Manuel Villar Jr. on Manuel Villar Sr.

What’s in a name?

Quite a lot if it carries a legacy of hard work and integrity so extraordinary that it has emerged from faceless poverty into the leagues of the most successful and most powerful names in the country.

The name is Manuel Villar. And we’re not just referring to the senator.

"My father’s name is also Manuel. I’m a junior. Paolo, my eldest, is also a ‘Manuel.’ That’s why my wife is mad at the name ‘Manuel.’ I’m proud of my name, " says Manny Villar Jr. of his father, the late Manuel Villar, Sr. The elder worked as an inspector in the Bureau of Fisheries at the National Food Authority. That was actually how he met his wife. He was in charge of inspection in the Divisoria market as the future Mrs. Villar sold fish.

Manny’s father was from Iloilo. Seeking a better life, he migrated to Manila, where he raised his family in Tondo. While his mother worked as a fish vendor, his father went for a more stable job as an ordinary employee.

"He wasn’t much of a risk taker unlike my mother who really had an entrepreneurial flair. My father was more steady. He taught me patience and to persevere. He was very diligent, he was the type who’d work long hours in the office."

Manny’s father carried the typical Filipino burden of being the sole breadwinner of his siblings as well as his own brood of eight. As a father, he was strict but not to Manny since his eldest son acted as the dutiful kuya while his parents were busy making a living.

While Manny was growing up, he already knew that he could not expect frivolities like toys or gifts from his father. "During the Feast of Three Kings, I’d tease my father, ‘O, where’s my toy train? But he could never give it because it was expensive."

The hard life prevented the young Manny from having big dreams of any sort – like becoming a senator or a real estate magnate. Manny points out that when you’re poor, you only think of ways to survive. His father never had any lofty ambitions for his eldest son. What he did want, however, was for Manny to go to a good school, and maybe become an engineer. "When I was in high school, life was getting a bit better. He told me to study in Mapua. It wasn’t like Ateneo or La Salle, but to us, it was a big deal. He told me, ‘You go there. We’ll do everything we can so you can study there’. So I went and graduated, sipag at tiyaga style."

By sheer accident, Manny enrolled in UP for college. He went with a friend to take the entrance test and was forced to take it along with him. Manny passed, his friend didn’t. "I discovered that it was cheap in UP. It was far but cheap. So I convinced my father. He said, ‘If you’re going to UP, you might as well take up Law!’ So he changed his dream for me from an engineer to a lawyer."

While in UP, Manny became closer to his dad as he would spend lunch time in his father’s office at the Department of Agriculture, which was near the campus. It was in those times where they bonded. Manny explains that they simply could not afford such moments before because of all the hardship the family was experiencing. All his father’s hours were spent working.

"I was close to him in a different way, not in terms of time spent. I had very high respect for my dad. I could appreciate him even when I was young, the efforts that he made. The family was very close. We weren’t a chaotic family. We were close-knit. In fact, the nine of us would be together in one room. There was one room and one sala. We became close to one another."

Manny’s father and mother were very different. She had a daring spirit, he was more prudent. "I’m more of my mother but I think I need more of my father’s prudence. (I have) the fire of my mom but I can see that it cannot be all fire. I would be a better person if I could taken the pluses of my dad and combine them with my mom’s."

Manny says that he could only see the value of growing up with such a combination only now. In his early years he used to wonder why his father remained an employee, as opposed to his wily mom who had a bigger income with her many businesses. "I was always planning to go on my own because my mother had always told me that you’ll earn more if you go on your own. But my father said that it’s ok to go on your own but just don’t be as daring as your mother. They had a good combination, that I can appreciate. My mother was gutsy, pasok ng pasok. He provided balance."

A solid family life, caution and prudence were the qualities which Manny got from his father and now tries to impart to his own children. Manny assesses that his eldest son Paulo is like his father while his two other children Mark and Camille have a feisty personality. "The closeness that we (my father and I) had, I want to have with my children as well," he says.

With his own family, Manny says that it is only now that he really feels the influence that his father had on him. The values that he taught him are only realized now that he is a father himself, and especially when there are crises that arise. "When you’re young, you don’t really appreciate it. When you reach your 20s, 40s, you start appreciating them. But you really appreciate your parents when they’re old already or when they’re gone…"

The late Manuel Villar, Sr. may be gone but his spirit is very much alive and well in his son and his children’s children. The name no longer connotes hardship or anonymity, rather it connotes success and abundance, done through sipag at tiyaga style, as the senator puts it.