We’re talking about 56-year-old Manuel "Manny" V. Pangilinan, the son of a banker whose colorful corporate career has been associated with big bucks, big business, big philanthropy, multinational deals, and sizzling controversies and intrigues. He is reputedly Asia’s highest-paid corporate executive managing Hong Kong-based First Pacific Group. Pangilinan became an instant national celebrity upon his return to Manila. In 1998, he purchased telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) during the tenure of then President Joseph Estrada whom he supported. During President Estrada’s impeachment trial in late 2000, he switched political sides and joined the anti-Erap groups that eventually won in Edsa 2.
MVP used to play a lot of squash and reportedly goes to Mass daily. His non-existent love life has become the subject of the country’s global rumor mills and was even romantically linked to ex-presidential daughter Kris Aquino, just because he had sent her flowers.
Critics enjoy pointing out that Pangilinan made big mistakes in business. For instance, he sold many of Hong Kong-based First Pacific’s investments in Europe, US, China and Hong Kong and re-invested the funds in the Philippines and Indonesia right after 1997, when these two economies were the worst-performing in all ASEAN. Nevertheless, MVP will perhaps be remembered 100 years from now as Ateneo’s most generous alumnus.
But what about the massive losses in First Pacific investments and other Philippine firms in recent years? For instance, the recent bargain sale of Fort Bonifacio to Ayala Group and Jose Yao Campos. A close associate came to his defense: "The jury’s still out. It is unfair to prematurely dismiss Manny Pangilinan as a business leader, because he has a lot of faith and hope in PLDT and Smart, and in the future of the telecom business in Asia. He has great confidence in the core businesses of First Pacific in telecom and foods. He still has time to turn around many of these investments."
Unmarried with no children, Pangilinan has made himself the biggest Atenean donor to this 142-year-old university with 10,000 undergraduate students. He donated the First Pacific Center for Biological Studies at the school’s Science Education Complex and the Biology Laboratories Building II. Using the Metro Pacific Group, as well as the School of Humanities Building (which has been renamed the Horacio de la Costa, S.J. in memory of the historian). He recently sent two Ateneans to study in France.
MVP supports the Ateneo men’s basketball team, the school’s sports development program and the multi-awarded Glee Club. He serves as a member of the Ateneo Board of Trustees, has created the Dominador Pangilinan Scholarship Award in memory of his late banker father and supports the Macroeconomic Research Project at the Ateneo economics department. He is also a major donor to the Church of Gesu, the main church in the Ateneo campus in Loyola Heights, Quezon City.
On March 14, MVP turned over the new PLDT Convergent Technologies Center building, which has as its centerpiece Room 201 which has been named the "Manuel V. Pangilinan Convergent Technologies Student Project Room." Although Pangilinan is chairman of the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), his donations to the Ateneo are bigger, according to a close associate.
A cum laude graduate of the Ateneo with a degree in economics, MVP told this writer: "I spent my formative years at the Ateneo. I learned my values from the Ateneo, and it is only fair that I give something back."
Ateneo Professor Ricky Abad said: "My classmate Manny Pangilinan used to write a mean term paper. He was an intense student. If the requirement was for 25 pages, he would do 50 pages maski na para sa bonus na lang yan. In our batch (1966), he and Richard Gordon were among the most outstanding. Both are different kinds of leaders. Manny was quiet, unobtrusive, not a showy leader. Dick Gordon is a natural politician, the class president, the cheerleader, always in the limelight, with a dramatic and theatrical style as a leader. Si Manny Pangilinan and Tony Samson were always with the intellectuals, the cultural types of students in our batch."
When asked where he got the fancy word "convergence" for his PLDT marketing campaign and the name of the new building for the Ateneo, Pangilinan replied: "Tony Samson reminded me that we first heard the word convergence in the philosophy class of Fr. Roque Ferriols, S.J.. He was teaching us the ideas of French Jesuit Fr. Teilhard de Chardin – about the convergence of body and soul, unity in diversity. Chardin also talked about the thinking skin, which incredibly presaged the rise of the modern-day Internet."
When MVP was still working in Hong Kong, he used to hold office in the same building as Asia’s wealthiest taipan Li Ka-Shing whom he highly admires. Both would go to work on Sundays while the rest of the world took the day off.
