He met some distinguished opposition as a result, losing games against Pal Benko and Ludek Pachman at Moscow 1956, Oscar Panno at Munich 1958, Mikhail Tal and Miguel Najdorf at Leipzig 1960, and Lev Polugaevsky at Havana 1966.

Campomanes helped organize the World Chess Championship match held in 1978 at Baguio, Philippines, between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi.

The cancellation threw the international chess calendar into disarray for the next several years, since a series of matches had to be held to resolve the matter, and these affected other qualifying events.

With the signature of deputy chairman of the KGB Philipp Bobkov a proposal was finally sent to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to terminate the match and start again with a 0-0 score.

More commonly known is the quote following the press conference which terminated the match, overheard by ESPN microphones, reported in Chess Life by witness Maxim Dlugy and Sports Illustrated: "But Anatoly, I told them just what you said".

The PSC entrusted these funds to the FIDE for the World Chess Olympiad in Manila, hosted by the Philippine government from 6 to 25 June 1992.

In early February 2007, Florencio Campomanes suffered injuries from a car accident in Antalya, Turkey which resulted in time in an intensive care unit.