CLARK FREEPORT – A 65-year-old lawyer-businessman, who had been a scholar of San Beda College’s Benedictine priests from elementary to college, is set to assume post this week as the new president of the state-owned Clark Development Corp. (CDC) which runs this freeport.
A member of the CDC board of trustees said Pres. Aquino named businessman and lawyer Arthur Tugade, a native of Claveria, Quezon who grew up in Quezon City, to assume the CDC post which was left vacant since the resignation of former Dumaguete City mayor Felipe Remollo last April, with mere officers-in-charge running the state firm since then.
Former Armed Forces chief of staff Eduardo Oban initially took over Remollo’s post as CDC officer-in-charge, until his recent appointment as undersecretary of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC). CDC director Francis Elum then assumed post as officer-in-charge.
Tugade was reported to have met with members of the CDC board of directors and some CDC department managers in preparation for his takeover.
The source, who asked not to be named pending Tugade’s assumption into office, said the new CDC chief was a recommendee of Finance Sec. Cesar Purissima.
Tugade is the founder of the Perry’s Group of Companies, a firm named after his deceased son.
The company website said Tugade “spent most of his childhood in the slum areas of TatalonEstates in Quezon City after a fire destroyed their house.”
“He would have continued to live a life of misery and poverty had it not been for the kind intervention of the priests of San Beda. Seeing the potential in the precocious child, they awarded him with an educational scholarship, allowing him to study at their school from Grade 1 until he finished Law,” the site added.
Tugade used to work with the Transnational Group of Companies which he co-founded, until the death of his son Perry prompted him to run a family enterprise to be closer to his family,although his children had already grown up.
Tugade initially established Perry’s Realty which did not succeed, until he and his sons Paul Louie and Jay-Art went into a logistics business that offered “a unique way to package their services to clients.”
The company’s website said Perry’s has “grown by leaps and bounds over the last 10 years” and that “from a company that started with only 8 employees, Perry’s Group now has 391 employees, with interests in logistics, trucking, equipment leasing, fuel distribution, and retail.”
Later they branched into other areas including trucking and equipment leasing and fuel business operating 16 Chevron gasoline stations mostly situated south of Metro Manila.
“Tugade had his children working odd, menial jobs: from his eldest daughter Pilar Luz to Paul Louie who worked as a janitor, Jay-Art as a laborer, and Finina as a telephone operator. Having seen how it’s like at the bottom of the corporate rung, they have a better perspective of the company as a whole,” the website said.
Today, however, his children hold key positions in the company. Pilar Luz is managing the company’s clothing business and is based in New Jersey, Paul Louie is the president and CEO of the Logistics Division. Jay-Art is the president of the Products and Services Division whileFinina is the president of Fizzfashion Mercantile & Trading Inc., which manages Chocolate Clothing.
