2005 Bagong Bayani awardee

Growing up in the sleepy town of Mati, Davao Oriental in the Philippines, Melvin Malvar was instilled with a solid work ethic by his schoolteacher parents at an early age.

Coupled with an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge and driven to excel, it came as no surprise years later that the Construction and Material Supply Inc. general manager was hailed as a 2005 Bagong Bayani awardee.

Born on June 15, 1955 to parents Esteban and Corazon, Malvar was a valedictorian at Bobon Elementary School and Mati National Comprehensive before earning a degree in Business Administration-Accounting at the University of the East, where he graduated with honors.

Graduating in the Top 10 percent of his class and fresh from passing the Certified Public Accountants licensing exam, Malvar was heavily courted by leading accounting companies in Manila. He eventually chose SyCip, Gorres, Velayo & Co., where he rose from junior auditor to senior staff assistant from 1976-1981.

He moved to Philippine National Construction Co., at the time the largest construction firm in Southeast Asia, in 1982 and served as assistant manager/audit specialist for three years before deciding to try his luck overseas in 1985.

Malvar said it was through his former supervisor at SGV, Malou Supnet, that he was able to seek greener pastures abroad when she recruited him as chief accountant of CMS in 1985.

At CMS, Malvar showed his knack for organization and innovation by streamlining the company’s accounting department as well as setting up CMS’ management information system.

His first stint at CMS ended in 1991 when he decided to move to the U.S. mainland to pursue further studies and advance his career. He worked as a quality assurance assistant at Diamond Walnut Growers, Inc. and also as a licensed tax preparer in Stockton City.

But as fate would have it, Malvar was forced to abandon his American dream in 1994 when his parents became ill—his father went blind and his mother developed a spinal cord ailment.

Being the eldest of two siblings, Malvar had no choice but to care for his parents in Tagum City, Davao del Norte. His homecoming, however, still had a silver lining, as not even a week had gone by when he was offered a comptrollership position at the Tagum Rural Bank. He found self-fulfillment in his new job at the rural bank because he was learning a lot of new things and was given new challenges, among them spearheading the bank’s expansion. Along the way, he managed to earn a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Mindanao in 1998.

Malvar became such a vital cog of bank owner Reynaldo Reyes that he was given another title, that of compliance officer in charge of the bank’s branching requirements as mandated by the Central Bank of the Philippines. When he left Tagum Rural Bank in 2000, it already had grown into an eight-branch operation.

His second “tour of duty” on Saipan started in early 2000, when Malvar’s old boss, CMS president Dennis Yoshimoto, gave him a call and told him he badly needed him and was offered the comptrollership of the company.

With his parents feeling much better and well adjusted and this opportunity to help his old boss and company, Malvar once again packed his bags and relocated to Saipan.

When he arrived, he was tasked to “right the ship” of the floundering company. He immediately tried to remedy the situation by improving cash flow and recouping the company’s mammoth receivables.

In 2001, he was appointed general manager of CMS, one of the first nonresident Filipino workers to reach that position on Saipan, and after five or so years nursing the company back to the pink of health, Malvar has become an indispensable employee of the company and Yoshimoto and the CMS’ board of directors couldn’t be happier with his performance.

Malvar now oversees the day-to-day operations of CMS. His responsibilities include overseeing CMS’ quarry operations on Saipan and Rota, a quarry manufacturing division, heavy equipment rental and maintenance business, Benjamin Moore Paints (CMS is the exclusive dealer of the product on Saipan), and Tropical Printing Press (a commercial printer).

In Dec. 2, 2005, Malvar, accompanied by his mother, received his Bagong Bayani Outstanding Employee award from no less than Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at Malacanang Palace.

He immediately dedicated the award to his parents and even presented the crystal globe trophy and gold medal he won as a Christmas gift to them. He said without his parents and them teaching him the value of hard work, he wouldn’t have attained all the success he has had the past 50 years of his life.