Ducky Paredes

“Edu’s public service started with his election in 1998 as vice mayor of the City of Makati. Manzano held that position until 2001 when he ran for mayor, and lost, partly because Edu did not have the needed financial resources to win.”

by Ducky Paredes

Edu Manzano as Vice President of the Philippines?

Last Friday’s announcement that the Lakas-Kampi CMD had drafted the former chairman of the Optical Media Board (OMB) as running mate of Defense Secretary and administration presidential candidate Gilbert Teodoro Jr. in next year’s elections makes his becoming VP at least a possibility.

I, for one, do not find the event totally unacceptable. I like Edu. I am nota bosom buddy but the times we have met have been pleasant and even fun ones.

The question is relevant because everybody knows that the vice president is only a failed heartbeat away from the presidency. It is an issue that both the Lakas-Kampi CMD and Manzano himself will have to confront in the course of the campaign. And the earlier they come up with a credible answer to what Edu’s role in a Teodoro administration will be, the better for them.

But who, really, is Edu Manzano and, in the event that he would have to,  would he be a good President ?

Edu’s public service started with his election in 1998 as vice mayor of the City of Makati.

Manzano held that position until 2001 when he ran for mayor, and lost, partly because Edu did not have the needed financial resources to win. In fact, according to close friends, it was only recently that he was able to completely pay the debts he incurred in that mayoralty campaign, eleven years ago. His huge debt  was the major reason he declined to accept invitations for him to run as senator in the 2007 elections.

Edu as Vice Mayor was working hard. He was elected President of the Vice Mayors’ League of the Philippines where he worked, among other accomplishments, for the acquisition of ambulances and farm implements for local government units.

He was also President of the Vice Mayors’ Foundation where his functions included performing liaison work with NGOs and donors from foreign countries. His term saw the completion of the Vice Mayors’ building that served as a half-way house for vice mayors coming to Manila on official business.

During all that time, he was also an active member of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) where he was Chairman of the Special Projects Committee.  As Makati Vice Mayor, Edu received an Outstanding and Unblemished Record award from the National Press Club of the Philippines, and the Outstanding Vice Mayor award during the 12th Annual National Consumers Conference of the Consumers Union of the Philippines.

In 2004, the government tapped his services as chairman of the Optical Media Board (OMB). He resigned in September this year to devote more time to his advocacy on anti-child abuse and pornography and to explore, according to him, “other avenues of public service.”

His campaign against child abuse and pornography started when, in the course of the OMB’s numerous raids, they stumbled upon thousands of VCDs and DVDs containing pornographic materials. The items showed children as young as three years old being subjected to sexual abuse. Edu disclosed that the victims included Filipino children. It was this shocking discovery that prompted him to organize the Anti-Child Abuse and Pornography (ACAP) Foundation.

Manzano waged a relentless campaign against film piracy and illegal copying, distribution and sale of optical media materials. His work resulted in the removal of the Philippines from the Priority Watch List of the US Trade Representative (USTR) which contains a list of countries considered as notorious for film piracy and violations of intellectual property rights. The Philippines was cited for being one of only seven countries that made significant progress in effecting controls in their optical media operations and has since been placed only in the Ordinary Watch List.

The OMB campaign actually received recognition from prestigious global organizations like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the Motion Picture Association International (MPAI). In 2006, Manzano became the first recipient of the Asia-Pacific Copyright Enforcer of the Year Award during the MPAI’s CineAsia Convention in Beijing, China in December 2006.

As an actor, Manzano was elected by his peers as a past President of the Actors Guild of the Philippines. During his term, Edu implemented a scholarship program for guild members and their families that covered students in the grade school and high school and provided computer training in the college level. He also worked to give guild members other perks that included lifetime emergency medical services, SSS and Medicare benefits, health insurance and housing loans.

A very interesting facet of Manzano’s background is his military service starting in 1973 as Head of Quality Control and Evaluation (QC&E) of the Missile Engineering Group of the United States Air Force where he had to work in a missile silo of the US Strategic Air Command (SAC). His stint in the US military gave him the opportunity to take up civil engineering which is offered in the US Air Force. His last tour of duty was in an air force facility in Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA.

Edu also worked as a bank teller in the Bank of America in San Francisco, California. Because of his service in the US military and his being born in the US, Edu’s political opponents challenged his Filipino citizenship when he ran for and won as vice mayor of Makati. To their dismay, the Supreme Court declared him a natural born Filipino and that’s because both his parents are Filipinos.

Possibly because of this military background, Manzano, by the way, was also an adopted as an Honorary Member of Class ’82 of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA). This, Manzano said, because an asset in his job as OMB Chairman. The PMA connection made it easier for him to coordinate with, and request assistance from PMA alumni who had become officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and other law enforcement agencies.

Largely unknown to the public is Manzano’s intimate involvement in sports. People are surprised to learn that Edu is a 4th Dan Black belter in judo and was a three-time judo champion of the Philippines. He served as executive vice president of the Philippine Amateur Judo Association (PAJA) and was captain of the judo team of De La Salle University where he also played for the school’s senior basketball team in 1978-79 while taking up a course in economics.

He served as Council Member of the Philippine Olympic Committee and as Chairman of the POC Special Projects Commission. He also became Chairman of the Philippine Tot Baseball Foundation and International Development Officer for Southeast Asia of the US Pony Baseball International.

Edu’s curriculum vitae enumerates executive positions as founder/president of two firms and a directorship in another. He claims to have experience and exposure in global transactions with multinational companies. He speaks and writes in English, Spanish and Tagalog and is very much at home in Hiligaynon (Ilonggo).

I thought that Edu would have made a good senator and would have improved the image of showbiz persons as politicos and, specially, as they are presently regarded as being fit only to be  members in the Senate’s Committee of Silence.

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hvp 11.18.09

 

 

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