I wrote this feature for Asian Dragon magazine, which also permitted me to post it on my blog. I wrote it without personal comment and with the aim of  stating facts as they are, hoping to help readers make an informed choice.

By age 60 when most Filipinos retire, Senator Manuel Villar is bent on launching instead an “entrepreneurial revolution”. He wants to turn the Philippines from a nation of employees into a nation of employers by using what he calls “Divisoria economics”.

Photo sent to Raissa Robles by source

He also wants to enable state hospitals to provide free health care to all Filipinos for life-threatening illnesses like cancer, heart and kidney diseases.

But first he needs to be elected the nation’s president next year and he’s working very hard on that now.

“If I will be given a chance to be the man who will turn this country around, that would be achieving something no money can buy and nobody has ever done before,” he told Asian Dragon magazine in an exclusive interview.

Villar has come a long way from growing up in a shack in Manila’s poor section of Tondo to owning a historic mansion – once the home of a Philippine president – which he and his lawmaker-wife Cynthia have furnished like a Roman villa.

The construction magnate, who prefers to dress like a building foreman when out campaigning, has a conjugal fortune valued by Forbes business magazine at US$540 million making him the ninth richest in the country this year. Two years ago, though, he was number five with his fortune valued at US$940 million.

He doesn’t want to be called a magnate. “I prefer being called a management man. I have managed the House of Representatives and the Senate and a business concern.”

Villar has also managed to revive the long comatose Nacionalista Party. “When I took over the party, it had no one.” Its spurt is “proof in fact of my competence as a builder and manager.”

“I really feel this country has been mismanaged,” he said adding
shyly, “do I sound conceited?”

Sen. Manuel Villar - Photo by Raissa Robles

Even if he does, he has earned bragging rights. In 2007, he revived the sagging fortunes of his company, C&P Homes, by forming Vista Land and Landscapes, Inc., a holding firm. From at least 21 billion pesos that Vista Land raised through an initial and secondary public offering, Villar was able to retire the P5 billion debt owed by C&P.

“I’m not getting any younger. I’m turning 60 (this December 13). This is like my last quarter. I’ve been a House Speaker and Senate President. I’ve planted a million trees,” he said.

“I (once) told myself, one day I will establish myself as the Filipino who has built the most number of houses and I’ve built 200,000 homes. My business has become number one and my family is okay.”

“And now the door is open and it’s like I’ve been brought to this door, it’s not as if the desire (to be president) just came out of  nowhere.” “What else can you do that no one else has done? To me, turning this country around is the biggest challenge because you will be changing the lives of millions of your countrymen.”

Sen. Manuel Villar - Photo by Raissa Robles

He said one reason the country has remained poor is that “we are a nation of employees.”

“A rich country is a country of employers, not employees. So it is
necessary to create more and more employers but we have to change the mindset of our people.” Most Filipinos believe they can only succeed in business if they are very lucky, very rich or have Chinese blood, he said.

He said the difference was cultural, not genetic: “Among the Chinese, the pressure is for you to do business. Among Filipinos, the pressure is for you to have a job” and the educational system is geared to that.

He noted that when the Chinese gather among themselves, they ask each other, “do you have a business, do you have a business.” But when Filipinos gather, they ask each other, “do you have a job, do you have job.”

Among all the presidential candidates, Villar is uniquely positioned
to launch his brand of revolution. He is an entrepreneur who started
from scratch and did very well. His first business venture – selling
18,000 pesos worth of fish – flopped because the eatery could not pay
him.

Villar devised a way to collect the debt at a discount. He printed out chits and asked the cafeteria to honor them. Each meal there was P1.50 but he sold each chit for only P1.20, enabling him to recoup P12,000 of his original capital in 18 months.

He used this and his savings to buy a truck to deliver gravel and sand. While doing this, he realized no one was building homes for the middle class and he went into that market and made it his own.

He said one doesn’t need a diploma to succeed in business, although he earned two degrees from the University of the Philippines – a bachelor of science degree in business administration and accountancy and a masters in business administration.

Still he insisted that based on his experience as a child helping his mother sell shrimp at Divisoria market in Manila, “you don’t need to be a summa cum laude” to succeed as an entrepreneur, “just arithmetic, (being) street smart and (having) common sense.”

