Tetangco joins Belle board

MANILA, Philippines — Former Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. may have left government service, but he isn’t out of the limelight.

Five months since he retired last July, he now joins Belle Corp., the high-end property developer owned by Henry Sy, the country’s richest man, as independent director effective yesterday.

Aside from Tetangco, former Social Security System president and CEO Emilio de Quiros was also elected as non-executive director.

Belle announced the election of the new directors in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) yesterday.

Prior to his election as director of Belle, Tetangco served as the third governor of the BSP and holds the distinction of serving for two consecutive six-year terms from July 2005 until July 2017.

Under his leadership, the BSP initiated bank regulatory reforms such as on risk management, capitalization increase, asset quality, among others.

Tetangco has been widely recognised as one of the world’s best central bankers, both here and abroad. In September last year, New York-based banking magazine Global Finance awarded Tetangco his eighth “A” grade in its annual scorecard for central bank governors’ handling of their nations’ respective economies.

He had occupied different positions at the BSP in a span of over three decades where he started as an employee at the BSP’s Statistics Department.

Before joining the BSP in 1974, he was connected with the Management Services Division of Sycip, Gorres, Velayo & Co.

Tetangco graduated from Ateneo de Manila University with an AB Economics degree (Cum Laude) where he also took up graduate courses in Business Administration. As a BSP scholar, he obtained his MA in Public Policy and Administration (Development Economics) at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, USA.

De Quiros, meanwhile, served as the president and CEO of the SSS from Aug. 24, 2010 until Nov. 16, 2016.

He was also a director of Union Bank of the Philippines and Philippine Heath Insurance Corp.

Prior to his appointment as president and CEO of SSS, he served as executive vice president of Bank of the Philippine Islands and president of Ayala Life Insurance Inc., Ayala Plans Inc. and BPI Bancassurance Inc. He was also a director of ALFM Peso Mutual Fund Inc., ALFM Dollar Mutual Fund Inc., ALFM Euro Mutual Fund, Inc., ALFM Growth and Philippine Stock Index Fund. De Quiros graduated from Ateneo de Naga with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics degree (Cum Laude), and holds a Master of Arts in Economics degree from University of the Philippines.

Belle is a high end property developer. Its principal assets include land and buildings at the Entertainment City in Parañaque City, which are being leased on a long-term basis to Melco.

The company also owns significant real estate assets in and around Tagaytay City. These assets consist of premium residential properties for sale and approximately 800 hectares of land held for future development, which are near two exclusive world-class golf clubs and one country club built by the company in the 1990s.