UE Grad, Former RFM Team Manager and UAAP Basketball Commissioner Elmer Yanga Passes Away
The University of the East humbly extends sincere condolences to the family of the late Elmer Garcia Yanga, who passed away last Wednesday, May 1, 2024, at age 78.
Born on August 13, 1945, in Tinajeros, Malabon, just a year before the humble beginnings of UE itself, Mr. Yanga was a basketball aficionado since childhood, a passion that would make for a remarkable facet to his eventual professional life.
He enrolled at the UE College of Business Administration-Manila in 1961, enticed by the success of UE graduates in the certified public accountant licensure examinations. He earned the then-named UE BSBA Accountancy degree in 1965 then took the four-week, once-a-week CPA licensure exams in 1966, learning that he passed the exams a year later, on December 8, 1967.
Mr. Yanga spent much of his professional life with RFM Corporation (née Republic Flour Mills, Inc.), starting at RFM’s soy oil-manufacturing subsidiary Republic Soya Inc. as a senior bookkeeper-inventory clerk before being promoted to general accountant then chief accountant. Soon he headed the Internal Audit and Management Services Department of RFM’s then marketing arm, Republic Consolidated, also heading the corporation’s Credit and Collection Department and Customer Service Department. He went on to become Republic Consolidated’s Purchasing Manager, then Finance Manager, then Corporate Purchasing Division Manager, the latter title for 10 years. In 1990, he was appointed Senior Vice President (SVP) for Corporate Relations of the RFM Group of Companies, his final RFM position until retiring in 2002, after 37 years of overall service to the conglomerate.
Along the way, Mr. Yanga was an active member of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry/the Bureau of Customs’ Consultative Group and Home Consumption Value Subcommittee, the Purchasing Association of the Philippines (where he was a Board Member, Sports Committee Chairman, Vice President, and Auditor), the Credit Management Association of the Philippines and the Allied Consumer Association of the Philippines.
Mr. Yanga’s most remembered work for RFM, however, has been as the perennial manager of RFM’s professional basketball teams. Starting in 1981, while he held the aforesaid Corporate Purchasing Division Manager post, he was also Manager of the company’s team in the RFM-cofounded Philippine Amateur Basketball League [which was later on renamed as the Philippine Basketball League (PBL)]. He was Team Manager of RFM’s PABL squad up to 1992 while being a PABL Board Member. Starting in 1990, while he held the said SVP for Corporate Relations post, he became the Team Manager for RFM’s basketball team in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA)—which had a succession of names based on RFM products ranging from Pop Cola to Swift—up to his 2002 retirement from RFM, the same year when San Miguel Corporation bought RFM’s PBA franchise. Most notably, he was part of the four PBA championships won by Swift during the franchise’s 12-year stint in the league starting in 1990 when it entered as an expansion team.
As Team Manager of RFM’s basketball teams, this Warrior Accountancy graduate got to work with several PBA coaches, such as Turo Valenzona, Yeng Guiao, Virgil Villavicencio, Chito Afable, Derick Pumaren, Dindo Pumaren (who was the UE Red Warriors Head Coach in UAAP Season 69), Norman Black and Chot Reyes. And such was Mr. Yanga’s genial and amiable repute in the pro basketball league that he was named PBA Press Corps Executive of the Year thrice: in 1992, ’93 and ’94.
Shortly after his RFM retirement, Mr. Yanga served as Assistant Team Manager of the PBA-backed Philippine team that earned fourth place in the 2002 Busan Asian Games.
In the first half of 2006, Mr. Yanga was appointed Basketball Commissioner for the University Athletic Association of the Philippines’ (UAAP) 69th season, which marked UE’s eighth time to be UAAP host. Mr. Yanga’s UAAP appointment stemmed not from his alumnus affiliation with the University but for his sterling reputation in the PBA, emerging as the top choice of UAAP Season 69’s 14-member Board of Directors.
Throughout his life, Mr. Yanga had been a devout Catholic, a trait that dates back to childhood, first inspired by a grandmother who walked three kilometers to go to church. In fact, during his UAAP commissionership, he was a Lay Minister, under the Ministry of Liturgical Affairs, which meant assisting in giving Holy Communion in Masses at the Chapel of the Eucharistic Lord at SM Megamall.
Last May 1 at the PhilSports Arena in Pasig City, the PBA paid tribute to the former league official by sounding off the final buzzer just before the Philippine Cup match between TNT and Converge.
Mr. Yanga’s remains lie in state at Chapels 3 to 5 of The Heritage Memorial Park in Taguig City until today, May 4, 2024; viewing hours are 2-11 p.m.
He is survived by his wife Esperanza, their three children and at least four grandchildren.
Rest in peace, Sir Elmer, and thank you for your love of God, country, basketball and Alma Mater!
[Photo of Mr. Yanga from a 2000s UE Grand Alumni Homecoming courtesy of UE Student Affairs Office-Manila Campus Organizations Coordinator Dexter A. Villanueva]