Cholo Villanueva is taking over as head coach of the Batangas City-Tanduay Athletics and he will be bringing in the core of the old Makati team that he handled 3 years ago.

Gerry Tee, team executive of Batangas City-Tanduay confirmed the news to ABS-CBN News.

"Cholo will bring in the core of the Makati team," said Tee in a telephone interview. "We're excited for the coming MPBL season."

Villanueva coached the Makati club to a 20-4 record to lead the Northern Division of the 2019 MPBL season until he was forced to resign when management opted to go "on another direction."

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In the recent MPBL preseason tournament, he took over as coach of the Manila Metrostars, but transferred to take over the Batangas City-Tanduay team where he was given blanket authority to beef up the squad.

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According to Villanueva, he will bring players such as ex-PBA veterans Jeckster Apinan, Rudy Lingganay and Levi Hernandez, as well as star forward Cedrick Ablaza.

"It's going to be same system, same philosophy that we'll be running when we were together in Makati," said Villanueva, also the head coach of the De La Salle Lady Archers team in the UAAP.

"But more importantly, we're trying to restore the winning culture built in Tanduay."

The Tanduay brand has been synonymous to winning.

In the PBL, the team won 7 championships with Alfrancis Chua as head coach.

Under the Elizalde franchise, Tanduay won 3 PBA championships.

Batangas City-Tanduay was also the inaugural champion of the MPBL when the club was then being handled by Mac Tan.