Pangilinan is the latest recipient of the lifetime achievement business leader award of highly celebrated leaders and businessmen in the country.  Previous award winners were Jaime Zobel de Ayala (2014), Vicente Paterno (2013), Washington Sycip (2012), Oscar Lopez (2011), and Amb. Jesus Tambunting and Senen Bacani (2010).

Over the past two decades, Pangilinan has been a stalwart in today’s local business scene leading game-changing milestones for some of the country’s biggest companies, and directing corporate foundations for various causes.

He chairs some of the country’s most valuable publicly-listed companies in the country like PLDT, Metro Pacific, Philex Mining, and Meralco and vital infrastructure companies such as water concessionaire Maynilad and the tollway companies – Manila North Tollways Corp. and Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., and Tollways Management Corp. He also leads some of the country's largest communications and media companies like Smart Communications, Sun Cellular, TV5, CignalTV as well as the Philippines' largest network of hospitals.

As Managing Director and CEO of First Pacific, MVP is also responsible for the rapid expansion of the company in the region. Just recently, First Pacific in partnership with Singapore’s Wilmar International took over Australia’s homegrown food company, Goodman Fielder, with the aim of transforming it into a regional food company that also serves the fast-growing ASEAN markets.

Pangilinan also heads several foundations including the PLDT-Smart Foundation, Philippine Business for Social Progress, IdeaSpace Foundation, One Meralco Foundation, Tulong Kapatid, MVP Sports Foundation, and the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation.

He has also made major contributions in the field of sports with his participation in the local and international arena such as the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (formerly Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines), Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP), and recently being elected a seat in the FIBA Central Board.

His many accomplishments in various fields have made Pangilinan one of the country's most recognizable and influential business leader.  

He credits his success to many years of hard work, the help of his colleagues and the basic values instilled in him by his family.

It was at the Philippine Investment Management Inc. (Phinma) where he took his first steps in his long-term career in finance and investments. For six years, he was the executive assistant to the president where he took mentorship under Phinma founders Filemon C. Rodriguez and the late Ambassador Ramon V. del Rosario Sr. – after whom this award is named.

After his stint with Phinma, MVP left Manila for Hong Kong as an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) to become the executive director at investment bank, Bancom International.  He went there with 4 business suits, 2 pairs of shoes and a burning ambition to succeed. A few years after, his business-savvy and discipline with financial matters led him to start off his own company in 1981 with six people working in a few square meters of office space and a modest amount of starting capital.  Under his helm, this start-up company has become a leading investment firm in the region, First Pacific.

Driven by a desire to give back to his country and support his countrymen, Pangilinan, through First Pacific, returned to the Philippines and began a series of investments under the umbrella of the Metro Pacific Corporation. First Pacific eventually bought into the country’s biggest telecommunications company PLDT. Under his leadership, PLDT evolved from being a traditional telephone company into the country's leading digital communications services group.

Through Metro Pacific, Pangilinan has helped build the nation through major investments in power distribution and energy innovations, urban water concession, network of road tollways, upgrading hospitals and health services.

Through his different companies, he led programs and initiatives that has not only helped the businesses and lives of their customers but has also benefitted the livelihood and lives of the communities they serve.

The annual RVR Award recognizes an individual who have proven himself worthy of honor and emulation, and demonstrate outstanding traits, such as entrepreneurial spirit, national or global impact of business, corporate citizenship and social responsibility.

These traits were manifested by the late Ambassador Ramon V. del Rosario Sr.

The award also aims to raise awareness about responsible citizenship, and the pursuit of progress among entrepreneurs, businessmen and professionals and is given to the person who best possesses these criteria.

The RVR award was first launched in 2009 and named after the late ambassador, the founder of Philippine Investment and Management Consultants (Phinma) and the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).

The award is designed not only to honor del Rosario Sr. as the Manila Jaycees’s founding president, but also to keep alive in the current and future leaders of Philippine business the spirit of nation-building through responsible entrepreneurship, the hallmark of RVR’s career. 

For a copy of his speech, click here