Manuel "Mar" Araneta Roxas II
BIOGRAPHY
Manuel "Mar" Araneta Roxas II is a Philippine senator and is popularly known as "Mr.
Palengke". He is currently the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Trade and
Industry and Committee on Education. He is also the husband of popular ABS-
CBN head correspondent Korina Sanchez.
He was put into office in the 2004 Philippine elections, garnering the highest number of
votes at 19,237,888 -- the highest ever by a national candidate in
any Philippine election.
Roxas was born in Manila on May 13 2957. He is the son of former Senator Gerry
Roxas and he had two other siblings: Maria Lourdes, and the late Congressman
Gerardo Roxas, Jr. He is also the grandson of President Manuel Roxas. He studied and
graduated elementary and high school from the Ateneo de Manila in 1970 and 1974,
respectively. He then earned a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of
Economics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1979. After graduating from college in
1979, he first worked as an investment banker in New York, and then at Allen &
Company, where he became assistant vice president of the New York-based company.
He left the United States in December 26, 1985 to join Corazon Aquino's presidential
campaign in the Philippines after a snap election was called by Ferdinand Marcos. To
show further support for the Aquinos, Roxas was also one of the organizers of a series
of investment round-table discussions with the American business community
when Cory Aquino went to the States in September 1986.
CONTRIBUTION
Roxas first ran for public office in 1992 when his brother, Gerardo Roxas Jr., then
congressman of the First District of Capiz, died of cancer. Mar decided to run in the
special elections to replace his brother, and won.
Before he entered public service, he already began working for his advocacies and
agenda on quality education, livelihood opportunities (through small and medium
enterprise), health care, and transparency and accountability in the government.
He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1993, where he lobbied for the
Filipino rights to quality affordable medicine and consumer protection. He then became
Majority Floor Leader during his term.
Some of the laws he promoted and authored during his term as congressman were the
following:
Republic Act No. 8759 - establishing in all municipalities a Public Employment
Service Office which serves as employment facilitation and information center, and
links all job opportunities within the region;
Republic Act No. 8748 - amending the Special Economic Zone Act by directly
allocating to the municipality or city 2% (out of the 5%) gross tax to be collected from
the establishments operating in the ecozone and providing for disturbance
compensation for persons to be displaced or evicted by publicly-owned ecozones;
Republic Act No. 8756 - incentivizing the establishment of regional
headquarters to encourage investment and operation of multinational companies in
the country and to generate more jobs.
Republic Act No. 7880 (Roxas Law) - fair distribution of the education capital
budget among all the provinces. This started his advocacy for fair and equitable
access to education, free from regional bias and political patronage considerations
After almost seven years in the Congress, he was appointed as Secretary to
the Department of Trade and Industry during the Estrada Administration in 2000. During
his four-year term, he promoted the development of SMEs (small and medium
enterprises), particularly of thepalengke, and he considers them the basic unit of
economy and root of progress. Because of this advocacy, he was called Mr. Palengke.
He still continued on working for consumer protection through the Presyong Tama,
Gamot Pampamilya program which benefited millions of Filipinos in need quality and
affordable medicines.
While working as the Department of Trade and Industry secretary, he also worked on
his commitment to quality education. He initiated thePersonal Computers for Public
Schools (PCPS) Program, to which 2,000 public schools were gifted 30,000 computers
all over the country. PCPS also provided information communication and technology
tools and skills to almost 500,000 high school students.
In 2004, he was elected into the Senate and earned the most number of votes obtained
by a candidate in Philippine election. He still continued on his advocacy for cheap
medicine and consumer rights, and authored Republic Act No. 9502, or the Cheaper
and Quality Medicines Act of 2008 which was signed in June 2008.
In
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March 16, 2011
