Former press secretary and presidential spokesman Michael Toledo joins The Philippine STAR as a regular columnist with his column, Mike About Town, appearing every other Tuesday starting today.

A lawyer by profession, Toledo is also the managing head of the MVP Group of Companies Media Bureau, senior vice president for public and regulatory affairs of Philex Mining Corp. and chief operating officer of Silangan Mindanao Mining Co. Inc.

Prior to his engagement with the MVP Group of Companies, Toledo was president and CEO of the

largest and leading fullservice public relations firm with offices in every major business and government capital.

Toledo finished his law degree from the University of the Philippines-Diliman and his Master of Law in Public International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science through a Chevening Scholarship grant from the British government. He was also accepted at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

After finishing law and while waiting for the Bar exam results, Toledo was already taken in by the Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz Law Offices or ACCRALAW where he then went on to pursue a career as a corporate, litigation, labor, intellectual property and criminal lawyer – even lawyering, in some high-profile cases, for The STAR.

Toledo currently sits as vice chairman of the board of trustees of The Children’s Hour Foundation Inc.; chairman of the Chevening Alumni Foundation of the Philippines, Inc.; member of the executive council and chairman of the standing committee on legal information of the ASEAN Law Association of the Philippines; former chairman of the committee on public relations and publicity and co-chair of the committee on business law reforms of the Philippine Bar Association; chairman of the sub-committee on natural resources development and member of the national issues committee and women empowerment committee of the Management Association of the Philippines; and member of the board of trustees of the UP College of Law Alumni Foundation.

He was named 2014 CEO (Communication Excellence in Organizations) Excel Awardee by the International Association of Business Communicators and was awarded Men of Extraordinary Influence by the Philippine Cancer Society Inc.

Toledo sat on the board – as director and/or legal and financial consultant – of various government-owned and -controlled corporations, such as the Government Service Insurance System, Manila International Airport Authority, National Food Authority, Philippine Aviation Security Services Corp., Food Terminal, Inc., Department of Transportation and Communications and the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority. He was also chairman of the board of Pantranco North Express.

Currently, Toledo also sits as a director in the board of a number of corporations.

Toledo worked in the Senate as head of the education and the health committees, both chaired by then senator Edgardo Angara. He also represented the senator in various committees, such as on energy and on finance. He was involved in a number of local and national political campaigns and served under the administration of three presidents (Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada). Toledo was the campaign spokesman and campaign media bureau head of then defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro in the 2010 presidential elections.

Toledo is also a print journalist and a media personality. He once wrote for The Manila Standard and Metro magazine. He was news anchor for ABC5’s The Big News, and hosted one of the country’s top business shows, Business Today, on GMA-7. He also hosted and moderated a number of presidential debates, the most recent of which was for the 2016 presidential and vice presidential forum hosted by Go Negosyo, PLDT, TV-5 and Bloomberg TV Philippines.

He was a resource speaker in a business talk show on the ANC Channel together with the country’s premier business organization, Management Association of the Philippines. He also provided free legal counsel on “Iyo ang Katarungan (Justice Is Yours), ” a weekly legal public service TV program that had received a special award for community service. Toledo also received the “Impact Award” for his contribution to the public through the same TV program.

Together with the country’s top businessmen, Toledo was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF). He also is the Charge de Presse Nacional of Chaine des Rotisseurs. He is a member of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, Inc., Integrated Bar of the Philippines and the Rotary Club of Makati.

Toledo was conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award by the British government and the British Alumni Association.

He was an official guest of the German government under The Goethe Institute Program, where he met top political, business and media leaders in Berlin, Hamburg and Stuttgart.

He was appointed a member of the UP College of Law Centennial Commission as exemplar for Batches 1980 to 1989.

He recently accepted membership into the MultiSectoral Governance Council of the Philippine Air Force Flight Plan 2028 and was also re-elected as member of the board of governors of the Manila Overseas Press Club, for which he also serves as spokesman.

Toledo’s column is on C6.