Tugade, at best

"I'VE BEEN in this job for more than 20 years as PEZA director general and I've seen presidents of CDC come and go, but the current one is the best."

No simple praise but a panegyric heaped by Philippine Economic Zone Authority Director General Atty. Lilia De Lima on Clark Development Corp. President-CEO Atty. Arthur P. Tugade at the groundbreaking rites for the $10-million expansion project of Texas Instruments last week.

Forgive De Lima for her utter ignorance, quipped a long-time CDC insider, as she was apparently blinded by the $$$$$S$ of the project. Something she has been missing in the doldrums that swept her domains, whatever our CDC guy meant there. Yeah, he requested for anonymity, in dread of the mercurial and pugnacious “maton ng Tatalon.” His words, not mine.

Tugade the best CDC president ever, from the context of the $10-million TI expansion?

Laughably ridiculous. No, that’s not me talking, but our CDC guy still.

Said he: $10 million is but a drop in the bucket of the total S1 billion TI investment for its manufacturing facilities in the Clark Freeport. And Tugade had absolutely nothing to do with the enticement of TI to come to Clark.

Recall: It was during the CDC presidency of Tony Ng that negotiations with TI commenced and were concluded, with his successor Levy P. Laus inking the official lease agreement and doing actual spadework at the site.

Got to do some fact-checking there though with the CDC archivists, or better yet with my compadre Councilor Max Sangil who served as CDC director for many years, those times included. Max has this knack of having history at his fingertips.    

Anyways, Tugade the best CDC president ever? Highly debatable, even contemptible, comparisons being always odious.

And by what parameters?

Tito Henson as the first CDC president had the unenviable job of digging the former American bastion of imperialism in the Asia-Pacific region out of the depths of Mount Pinatubo debris.

Gen. Romy David spurred the infra frenzy that expanded the freeport’s main highway and road networks that presaged the celebration of the centennial of Philippine Independence at the Expo Pilipino which was built precisely for that purpose.

The General, it was too, that built the then ridiculed “bridge to nowhere” which now proves to be the very gateway to the Clark Green City dream.     

Don Rufo Colayco credited for “blue-chip investments” though I associate most with the Kalangitan sanitary landfill, and post-CDC, with the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway project.

Atty. Manny Angeles, failing in his dream to build the biggest sundial in the world, made good with SM City Clark and Bayanihan Park.   

Atty. Ping Remollo made Clark a sports destination, primarily for softball, baseball, rugby and football.

Leaving little, if any, impact to the Freeport, the few others who sat as CDC president unremembered.    

So, Tugade the best CDC president ever?

This, I have to concede. Tugade is doing much better as CDC chief than the Erap-appointed what’s-his-name who failed to even pass the reglamentary six-month casual period at the CDC presidency: his term wracked by dissension in the CDC,  board dissension, dissatisfaction among locators and investors, even protest action by the local media.

This I have to accept unquestionably, unarguably, indubitably: No CDC president ever can come even close to Tugade in one thing – the mastery, nay, doctorate, in the expletive. With “put…na” and “puk…na” veritably integral to his syntax whomever he is talking to, wherever he is talking, be it in the corporate boardroom, in black-tie or blue-jeans fora, even in flag rites. I would be the least surprised if he does this in eulogies too.       

It is in that aspect that we find this Lilia De Lima – not the heroic Leila of DOJ – correct. Of all the CDC presidents she has seen come and go in 20 years, the current one is the best.  

Yeah, Tugade is best at his worst. Or worst at his best.

Whichever the case, the Tatalonian toughie is in a class all his own.   

Uk…nam.