Manuel S. Alba and his friends

The only public notice I had of the passing of Dr. Manuel S. Alba, former Budget secretary during the early 1980s, was from the UP website on alumni affairs. He died in Iloilo last week.

I knew Manny closely from early days when we were among the youngest faculty of the University of the Philippines. Manny, Dr. Jaime C. Laya and I were cohort graduates of UP in 1957. The two of them were from the Business college and I was from Liberal Arts, but our destiny was to begin our lives as young instructors in the Business college which I joined one year later than they.

Our early destiny was to teach the first Economics subjects. When I married my talented classmate, Loretta Makasiar, in 1958, Manny and Jimmy were the only faculty members whom I took in confidence to inform. (Loretta, Jimmy, and I were high school classmates.)

In 1959, we were all lucky recipients of study grants. Manny went to the University of Minnesota and Jimmy to Georgia Tech, both on USAID grants, I was on a multi-year mission of study at M.I.T. from a Rockefeller Foundation grant to develop the UP’s Economics faculty. In one-year time of study, both Manny and Jimmy were back on the faculty with greater expertise in their fields. As for me, it took until early 1963 to return with mission accomplished, my Ph.D.

While I was plodding on with my work at Economics – by then the newly created UP School of Economics – Manny and Jimmy were on their second study grants. This time they went on separate study leaves to work on their Ph.D.s, courtesy of the Ford Foundation’s support of that college under the deanship of Cesar Virata.

Manny was admitted to Northwestern University where he studied at its Kellogg School of Business, which was famous for its marketing program in which Manny was enrolled. Jimmy went to Stanford to work on his finance studies. When they returned to the College of Business (now known as the UP’s Virata School of Business), they achieved their degree program missions. Manny also had the distinction of having his Ph.D. dissertation recognized and awarded as one of the best in the US in the year of his graduation.

My academic career was interrupted when them President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. brought me into his Cabinet in 1970 as chairman of the National Economic Council. In early 1973, he appointed me to the newly created National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), which I had to organize and put together as an office.

By 1975, I asked Jimmy who was by then the dean of the School of Business to join me as my deputy at NEDA. President Marcos approved this new appointment. Jimmy’s work on the finance side of our mandate at NEDA brought him to work on banking issues. This grabbed the attention of the then Central Bank Governor Gregario Licaros, who immediately asked me to share Jimmy’s talents by appointing him Deputy Governor at the CB.

That provided me with the signal to look for Manny Alba if he could join me at NEDA, to replace Jimmy as my deputy. I had to entice Manny to leave his new job at the East-West Center in Hawaii to become my deputy at NEDA. He had become one of the Institute directors in that new academic center at the University of Hawaii. Before that time, Manny had become executive director of the FAPE (Fund for Assistance to Philippine Education).

When the Budget Commission’s job became vacant upon the retirement of Faustino Sychanco, then President Marcos Sr. appointed Jimmy Laya to the position at Budget. As my deputy at NEDA, Manny Alba took over much of what Jimmy was doing. He would, however, be more immersed on national budgeting issues. When Jimmy Laya was appointed to the governorship of the Central Bank, then president Marcos Sr. appointed Manny Alba as the new Budget Minister. (By that time, I was no longer at the NEDA, but as chairman of the Philippine National Bank.)

After People Power in 1986, Manny Alba returned to the UP Business College as professor. He would become Quezon City administrator under the mayorship of Yshmael Mathay and later, continued under then Mayor Sonny Belmonte. When he retired from this post, he put most of his time to teaching at the UP business college. In addition, he had the opportunity to enjoy his long love of the game of tennis at the UP tennis courts where he built a web of friendships with alumni who regularly played the game. There, I had a few occasions to play the game with him over the years.

Manny Alba was among the distinguished recipients of the “Centenary Award of Excellence” the Centenary Year of the Accountancy Profession in the Philippines, led by the Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy under the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) on March 17, 2023.

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