Top 10 Highest Paid Tech Executives in the Philippines

The biggest names in PH tech are also the highest paid. According to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, these are the tech executives that paid the biggest taxes for the fiscal year 2015.

The figures below represent 32% (maximum rate) of their annual taxable income (for simplicity, you can just multiply the figure by 3 to know their estimated income for the year).

Manuel Velez Pangilinan

Chairman, PLDT
Taxes Paid: Php31,636,324.00USD 539,083INR 45,701,834EUR 513,458CNY 3,926,068

Most notably known as MVP, this industry titan is head of so many big corporations, from mining to media and publishing. Manny Pangilinan is associated with TV5, PLDT, Smart, Philex Mining, First Pacific/Metro Pacific and is an avid patron of the sports.

Orlando Banzon Vea

President and CEO of Sun Cellular
CEO, Voyager Innovations Inc.
Taxes Paid: 20,042,009.00

More commonly known as Doy Vea in the tech sector, he co-founded Smart along with David Fernando in 1991. He ahs since moved to several positions, including Chief Executive Officer, President and Director of PLDT Communications and Energy Ventures as well as CEO, President and Director of DigiTel (Sun Cellular).

Isaias Ariel Pagkalinawan Fermin

EVP & Head of Consumer Business, PLDT and Smart Communications
COO of DigiTel
Taxes Paid: Php20,306,549USD 346,024INR 29,334,841EUR 329,575CNY 2,520,043

Before joining PLDT, Fermin used to be the Country Director by Nike Philippines. He joined the telco company in March 2012 as Executive Vice President and Head of Consumer Business of PLDT and Smart. He was considered as one of the most powerful generals of Manny Pangilinan and rumored to be groomed as the successor to MVP.

He is now the Chief Operating Officer of Max’s Restaurant, Max’s Corner Bakery and Krispy Kreme (since January 2017).

Ernest Lawrence Lim Cu

President & CEO of Globe Telecom
Vice Chairman, SPI Technologies
Taxes Paid: Php18,793,560USD 320,242INR 27,149,177EUR 305,019CNY 2,332,281

More commonly called as Ernest Cu, Globe’s top executive is a well-decorated CEO having won many national and regional awards, the latest one being Philippine’s Best CEO by FinanceAsia.

Charles Arroz Lim

Wireless Strategic Investments and Acquisition Group, PLDT
Taxes Paid: Php14,772,955USD 251,731INR 21,341,011EUR 239,765CNY 1,833,324 

Charles was a long-time executive at DigiTel (Sun Cellular) as Head of Business Unit for the Cellular Mobile Telephone Services before he was moved to Smart/PLDT as Chief Operations Officer of DMPI.

He was EVP and Head of Consumer Wireless Business for Smart and Sun Cellular, then transferred to Wireless Strategic Investments & Acquisition. He is now Head of Access for ABS-CBN Corporation since joining the network in early 2016.

Napoleon Logarta Nazareno

President and CEO of SMART Communications
Taxes paid: Php24,344,935.00USD 414,838INR 35,168,693EUR 395,118CNY 3,021,206

Note: Retired in December 2015.

Ray Celis Espinosa

Chief Corporate Services Officer at PLDT (2016)
President and Chief Executive Officer of TV5 (2013)
President & CEO of MediaQuest Holdings, Inc.
Taxes Paid: Php14,238,022USD 242,616INR 20,568,247EUR 231,083CNY 1,766,939

Rolando Gomez Pena

Head of Technology, Smart/PLDT
Taxes Paid: Php11,540,847USD 196,656INR 16,671,908EUR 187,308CNY 1,432,219

Richard Allen Cohen

Vice President, Asia Factory Operations
Maxim Integrated Products (2009-present)
President & General Manager, ON Semiconductor Philippines (2005-2009)
Taxes Paid: Php9,514,297USD 162,124INR 13,744,353EUR 154,417CNY 1,180,724

Menardo Jimenez Jr.
Senior Vice President & Head-Human Resources at PLDT, Inc.
Taxes Paid: Php9,333,144USD 159,037INR 13,482,660EUR 151,477CNY 1,158,243

This latest list is not far from the previous top list we made 14 a few years back. Some people have dropped off our list as they’ve moved on to other industries.