MANILA, Philippines — Four people entered this year’s list of richest Filipinos by Forbes, one of whom was Rep. Michael "Mikee" Romero of 1-Pacman party-list.
Romero came in at 46th place with a net worth of $135 million or P6.5 billion in current foreign exchange. He went ahead of corporate officials like Luis Virata of Nickel Asia at 48th and Mikel Aboitiz of the family conglomerate, both of whom were not in last year’s list.
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In Congress, Romero serves as representative since 2016 of 1-Pacman, an abbreviation of the party-list group named One Patriotic Coalition of Marginalized Nationals, supposedly advocating for the welfare of marginalized groups.
Beyond his duties as a lawmaker however, Romero has several known business interests. One of which is F&S Holdings Inc., which in October 2019, gained control of the local unit of AirAsia, the region’s biggest budget carrier, after raising its stake to 60%.
According to Forbes, Romero owns Global Port 900 Inc. which also owns GlobalPort Batang Pier basketball team at the Philippine Basketball Association.
The billionaire Romero is among the richest legislators at the House of Representatives since at least 2017. At the time, Romero declared a net worth of P7.3 billion, which rose to P7.9 billion the following year.
Overall, this year’s list of 50 richest Filipinos by Forbes saw 32 personalities incurring substantial losses as of September this year, suffering from business disruptions brought by the pandemic. — Franco Luna