Posted by Luis San Andres on April 6, 2012:

Joe V from yearling year on was the savior of many of his classmates. He would spend many nights in the South Barracks basement of Company M-1 with his classmates deficient in Math. He was always calm even when everyone was panicking. When just about all his classmates were boning up for the WGRs, he would be sacked out. He would only open his books to give Extra Instructions to his classmates, and sometimes to some underclassmen. Reville, Taps, Call to Quarters and all the other bugle calls did not seem to bother him. He proceeded at his own pace. However he was hardly ever behind schedule and never below academic standards. He was so academically proficient, he dared me to bet a few hundred dollars that he could be star man in his cow year. Of course, I did not dare. He did not make his star since he did not bother to study any harder than what he had been used to since plebe - which is to say he hardly touched his books outside the classroom. It is obvious that one God given feature he had made him unforgettable was his height. In fact, I think above all his other superior characteristics, that was the main image the one time TacO of Company M-1, then Captain Alexander Haig, remembered. On General Haig's visit to the Philippines a little after his retirement as White House Chief of Staff, he met a number of Filipino West Pointers. Each one was presented to him by then General Fidel V Ramos. Gen Haig acknowledged each one with the usual how do you do. But when aother vertically challenged graduate passed the line, Haig volunteered: "I know you. You are Joe Villanos". It was not Joe and the officer concerned did not bother to correct the mistake until Gen Ramos chimed in saying, this is Colonel so and so. During the early stages of Martial Law, Joe was made Military Supervisor of the Board of Transportation. Thus he had to spend official time with the Constabulary Highway Patrol Group in Camp Crame. Some media men recall that Joe in the mid 70s helped calm down some Philippine Constabulary wives who were poised to scratch the faces of their husbands for their rumored after office affairs.

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