By Jun Vallecera
Reporter
RAFAEL Carlos B. Buenaventura, governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for six years till July last year, died of cancer on Thursday afternoon. He was 68.
His penchant for the simple things in life was with him till the end, as he told the family not to make any fuss about his passing when it comes.
He asked to be cremated as soon as practicable and requested those who know him not to send flowers in his honor but donate the money instead to the Cancer Institute of the Philippine General Hospital to support indigent cancer patients.
He was well-loved while BSP governor, mostly because he took care of the needs of ordinary employees, the same way he did with central bank executives. "We have seen not the passing of a person but that of an institution," deputy BSP governor Diwa Guinigundo said on Thursday.
While previous central bank governors were instinctive when responding to economic developments, Buenaventura always knew exactly what he had to do in response, Guinigundo said.
"The others were rather short-term, more instinctive. But governor Buenaventura always had a framework, a road map in his mind. He always knew what to do," Guinigundo said.
In the initial years of the Estrada administration when business confidence was low and the political environment was in turmoil, Buenaventura was seen as "the only adult in a room" full of juveniles by a foreign observer.
His colleagues at the Monetary Board were amazed at how he executed a plan on his first day in office that would settle all the foreign debts he obtained for the BSP during his tenure by the time he left it six years later.
Buenaventura left the BSP on July 3, 2005 much stronger than when he assumed its helm July 6, 1999.
He was one of only two central bank governors to receive an "A" grade for two consecutive years from the London-based Global Finance magazine as one of the world's best central bankers in 2002 and 2003.
Business Mirror
December 1, 2006
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