As chairman of the countrys largest phone networks and a philanthropist with a compelling rags-to-riches story,he is one of the most respected businessmen in the Philippines. So when Manuel V. Pangilinan tells young Filipinos that money is pretty cool but meaning is what brings real richness to your life, his words carry a certain weight. The only problem is that those were not Pangilinans words; they were Oprah Winfreys. He used them in a commencement speech on March 27 before graduates of the School of Social Sciences and School of Humanities of the Ateneo de Manila,a top university where he is also chairman of the board. Winfreys words,from a speech she delivered at Stanford in 2008,were not the only ones that Pangilinan borrowed from celebrities. He also lifted parts of speeches by President Obama and J. K. Rowling,the author of the Harry Potter series. In a talk before students of a different department at the Ateneo,Pangilinan took parts from a joke made by the comedian Conan OBrien at Harvard in 2000,according to ABS-CBN,a television network. Forty-four years ago I sat where you now sit. I also thought what you now think: What is going to happen to me? Where can I find a job? Am I really graduating a virgin? said Pangilinan on March 26 before students of the Ateneos management school,closely mimicking OBriens joke. In a letter last week to the Rev. Bienvenido F. Nebres,the Ateneos president,Pangilinan acknowledged that portions of his speech had been borrowed from certain other graduation speeches. Pangilinan,who runs Smart Communications and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company,was ranked 39th on the Forbes list of the richest Filipinos in 2008. He said that the scandal,which first erupted on Facebook and in blogs,caused him deep personal embarrassment. Pangilinan,who also has a number of other business interests,said he had some help in the drafting of my remarks but took full responsibility. The body and substance of my speech represented my own story and my thoughts, he told Father Nebres. And I have laboured long hours to get those speeches done. It is my hope that their impact has not been lost on the graduates. He offered to resign from his post as chairman of the Ateneos board,but Father Nebres said the apology was enough. Online,there is now a debate among students and graduates whether the university should take back the honorary doctorate degree it bestowed on Pangilinan. Some argued that it might have been just an oversight on Pangilinans part,and that he had done the honourable thing by apologising and offering to resign. This will be negative on Pangilinan for now,but in the long run his credibility as a business leader will still largely depend on how he manages the big businesses he now controls, Wilson Lee Flores,a business columnist in the Philippines,said in an interview. I personally think he is a decent and honourable guy who really wants to make a good name for himself. Others feel insulted that a business leader of his stature could do something like this. It must have been galling for Pangilinan, wrote Inday Espina-Varona,a journalist,to know that a couple of thousands of the countrys best and brightest will remember their graduation day for intellectual dishonesty.
