Manny Villar will be President from Day One

Manny Villar will be President from Day One

By Antonio S. Lopez

For Senator Manny Villar, the next president should have two endearing qualities that more or less guarantee his success as CEO of the Philippines. One is being born poor. Another is experience, particularly experience in managing a large enterprise and in managing a significant political office.
Villar is a compelling rags-to-riches story. He was born 60 years ago to poor parents in Tondo. His father was from Iloilo, his mother from Pampanga. They were fish vendors. “I lived as a poor boy for the early part of my life,” he relates.
He became a fish vendor too. He would wake up early in the morning to accompany his mother to Divisoria, the poor man’s wholesale mart.
There wasn’t much of a future in it. So his best chance was to get a good education. He got that at the University of the Philippines where he finished business administration. At UP, he met a classmate, Cynthia Aguilar, his future wife. Villar completed MBA, too, at UP.
An accountant, he got employed by an investment house. He saw no future in it. He went into business. He began by delivering gravel and sand. At BF Homes Parañaque, he saw the potential of odd-sized lots, bought them, built houses on them, and sold the house and lot packages to newly married couples.l That’s how he made his first million. And the next million. And his billions. The rest, as the cliché goes, is history. By 1997, his property company was worth more than $1 billion, making him a veritable billionaire—the first Filipino brown billionaire, in dollars.
If Villar relishes his poor background, it is to inspire others. And to tell voters to be choosy in the coming elections.
“To experience poverty and hunger is something else,” Villar muses, his voice somewhat muted. “Not knowing whether or not you will have something to eat the following day, not knowing where to get money to go to a doctor, seeing a loved one unable to get good medical treatment because you have no money, not knowing where to get the next matriculation fee. These things I experienced.”
Why is that background relevant? Because the economy has been mismanaged, he replies.
“When you talk about choosing a president, when we make mistakes that’s all right, we don’t feel it because the A (income class) will still eat. But make a mistake in electing a leader (and) it’s the poor who suffer. This spells the difference whether they will eat or not, whether they will be getting medical treatment or not, whether they will get jobs or not. That is why I feel that we have no room for just using emotions here.”
Villar has been spending a fortune in TV infomercials not as an ego trip but to make public the story of the masa boy who made good yet is also awesomely good looking, people often mistake him for a coño or mestizo kid.
He says: “There is this unique advantage of having experienced poverty, having come from a poor family. I’ve experienced what I have been preaching, sipag at tiyaga. At the same time, I can present my credentials as an experienced person. I can show my experience and say, as a private sector leader, I rebuilt from nothing my business which became the largest; I became Speaker of the House, became Senate president.”
Villar likes to point out that among the declared candidates for president, none has his unique experience. The pauper who became rich through hard work and perseverance, ran for congressman of a suburban town, built that town (Las Piñas) plus the next town, Muntinlupa, into a city, was elected Speaker in 1998 and Senate president in 2007—the only political leader since the War to have done so. “That combination is something that I’m very proud to show our people,” he points out. Also, he built 250,000 houses (more than any other individual) most of them low-cost, and planted one million trees, just like Senator Loren Legarda.
The current leader, per SWS surveys is Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. His ancestry is remarkable. His grandfather, Benigno Sr. was a senator. His father, Senator Ninoy Aquino, was a martyr and hero. His mother, the widow-turned-president, Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, is supposedly the Mother of Democracy, the Joan of Arc who saved the country from tyranny. When she died last August, a million people turned out to pay homage.
But then, Noynoy never had a problem every poor boy had—waking up wondering whether he would have something to eat. His problem—his mother’s problem—was, one of choice, “’Noy, ano ang ulam mo?”.
After finishing economics from Ateneo, Noynoy easily got a cozy job given by a supporter of the family, Tony Gonzalez of Mondragon. He became a salesman for Nike shoes, shorts and shirts. Of course, you don’t become a billionaire doing so. Gonzalez became a billionaire, but not from selling Nike accessories. He made a pile selling golf shares in Clark. He later went into bankruptcy.
Noynoy has never managed an enterprise, not even a household, because he has none. He is the son of a hacendera, his Cojuangco clan being owner of the 6,300-hectare Hacienda Luisita, a plantation bought with government loan on condition it would be cut up for the tenant farmers later. His running mate, Senator Mar Roxas, is also the son of a haciendera, being the sole heir to the vast Araneta Cubao complex and some sugar plantations. Mar is also the grandson of a former president and the son of the late Senator Gerry Roxas.
The Philippines is the 12th largest country in the world, with a population of 90 million, one of every four of whom are dirt poor. The government is the largest Philippine corporation with a budget of P1.5 trillion, a deficit of P300 billion, and a work force of two million, not a few of whom do not have a culture of integrity and genuine public service.
To be sure, Villar was almost bankrupted by the 1997 Financial Crisis, having accumulated more debts than he could pay. But he revived his real estate conglomerate. His CMP Homes, heavily in debt, became Vista Land and Lifescapes. It conducted a hugely successful IPO in 2007.
As of Sept. 30, 2009, Vista Land had assets of P52.8 billion, net worth of P34.5 billion, retained earnings of P7.32 billion, nine-month revenue of P8.5 billion, net income of P2.12 billion and as of Oct. 11, market cap of P17.4 billion. Villar’s family owns about 65% of Vista. He is worth P11 billion.
Vista Land has four brands—Camella, Communities Philippines, Crown Asia, and Brittany, each catering to a particular income segment. Vista Land remains the biggest home builder for the poor and the middle class.
Thus, Villar has faced a crisis at least twice in his life. The crisis of childhood poverty, which he overcame. And the crisis of business bankruptcy, after 1997, which he also overcame. Now he wants to tackle the biggest challenge of them all – how to manage the Philippines which President Arroyo herself has described as the most difficult country in the world to manage.
If elected, Villar vows to be president from Day One. “There is no on-the-job training,” he says. His administration won’t tolerate corruption, will focus on remedying an expected P300-billion deficit in the P1.5-trillion national budget, spend heavily on agriculture, especially irrigation, and build a culture of entrepreneurship to create small businesses and generate jobs.
He reckons the economy must grow 7% to 8% a year to create the two million jobs a year to reduce unemployment and poverty.
In 2010, Villar sees a very serious fiscal crisis. “I’m looking at P300 billion, possibly it could hit P325 billion-P350 billion deficit, from less than P100 billion in 2008.”
“If we will have an OJT or an on-the-job trainee, the fiscal crisis is something that could deteriorate. Our country could really be facing very serious economic problems. Our tax revenues have gone down, the efficiency from a high of 17% during the time of FVR (Fidel Ramos) to 12% right now. That 5% drop translates to about P300 billion-P350 billion and that’s a lot. The next president should immediately give the highest priority to this, of bridging this gap. We are recovering from the economic crisis, yes and no, but the next president has no time to practice. He has to start, he has to hit the ground running Day One. He must know how to manage the country.” Says Camarines Sur Governor Luis Raymund “LRay” Villafuerte who has joined Villar’s NP: “You need an experienced CEO for this country, one who has been in business, who built a business from scratch, and a proven leader.”
The next president, Villar warns, “will have a tough first year.” The burden will be considerably lighter, if he were the CEO.

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