For entrepreneurs to succeed, government has to help by building the physical infrastructure that would speed up the flow of goods across the nation and attract more foreign investors, he said.

If elected president, he said that on his very first year, he would
bid out in a very transparent and public manner the biggest infrastructure projects. In this way, “you are establishing immediately that this president is not going to be corrupt.”

Villar - Photo by Raissa Robles

Villar claimed to have mapped out a strategy to cut down but not
totally remove corruption in government. Of the three million government workers, he estimated that a third or one million were corrupt. He would concentrate his efforts on the eight biggest and most corrupt-prone state agencies such as the internal revenue bureau, customs bureau, Office of the President, National Food Authority and the Department of Agriculture.

He also said he would not lift a finger to protect President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo from corruption charges because he was not her
“caretaker”.  He indicated that he thought she had a hand in his removal from the Senate presidency.

He also talked about raising tax collection efficiency from the present 13% of GDP to 17%, which was the rate 11 years ago. A mere 4% rise would raise P280 billion, said.

He indicated he may adjust the tax burden of certain sectors but did not want to say which.

The additional tax take would be used for education and social services like health care. Free hospital care for the seriously afflicted should be the minimum safety net because “no Filipino should die (of disease) without a fight,” he said.

Villar’s message of hope seemed to have endeared him with the poor because in August this year, he topped the Pulse Asia survey. One in four respondents (25%) said they would vote him president.

This was despite his being forced to resign a year ago from the Senate presidency over allegations that he caused the insertion of P200 million in the national budget to fund a road project that extended to a company-owned property.

Villar has refused to appear before the unprecedented Senate probe and branded it “political harassment” since his rivals for the presidency are among his accusers. The Senate gave him until October 16, 2009 to answer the charges in writing. But on that day, looking quite relaxed, he sat down with Asian Dragon magazine for an interview and put paid to the issue. “They were not able to prove anything…all their witnesses said I committed no wrong. I’m very glad I was able to cleanse my name (because) that was the only issue against me,” he maintained.

On the contrary, he said, his companies have lost opportunities
because he was a senator: “We cannot participate in (bidding for)
government properties.”

But the issue has raised serious concerns whether Villar would use the highest office to benefit his corporations. Villar said “I will follow
the law” on divestment, which he said he was not familiar with. “But
it would be stupid to divest if one hasn’t won. Let me win first.”

Other issues have cropped up. A month after topping the Pulse Asia survey, Villar came in a poor second (347%) to Senator Benigno
“Noynoy” Aquino Jr (60%) in a similar Social Weather Stations
nationwide survey.

And long known to be a generous businessman during natural
calamities, Villar came under attack lately when cookies and packed
lunches he handed to typhoon victims were marked with his own name.

Villar was frank enough to own up to putting his name on the relief goods he gave away as part of campaign strategy. But he denied trying to buy the presidency with his money.

“You cannot buy the presidency. That would be an insult to our people. If  I can buy it, would I let you interview me? I’ll just buy it.”

Sent to Raissa Robles by source

He also justified spending millions in TV and radio ads: “I don’t have president parents. I’m not an actor, I’m not a broadcaster. For me, that is the only way I can level the playing field.

“Do you realize how much air time has been given in their lifetimes,” he said referring to former president Joseph Estrada and broadcaster Noli de Castro. “Would that compete with what I’m having now? Nowhere near.”

“Noynoy, my God, Cory (Aquino) and Ninoy” referring to Mrs Aquino’s slain senator-husband, “not to mention Kris Aquino,” he said. He considers Aquino his most serious rival.

“I am not even confident I can level the playing field even if  I advertise every hour…(and)if you don’t have anything to level with, why will you still run?”

Villar, who usually has a hard time speaking in public became eloquent. “I worked hard to get to where I am now every single day. For example I was number seven in ratings, then number one. Then Noynoy came and I dropped. So I work hard again. All my life it’s like this. All my life I’ve had to fight.”

“But it’s my fight, you see. It’s not my father, it’s not my mother, it’s not my son, it’s mine. When you judge me you’re judging Manny Villar…not my mother…not my father…[but] with all my inefficiencies, my inadequacies, shortcomings, of course assets. It’s me.”

“So when you judge me, how are you going to run the presidency?  This is it. What you see is what you get.”