Taipan Yuchengco passes away

MANILA, Philippines - Insurance and banking taipan and former ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco passed away Saturday night. He was 94.

Yuchengco, a certified public accountant, was founding chairman of the Yuchengco Group of Companies, including the Ri-
zal Commercial Banking Corp. and Mapua Institute of Technology. He also served as chair of the boards of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, Philippine Fuji Xerox, Benguet Corp., the Bank of America Savings Bank, and Asia’s Emerging Dragon Corporation, among others.

Yuchengco was born on Feb. 6, 1923 in Binondo, Manila to Don Enrique and Maria Hao Tay. A graduate of Far Eastern University, he earned his Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Columbia Business School in 1950, and has since held distinguished professorships in insurance and in finance and economics.

Yuchengco is former Philippine permanent representative to the United Nations. He also served as Philippine ambassador to the People’s Republic of China from 1986 to 1988, and to Japan from 1995 to 1998.

In 2001, Yuchengco was appointed by then-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as presidential special envoy to China, Japan and Korea. In 2004, he was tapped by Arroyo as presidential adviser on foreign affairs.

Among his numerous awards and decorations he received were Outstanding Manilan in Diplomacy in 1995; Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star, by the Emperor of Japan (1993); and Management Man of the Year from the Management Association of the Philippines (1992).

Yuchengco’s wake will start on Tuesday, April 18, at the Santuario de San Antonio Parish at Forbes Park in Makati City, according to a Facebook post by Star columnist Krip Yuson, editor of the magazine Ermita that was published by the taipan’s son Boy in the 1970s.