MVP won’t invest on schools

ANGELES CITY -- Tycoon Manuel “Manny” V. Pangilinan has clarified that he has no plans to invest in educational institutions.

Pangilinan issued the statement to Pampanga newsmen during the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) stockholders meeting in Makati on Thursday, more than a week after his election as chair of the Holy Angel University (HAU) Board of Trustees.

He said he was invited to the post by spouses HAU President Arlyn Villanueva and husband Cesar Villanueva, dean of the Ateneo Law School, who are his close friends.

“It’s more of a personal relation with [Arlyn and Cesar],” Pangilinan said.

Pangilinan, chief executive officer of First Pacific Co. Ltd., is currently the chair of some of the most successful companies in the country including PLDT, Meralco, Smart Communications, Manila Metro Rail Transit System, Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation, Associated Broadcasting Company (TV 5), Metro Pacific Investments Corporation, Medical Doctors, Inc., Maynilad Water Services, Inc., Pilipino Telephone Corporation or Piltel (Talk‘N Text), and Philex Mining.

Pangilinan also partly owns the Makati Medical Center, Cardinal Santos Medical Center, Philippine Star, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila North Harbor Management, Talk’N TextTropangTexters and Meralco Bolts of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). He heads the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas, the governing body in amateur basketball.

He joined the HAU Board of Trustees last year as member following the death of Rizalino Navarro, and was elected chairman last May 4.

He succeeded Archbishop Paciano B. Aniceto, D.D., who retired on his 75th birthday last March and remained member.

Arlyn Villanueva said that “Pangilinan can help the University become more responsive and better attuned to the increasingly complex challenges in the region.”

She cited Pangilinan’s contribution to “the galloping economic growth and massive infrastructure development at Clark and Central Luzon.”

She said that Pangilinan’s chairmanship of the HAU Board “will most certainly take this 80-year-old educational institution to new levels of excellence and exciting possibilities.”

Pangilinan, who hails from Apalit, Pampanga, obtained his primary and secondary school education from San Beda College.

He acquired his bachelor’s degree in economics from the Ateneo de Manila University, where he graduated cum laude.

He received his master’s degree in business from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2006, Malacañang awarded him the Order of Lakandula, rank of Komandante, in recognition of his contributions to nation building.

In 2009, Holy Angel University conferred on Pangilinan its first Doctor of Humanities, honoriscausa, for “reinventing and innovating the telecommunications industry; for upgrading corporate standards by putting up and managing some of the most successful and enduring companies in Asia, and for proving that providing service and value to clients go hand in hand with profitability.”

HAU has 17,000 students and 800 employees. It is one of the few schools in the Philippines declared autonomous by the government.

HAU is also the first school in Southeast Asia accredited by the US-based
International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE), the leading professional accrediting organization for business programs in colleges and universities throughout the world.