Rafael "Paeng" Nepomuceno, Order of Lakandula (born January 30, 1957 in Manila) is a six-time World Ten-pin bowling Champion Filipino bowler. He has won the World Cup of Bowling four times (1976, 1980, 1992 and 1996). Nepomuceno has also won the World's Invitational Tournament in 1984 and the World Tenpin Masters championship in 1999.
In its September 2003 issue, the Prestigious Bowlers Journal International named Paeng as the Greatest International Bowler of All Time.
He is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for three records:
1) for most Bowling World cup wins, 4, in three different decades. 2) for being the youngest ever to win the Bowling World Cup (at 19 years of age),
and 3) for having won the most number of bowling tournament titles. Currently, Paeng has 131 career bowling titles. Paeng who still actively competes up to this day is the only bowling athlete to have won or awarded titles in the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Currently he is the head coach of the Philippine National Mens and Ladies bowling teams and also teaches at the University of the Philippines as a senior lecturer professor for bowling.
He is the only bowling athlete in the world who has received the prestigious International Olympic Committee President's Trophy and was the first international male bowling athlete to be enshrined in the International Bowling Hall of Fame and Museum based in Arlington, Texas in 1993 where his seven-foot image is displayed at the Museum's entrance. In November 1999, the Federation Internationale des Quilleurs (FIQ) named Paeng as the "International Bowling Athlete of the Millennium."
Paeng is the only athlete in the Philippines who has been given the highest award to a Filipino by five Philippine presidents.
Both the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives have declared Paeng the "Greatest Philippine Athlete of All Time".
Paeng was named Athlete of the Century by the Philippine Sportswriters Association in the end of 1999 and Athlete of the Millennium in 2000. The Philippine Sportswriters Association has named him Philippine Athlete of the year a record 5 times. He was the first athlete to be inducted in the Philippine Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame in 1993. . Both house of Congress in the Philippines named him "Greatest Filipino Athlete" in 1999.