Manuel “Manny” V. Pangilinan

Manuel “Manny” V. Pangilinan, 77, is a business mogul who built his career as an investment banker in Hong Kong. He is involved in three top media outlets in the country: television station TV5 and the leading broadsheets The Philippine Star and Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Also known as MVP, he is the concurrent chairman of PLDT and its media arm MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. which owns at least 14 media outlets, including radio, newspapers, television and online platforms. He built the media empire in the Philippines by way of PLDT, specifically using its employees’ pension fund, to establish MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. in June 1999, which now maintains assets worth PhP26.608 billion (around US$468 million).

Aside from sitting as chairman of PLDT, Pangilinan again assumed the concurrent role of president and chief executive officer of the telecommunication giant on Jan. 1, 2024 until a replacement for Alfredo Panlilio, who is retiring due to health reasons, is selected. He would reprise the roles nearly two years after Panlilio replaced him in 2021.

While Pangilinan is the face behind MediaQuest and due to his significant control over the company, and is often referred to as its owner, there is nothing on official documents to show he owns a significant amount of shares in the company.

Journalist Rigoberto D. Tiglao has claimed in his book, “Colossal Deception: How Foreigners Control our Telecom Sector” published in 2017, that Pangilinan could only be managing MediaQuest for its ultimate owner, Indonesian business tycoon Anthoni Salim, chairman of the Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd.

A recently-enacted law, Republic Act No. 11659, signed into law in March 2022, allows foreigners to fully own select businesses in the Philippines that provide public service such as airlines, railways, and telecommunication.

While media ownership remains strictly for Filipinos only, the many layering of media companies indirectly gives even foreigners with interests in services like telecommunication - PLDT for example - the means to own enterprises not necessarily open for this venture.

Pangilinan was appointed as president/CEO of PLDT upon First Pacific’s acquisition of shares in November 1998. To expand the business empire, there were multiple attempts to buy GMA-7 since 2001, when this failed PLDT ended up fully acquiring TV5 through MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. in 2010.

Before serving as chairman of PLDT and MPIC, Pangilinan made his name in Hong Kong as an investment banker. In 1981, he helped establish First Pacific, where he currently sits as the second top-ranking officer next to Salim, as the conglomerate’s managing director/chief executive officer.

Pangilinan, then with a net worth of US$105M (around PhP4.552 billion) based on the estimate by Forbes as of July 2013, was included as among the Philippines’ top 50 richest that year, the last time he would be included in the list.

Pangilinan also heads the electric distribution utility Manila Electric Company (Meralco) and its parent company Metro Pacific Investments Corporation (MPIC), a conglomerate involved in various businesses such as oil and gas, mining, tollways, water and electric utilities and healthcare.

Aside from business, Pangilinan is also known to be a big patron of sports in the Philippines, particularly basketball, and is the chairman of the MVP Sports Foundation.