INTRODUCTION

PEOPLE
Yano
Romeo Lee
Manny Villar
Nur Misuari
Benjie Paras
Dino Ignacio
Eraserheads
Jerry Barican
Obet Verzola
Jessica Zafra
Zider Lubiano
Myla Algarme
Gary Granada
Raymond Red
Mike Defensor
Jerome Bailen
Eric Altamirano
Amante Jimenez
Miriam Defensor
Malou Mangahas

ISSUES
ID
UAAP
STFAP
US Bases
Collegian
Frat Violence
SAMASA split
SR controversy
Sexual Harassment

Manuel B. Villar, Jr. has a thing for houses. By 1995, his company, C & P Homes, had built over a hundred thousand low to medium cost homes. Meanwhile, he is also head of another "house" - the House of Representatives, where he is in his second year as speaker.

Campus Manny
Manny, as he is called, was born on December 13, 1949 in Tondo, Manila. Clues to his future careers were written in the jobs of his father, a government employee, and his mother, a seafood vendor.

Villar earned both his undergraduate degree in Business Administration, major in Accountancy, and his Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in 1973 from UP Diliman. Professor Lourdes Casimiro, Villar's undergraduate teacher and MBA classmate, recalled that he enjoyed case discussions and was very competitive. "They (Villar and his friends) had a siopao eating contest once," Casimiro said, "at hindi nagpapatalo si Manny, nabilaukan siya."

He was active in his fraternity, Pan Xenia, and in other student activities. "May IT si Manny," Casimiro said. "Masayahin siya, masayang kasama." While in college, Villar was also already dating his future wife, Cynthia.

Under Construction
Villar did not have a smooth start in business. His first ventured into seafood but his business went down so he tried sand-and-gravel. Then, he hit upon the idea of selling small-sized (120 sqm) house and lot units. The prototype of the sucessful Camella and Palmera Homes was born.

For the next two decades or so, Villar built, literally, on this initial success. During the eighties, he bucked the capital flight that followed Benigno Aquino's assassination and continued to buy property at discount prices, betting on the market's eventual recovery. His intuition proved uncanny. Later that decade, overseas workers cashed in their earnings from abroad and bought Villar's houses in droves.

But one of his housing projects, Palmera Homes in Jose del Monte, Bulacan has come under fire for the dislocation of several farmers. Members of the Tungkong Mangga Upland Farmers Association, Inc. (TMUFAI), who have been farming the area since 1974 without interference from the previous landowner, said they were surprised to find men putting up barb wires in May, 1996. They were told it was upon orders of the new owner, Palmera Homes, Inc. TMUFAI said that, without consulting them, Palmera Homes prevented further farming in the area beginning early 1997. The TMUFAI's petition for the cancellation of the Department of Agrarian Reform's conversion order remains pending.

From Houses to The House
Villar entered politics in 1992, and captured the congressional seat for Las Piñas and Muntinlupa. He was re-elected in 1995, winning the elections by 142,000 votes, the highest margin among all congressional contests in the country.

Running under Lakas-NUCD, he won a third term in 1998 but their party's standard-bearer collapsed in the face of Joseph Estrada's populist platform. Still, Lakas-NUCD managed to win a majority in the Lower House. During the elections, Villar was reported to have supported Estrada across party lines. Reportedly backed by the president, Villar was voted Speaker by 171 of 220 House members.

Speaker Villar has managed to convince opposition representatives to join the administration party, assuring Malacañang a large voting bloc. He presides over a Lower House that has been criticized for concurring with the Visiting Forces Agreement, retaining the "pork" in the 1999 and 2000 budgets, and reportedly conniving with Malacañang to amend the Constitution. But, on the other hand, environmentalists have hailed the passage earlier this year of the Clean Air Act.

When Villar's biography is written years hence, he will be remembered for his houses and his stint in the House. Doubtless, he will be judged a success in the real-estate business. But leading the House of Representatives is different from managing a mass-housing business. The cost of failure in the former is much steeper. For if Villar fails to rein-in the conflicting, and even self-serving, interests of many House members, the whole country, not just his customers, will be left out in the cold.