Former Senate President Franklin Drilon is joining the board of BDO Unibank Inc. as independent director, the country’s largest bank by assets said Wednesday.
A bar topnotcher in 1969 and an alumnus of the University of the Philippines, former Senator Drilon also served as executive secretary and labor chief under the late President Corazon Aquino, chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Finance, and authored several laws including the GOCC Governance Act of 2011, the Foreign Investments Act, Tax Incentives and Transparency Act, and the Revised Corporation Code.
Drilon also served as chairman of Philippine National Bank and as a director of Land Bank of the Philippines, and was a senior counsel at ACCRA Law.
The board of BDO also appointed Ramon Vicente del Villar de Vera II as senior vice president under the Office of the President, effective 16 November.
De Vera has more than 25 years of work experience, 22 years of which were in the banking industry. He co-founded Union Digital Bank Inc. in 2021 and was its chief executive officer from 2021 to 2023. Previous to that, he was with Union Bank of the Philippines as its Fintech Business Group head from 2017 to 2021, and concurrent Corporate Product head of Transaction Banking Group and Business Development Director of Transaction Banking Group from 2010 to 2013.
De Vera also worked with Globe Telecom, TV5, Citibank N.A., and Standard Chartered Bank. He graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Arts, major in Philosophy from the Ateneo de Manila University and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Management from the Asian Institute of Management.
