Manila Standard columnist Gary Olivar, former economic spokesman of the Arroyo administration, died of a heart attack Tuesday, June 29. He was 68.
Mr. Olivar is a director of the Center for Strategy, Enterprise and Intelligence (CenSEI), providing strategic research and advisory to public and private organizations. He is also a lead convener of Pdu30 CoRe (Constitutional Reformers for Federalism), advocating federalism.
Mr. Olivar was also Associate Professor of Finance at the Asian Institute of Management and a fellow of the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF).
He earned his MA degree from the U.P. School of Economics and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
His column, Formations (formerly Bypass), appeared Tuesdays in this newspaper. His last column, “Time for LP to junk the Reds,” was published the day he died.
“So many of our friends continue to fall to the COVID virus as well as plain old-age ailments,” he wrote.
He shared a passage from 2 Timothy, the parting words of St. Paul who faced death in Rome: “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.”
“How many of us would be able to honestly say the same about our faith to St Peter the gatekeeper when we finally face him? It would take a lifetime of work to muster that, and yet it’s never too late for us,” Olivar wrote.
The family is waiting for Mr. Olivar’s children to come from the United States, and will announce wake arrangements when they arrive this weekend, said his wife, Mrs. Baby Olivar.
