
maintenance and watering of tree seedlings planted in the open spaces
of the
community.
When he realized that many poor students do not go to school
because they do not even have fare money, he organized the
“Manpower on
Wheels” Program, a livelihood training school housed in a van that
makes the
rounds in
depressed areas. The program has since produced more than
5,000
graduates and has been awarded by various government
and civic
organizations
for its innovative scheme. During his first term, he steered Muntinlupa
to
cityhood
to be followed by Las Piñas the following term. He pointed
out: “As
a developer, I have always envisioned these
two communities as the
‘Twin
Cities of the South’ of Manila. In fact, Las Piñas and Muntinlupa are
the
two fastest growing communities in the country today.” Champion for
entrepreneurs In 1995, Manny Villar ran
for re-election and won an
unprecedented 142,000 votes, the highest number of votes for a
congressman
in the entire
country. Winning media acclaim as outstanding congressman
and
the respect and recognition of his peers, he was elected
to chair the
Committee on Entrepreneurship. As one of the leading entrepreneurs in
the
country, he championed
the cause of small and medium enterprises. He
authored and passed into law the landmark New Magna Carta for Small and
Medium Enterprises (RA 8289). He initiated creative legislation such as
establishment of the Small and Medium Enterprises
Stock Exchange and
Business One-Stop-Shop centers, the latter he immediately implemented
in Las
Piñas City with
the help of local officials. During his second term, he
was
able to upgrade the Las Piñas District Hospital with a
new building and
better facilities. He launched the “Sagip-Bukas” Drug Prevention
Program on
all the
private and public schools of Las Piñas to educate the youth
about
the dangers of drug abuse. He also nationalized
the Las Piñas High
School to
upgrade its facilities. By the end of his second term of office, Villar
had
already
proven beyond doubt his capacity for excellence as a true
Filipino
entrepreneur and a brilliant public servant who
can get things done.
Speaker
of the House It was no surprise then to those in the know during his
third
term
of office when he gained the remarkable acclaim of 171 of 220
congressman as the Speaker of the 11th Congress of the House
of
Representatives. In a time when the country is slowly recovering from a
host
of economic and political crises,
the election of the ‘brown taipan’ at
the
helm of Congress signaled a watershed event in Philippine political
history.
The rise of Manny Villar ushered in a new consensus of leadership based
on
managerial skills and
not simply on oratory and rhetoric. By his first
year
of office, Villar undertook three pathbreaking reforms. He succeeded
first
in marshaling consensus in the House to reform the ‘pork barrel’ system
by
limiting congressional
discretion projects to the set parameters of the
Executive’s development policies. Second, he launched a revamp
of
leadership
by appointing at least seven neophyte congressmen to head powerful
committees like ecology and banks.
Finally, he set a strong and
principled
stance on environmental protection legislation with the passage of the
Clean
Air Act, a measure three previous congresses for more than ten years
were
able to pass. On his second year in
office , Manny Villar steered the
11th
Congress into a record breaking achievement in legislation and economic
reforms.
Among the pathbreaking measures he shepherded into law were
the
Retail Trade Liberalization Act, the New Central Bank
Act, the New
Securities Code, and the New Banking Act. For his constituency work and
fulfilling a personal vow, he
was able to work the grant of homesites
to
some 10,000 poor families in Barangay CAA, Las Piñas City. Two major
roads
were also opened in his district: the Sucat-Pulanglupa Link Road to
Parañaque and the Zapote-Molino (Daang Hari) Link
Road to Cavite, thus
alleviating the traffic congestion in the area. But it was on the third
month during his third
year in office that Villar made his indellible
mark
on the country’s history. Key role in history Beyond being
a super
achiever
in business and politics, Manny Villar seized the entire nation’s
attention
and inspiration
when single-handedly, bearing the full responsibility
of his
decision, he showed the Filipino people what true political
leadership
and
craftmanship means, by sending President Estrada’s impeachment articles
straight to the Senate,
allowing no interruption or delay from anyone.
Manny
Villar’s moment of truth when he opened Congress’
session on the
afternoon
of Nov. 13, 2000, at the cost of his Speakership, was to reveal to the
Filipino people,
not only a man of steadfast principles and
unparalleled
personal track record, but a true political leader who can
be a source
of
courage, example and inspiration. So that when the national elections
were
held last May 14,
2001, Manny Villar, despite being a relative newcomer
in
national politics, posted one of the most impressive showing
in a
national
polls. And hitting the ground running, on his first day in office, he
filed
204 bills covering
a comprehensive legislative program of action, the
first
among neophyte Senators and the third highest filer among
the Senators
of
the 12th Congress of the Philippines. Former Speaker and Senator Manny
Villar, despite his accomplishments
and heroism, has remained simple
and
unaffected. A true family man, he is a devoted husband to Congresswoman
Cynthia
A. Villar (Lone District of Las Piñas City), and a warm and
loving
father to sons Paolo and Mark and daughter Camille
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