Manny is one of the five founders of Tau Omega Mu, the others being Tony Kalaw, Dick Gutierrez, Jun Garcia, and Sonny Pulgar (Sonny chose to join another fraternity later). Manny was then a Student Council councilor, a ROTC officer in charge of one battalion of cadets, and a Samahan ng Demokratikong Kabataan (SDK) leader and community activist when he was convinced by Dick and Tony to help create Tau Omega Mu Fraternity in 1972.

It was 1975 when Manny left University of the Philippines to work for Philippine Coconut Producers Federation Inc. (Cocofed) as a young management executive. During his tenure with Cocofed, it sent him to the Asian Institute of Management in 1978; to Europe and Asia on study tour grants in 1977 to 1979; and to FEU Institute of Law from 1980 to 1984 where he completed his Bachelor of Laws degree, cum laude. In 1984, he placed third in the Philippine Bar Exams with a grade of 90.95%! Manny served Cocofed as the in-house counsel from 1986 to 1994. He retired in early 1994 and went to private law practice since then.

On his first day of membership in the cybertambayan on 9 June 2001, he spent 13 hours straight reading e-group messages of TOM -- all 2,600+ messages. He said it was an exhilarating and inspiring experience.

Welcome to our cybertambayan, brod!