In the Philippines, MVP reputedly had clashes with scions of the country’s wealthiest old-rich clans such as former PLDT boss Antonio "Tony Boy" Cojuangco (who retains the title as chairman) and the Zobel-Ayala clan of Globe Telecom. During the state visit of then President Estrada to Japan, this writer saw Pangilinan in an altercation with Fernando Zobel de Ayala at the lobby of the Okura Hotel in Tokyo, an incident which was also reported in the local media. Last year, Pangilinan grabbed international headlines by defying his bosses of the Salim family, and for foiling the plan of Cebuano self-made taipan John Gokongwei Jr. to take over PLDT.
Manny Pangilinan’s career is inextricably linked to that of his immigrant rags-to-riches boss, Southeast Asia’s legendary Indonesian taipan Liem Sioe Liong (also known as Sudono Salim). Taiwan’s billionaire industrialist Chen Yu-How of Tuntex Group once told this writer that he introduced then American Express executive Pangilinan to his friend Liem’s son Anthoni Salim in Hong Kong, eventually leading to Pangilinan joining the Salim conglomerate as managing director of its overseas business empire known as First Pacific Group from 1981 to 1999. Today, he is the executive chairman of First Pacific. The board of directors in Hong Kong recently approved his sale of Fort Bonifacio in its recent meeting on March 19. Last year, Pangilinan shocked business leaders throughout Asia by practically staging a mutiny against his 88-year-old boss Salim, blocking the taipan’s wish to sell his under-performing PLDT and Fort Bonifacio investments to Cebuano taipan John Gokongwei Jr. The cash-strapped Salim Group had suffered tremendous financial reversals in recent years ever since the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
Close associates told this writer that the relationship between Pangilinan and the Salim family is now fine, that the problem last year was similar to a disagreement between a married couple. When asked to comment on Rule No.1 "the boss is always right," a close associate commented that Pangilinan has the best interests of PLDT at heart and that he is now the executive chairman of First Pacific.
This writer recently asked Pangilinan: "How is your relationship to the Salim family?" He paused and said: "It’s good... It has always been good."
When asked about his donation to his US alma mater Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Pangilinan was candid and fair enough to clarify that this was actually the donation of Anthoni Salim in honor of his father Liem Sioe Liong in 1995. Pangilinan is a member of the Board of Overseers of the Wharton School.
When this writer asked if the Liem/Salim donation was made possible through his intercession, Pangilinan explained: "I introduced them to the school, that’s my only role there. It was really Anthoni Salim."
"This PLDT Convergent Technologies Center was born as an important response to the growth of the Ateneo in Loyola Heights. The growth is focused mainly on information and communication technologies. In 1990 to 1991, there were 370 students in computer engineering and computer science. This number has grown to 1,300 students. If we include the students in communication arts and in fine arts who will be specializing in digital technologies, they would comprise about a fourth of the Loyola Schools student body," Fr. Nebres said.
United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) chairman and Ateneo board of trustees member Edward Go smiled and commented: "It just goes to show that a lot of business people are supporting the Ateneo."
Fr. Carmelo Caluag, S.J. said: "The joining of the two buildings by a bridge and their being beside each other – this is all pure coincidence."
PLDT Foundation, Inc. Antonio Samson said: "There’s no problem if we’re to become neighbors and if we’re connected by a bridge (laughs). It’s all part of convergence."
Also on that day, both Pangilinan and Fr. Nebres denied that MVP’s favorite Ateneo charity is the men’s varsity basketball team which last year conquered the La Salle team. Father Nebres said: "Contrary to what some people might think, Manny Pangilinan and I do get together and share interests other than winning the UAAP basketball championship."
How much will PLDT be investing this year?
Pangilinan replied: "Our capex this year is P15 billion."
His advice to President Gloria M. Arroyo on the economy?
MVP smiled and simply shook his head.
And his hopes for the PLDT Convergent Technologies Center for the Ateneo?
MVP said: "We at PLDT remain committed to partnerships that seek innovative ways to stay connected, that bring the benefits of enabling technologies to stardust companies, to the small and medium enterprises, to public schools, to NGOs, to the farmers, the fishermen, to every man. I look forward to the day when we can proudly speak of a reversal of fortunes–brain gain instead of brain drain–when this country becomes a net exporter of intellectual capital rather than continuing to be a net importer of such. We must learn how to play local, but think and earn global."
His advice to business people during a time of war and uncertainty?
MVP said: "We should have more faith in the future of this country. It’s the only one we’ve got!"