Philippines mourns loss of influential business leaders in 2025
Year-end reviews typically give Philippine companies a moment to assess profits, losses and growth and to recalibrate for the year ahead. But before another year begins, the business community is also taking stock of losses that extended beyond financial results.
From banking and energy to pharmaceuticals and technology, a number of the country’s most influential business leaders passed on in 2025, drawing the curtain on tenures that had shaped major firms and industries.
Below are the business figures whose deaths marked 2025.
Vivian Que Azcona
Vivian Que Azcona transformed Mercury Drug from a small family-owned enterprise into the country’s largest drugstore chain.
Starting as a staff assistant in her father’s pharmacy business, Azcona rose through the ranks and became president of Mercury Drug in 1998. Under her leadership, the company expanded to more than 1,200 stores nationwide, far from its humble origins on Bambang Street in Manila.
Azcona died on April 5 from a liver ailment. She was 69.
Harry Liu
Harry Liu helped steer the Philippine Stock Exchange through one of its most turbulent periods, serving as president from 1998 to 1999 in the aftermath of the Asian currency crisis and property slump.
His tenure coincided with peso devaluation, rising corporate defaults and growing political uncertainty during the Estrada administration, all of which rattled investor confidence.
The veteran stockbroker died on July 1 at the age of 77.
Judy Araneta-Roxas
Judy Araneta-Roxas, though best known as the matriarch of the influential Araneta-Roxas clan and a staunch supporter of the Liberal Party, was also a prominent business leader in her own right.
She served as vice chair and senior executive vice president of the Araneta Group, one of the country’s largest conglomerates, and was president of the Gerry Roxas Foundation, named after her late husband.
Her storied life spanned key moments in Philippine history, including surviving the 1971 bombing at Plaza Miranda.
Araneta-Roxas died on Aug. 26. She was 91.
Oscar Hilado
Oscar Hilado was a prominent figure in Philippine corporate leadership for more than five decades.
He joined Phinma Corp. in 1969 and later became one of its most respected leaders, while also serving on the boards of major companies including Philex Mining Corp., Smart Communications Inc., Metro Pacific Investments Corp., Rockwell Land Corp. and Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc.
Hilado was also a longtime patron of tennis and an advocate for education.
He died on Sept. 17 at the age of 87.
Oscar Reyes
A veteran of the energy and oil sector, Oscar Reyes helped shape the Philippine power and fuel industries over several decades.
He served as president and CEO of Meralco from 2012 to 2019, and earlier led Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. as president from 1997 to 2001, while also serving as country chair of Shell companies in the Philippines.
Reyes died on Oct. 3 at the age of 79.
Xavier Loinaz
Xavier “XP” Loinaz was one of the longest-serving leaders in the Philippine banking industry.
He served as CEO of the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) from 1982 to 2004 and continued to guide the bank for an additional 16 years until 2020. His tenured spanned political upheavals and economic crises, including two people power revolutions, coup d’état attempts, the debt crisis in the 1980s and the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
Under Loinaz, BPI introduced the country’s first automated teller machines or ATMs in the early 1980s, launched internet banking in 1999 and pioneered bancassurance through acquisitions in insurance.
Loinaz died on Oct. 4 at the age of 81.
Martin Tuason
Martin Tuason led Armscor Global Defense Inc. as its third-generation chief executive, overseeing the Philippine arms manufacturer from 2012 until his death.
He was an advocate of self-reliance in defense manufacturing and played a key role in the passage of the Self-Reliant Defense Posture Revitalization Act, which became a law about a year before he died.
Tuason died on Nov. 19. He was 51.
Cesar Buenaventura
Cesar “CAB” Buenaventura was a trailblazer in Philippine corporate management, being the first Filipino to serve as CEO and chair of the Shell Group in the Philippines. He was also one of its longest-serving directors.
He also sat on the boards of major firms, including Philippine Airlines and Ayala Corp. Regarded as a management guru, Buenaventura was conferred the prestigious “Management Person of the Year Award” in 1985.
He died on Dec. 10 at the age of 96.
Diosdado Banatao
Diosdado “Dado” Banatao was one of the most important and influential Filipinos in global technology, earning the tags the “Bill Gates of the Philippines” and the country’s “father of semiconductors.”
An electrical engineer from Cagayan Valley, Banatao made it big in Silicon Valley.
He developed foundational semiconductor technologies still used in modern computing, including the first 10-Mbit Ethernet CMOS chip and system logic chipsets for the IBM PC-XT and PC-AT. There were also the first graphics accelerator chip and the pioneering local bus architecture that sped up computer performance.
Banatao died on Christmas Day in the United States. He was 79.
