KNOWING CYNTHIA VILLAR

Representative, Las Piñas City, 2001 to 2010

Managing Director, Villar Foundation, 1992 to present

Cynthia Aguilar Villar earned her degree in Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of the Philippines, which recently recognized her as one of its Distinguished Alumni.  She completed her Masters in Business Administration at the New York University.

She practiced as a financial analyst and college professor until she married Former House Speaker and Senate President Manny Villar in 1975.  She then helped her husband in various entrepreneurial ventures, eventually making Vista Land the biggest homebuilder in the Philippines. She managed a private development bank from 1989 to 1998.

In 2001, Cynthia Villar won in a landslide victory as Representative of Las Piñas to the Philippine’s House of Representatives, where she completed three terms or nine years of service until 2010.

Congresswoman Villar also served as chairperson of the Congressional Spouses Foundation from 1998 to 2000. During her term, she built 11 regional centers for women who are victims of abuse.

Likewise, she also served as president of the Senate Spouses Foundation, Inc., from August 2006 to December 2008, during which the Foundation raised P25 million for the rehabilitation of charity wards at the Philippine General Hospital.

Cynthia Villar’s social and civic concerns are wide and varied.  Thus, in 1992, she founded and chaired the Villar Foundation, where she is now actively involved as Managing Director.

Amidst all her achievements and awards, she still considers her family her most cherished treasures and her three well-raised children as her glory. Paolo and Mark are graduates of the Wharton School of Finance—University of Pennsylvania. Her only daughter, Camille, is a Business Management graduate at the Ateneo de Manila University. Paolo now is the Chief Executive Officer of their publicly–listed housing company Vista Land. Camille is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Vista Land’s upscale housing subsidiary Brittany Corporation. She is also a co-host in television variety program Wil Time Bigtime on TV 5. Mark is a member of the Philippine House of Representatives of the Lone District of Las Piñas City. They are all role models of hard work and perseverance—life values that their parents inculcated in them.