![[IMAGE]](papaapo2.jpg)
My father, Jose K. Villanueva, was a Certified
Public Accountant. He got his degree at Jose Rizal College in Mandaluyong. After
passing his board exams, he joined an abaca and copra exporting company as bookkeeper. Joe K, as his friends called him, rose to become the President and
General Manager of the company within a short time.
Due to the success of
the business, he was twice voted Businessman of the Year by the Business Editors
of the Philippines leading newspapers. After this, he joined the government when
he was appointed a Director of the Board of Industries by then Philippine
President, Diosdado Macapagal. After Ferdinand Marcos was elected, he continued
serving the people when he was again appointed, this time as a Director of the
Abaca and Other Fibers Development Board.
During his stints in the
government service, he also represented the Philippines in the different United
Nations Conferences around the world like the ILO, WHO, & FAO. Joe K was
also included in the first Philippine Trade delegation to go to
Russia.
In 1970, he went back to the private sector by setting up
Oriental Placement Center, one of the pioneer manpower exporters. With Douglas
Burn as his UK principal, OPC was able to place thousands of Filipinos in the
United Kingdom.
When this door was closed by the UK government in the
late 70s, he shifted to the Middle East and to this day, Oriental Placement
Center, with my brother Joel at the helm, continues to help Filipinos find
employment abroad.
Through all these, OPC has always maintained its
policy of Filipinos being asked to pay only the barest minimum and, if possible,
not to pay anything at all.
The 80s saw my father together with his
brothers, Emmanuel (Memeng) and Alfonso (Ponching), and their only sister, Sr.
Fe, launch the F. M. VILLANUEVA MEMORIAL FOUNDATION. Set up in memory of my
grandfather, Francisco, the Foundation's primary objective is to help those who
would like to go into the priesthood but could not afford to do so in
recognition of the current shortage of priests in the Catholic Church. It also
helps the needy children of Marikina by sending a good number of them to
school.
1994 was a sad year for the Villanueva clan as first, Tito Memeng
succumbed to cancer in January and come September was followed by my father, Joe
K. They are surely missed.
Happy 85th Birthday, Papa
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