NAGA CITY – Bicolano business icon Lucio Tan, who led last year’s awardees, will take the center stage once more during the conferment of the “2006 Halyao Awards” to six outstanding Bicolano businessmen who have excelled in the field of business, entrepreneurship and public service for the advancement of Bicol growth and economy.

        Naga businessman Adolfo ‘Aping’ Olivan, chair of this year’s Halyao Awards, said the six awardees would be honored as “Bicolano Businessmen of the Year” for their respective provinces. Formal ceremonies will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 25, 2006, at the Naga Regent Hotel as the highlight and culminating activity of the 2nd Bicol Business Week.

        The Bicol Business Week is an annual trade exposition organized by the Metro Naga Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in cooperation with the City Government of Naga and the Provincial Government of Camarines Sur and other line agencies who believe in Bicol’s collective march towards progress and development.

        This year’s six awardees are: Jesus R. Arboleda (Albay); Wilson Kho (Camarines Norte); Fidel L. Cu (Naga and Camarines Sur); Concepcion Angbangiok Co (Catanduanes); Dr. Antonio (Masbate), and; Wilbert Lee (Sorsogon).

ARBOLEDA
        The 9th of the thirteen brothers and sisters of a humble family in Guinobatan, Albay, Justino Roces Arboleda caught international attention by becoming one of the finalists in the World Challenge Contest for Best Grassroots Projects sponsored by the British Broadcasting Corp., Newsweek, and Shell. His winning entry made use of waste coconut husk to produce coconut fiber and coco coir dust for environmental rehabilitation and soil conditioning. He is the chairman and president of Juboken Enterprises that continues to develop coconut-based products. His Coco Technologies provides marketing and manufacturing support to coconut fiber producers in Bicol.

        A consistent honor student, this awardee was a scholar at the University of the Philippines. Halfway thru his UP education, he was given scholarship to finish his BS and MS in Agricultural Engineering in Tokyo University where he was cited as “Most Outstanding Foreign Student” and Ph.D in Tsukuba University, also in Japan.

        Back in the Philippines, he set up Blackheads Corp., a semi-conductor company which he later gave up to his brother in favor of work in the academe. The company is now a successful semi-conductor exporter employing 250 people. He spent 15 years in Bicol University where he eventually became Dean of its College of Agriculture and as University Vice-President for two years. He soon gave up his promising career in the academe to start a small pioneering company that produces coconut fiber geotextiles to help coconut farmers. The company grew fast and earned the Presidential Golden Shell Award and the Global Eco-Tech Award during the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan.

KHO
        The man who started as manager of a one-stop shop retail store in Daet, Camarines Norte is now the biggest local investor in his province. Wilson Kho’s leadership ability and managerial acumen polished by his banking experience have been the key factors that make him the most progressive and dynamic young businessman in Camarines Norte today.

        In 1987, he established the Family Merchants Projects Development Corp (FMDC), and modern real estate development in Daet, Camarines Norte was never the same again. His innovative “Pirma Lang, May Lote Ka Na” took his fellow Daeteños by storm as it churned out shelters and lots to families who never dreamed they can own one with relative ease and at affordable cost. Today, his real estate enterprise expanded to build more in other towns in Camarines Norte and beyond, particularly in the cities of Legazpi and Tabaco in Albay.

        His company’s success went on to construct the first and only shopping mall in the locality – the Central Plaza Mall which paved the way for the capital town’s second commercial area. Notably, the company was cited as one of the top five corporate business taxpayers, thereby helping strengthen the local government’s capacity to deliver basic services effectively.

CU
        Born in Calabanga, Camarines Sur, Fidel L. Cu, finished his Bachelor of Science in Commerce at the University of Nueva Caceres. He is the lone Bicolano Good Citizen of the Philippines Awardee during the 20th Anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution in February 2006.

        Cu is Chairman and President of the G7Bank which used to be the single-unit Rural Bank of Nabua, Inc. When he acquired it in 1979, the bank made a dramatic turnaround under his evolutionary management which henceforth provided services to its three new operating units, and was in time named into the Top Ten rural banks in the Philippines. Within twenty years of operation, G7Bank expanded into seven units, with a branch at Ortigas Center, Pasig City. G7Bank steadily leads the rural banking industry in the Bicol Region and was named by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas as among the biggest rural banks in the country for several years.

        As Chairman of G7Holdings Corp., Cu is also the developer of Naga’s premiere lifestyle center, Avenue Square, and of downtown attraction center, Paseo de Caceres distinct Chinese-themed fully-airconditioned Catholic Chapel with Zen meditation garden that crowns the Paseo Building. The establishment of these facilities has provided employment and revenue to the city even as it further moves forward the vision of making Naga City as a lifestyle hub and a showcase of mixed-use establishments.

        With his brilliant mind is a soft heart for the poor and the marginalized. His involvement in various socio-civic and religious and service organizations attests to this. Personally, he steers his own FLC Group of Companies to regularly provide medical missions and health services, community and livelihood projects, and other pro-poor activities meant o make a difference in the lives of his fellowmen. During his recent birthday, Mr. Cu shared life’s blessings by giving away wheelchairs and other goodies to persons with disabilities.

ANGBANGIOK CO
        Born in Virac, Catanduanes, Concepcion A. Co was the only daughter of Chinese immigrants from mainland China in 1927. When she got married to a Filipino-Chinese businessman, she allowed her husband to manage his hardware and construction business while she continued to attend to her father’s family enterprise until it closed in 1985.

        But that did not stop her from pursuing her natural ability in business. She soon established Nicon Services which is engaged in the distributorship of San Miguel beer products in the island province. After her husband passed away, she established the Virac Eastern Hardware, as well as the Eastern Pacific Shipping Corp., an inter-island vessel operating company which, among others, engages in the transport of San Miguel Beer and Coca-Cola products to various points in the country.

        Manay Ching, as she is fondly called, is also a caring successful mother. All her four girls and a boy, whom she singly nurtured after the death of her husband, are now professionals managing their family enterprises.

        Her being “semi-retired” at this point of her career provides Manay Ching to devote her time to various socio-civic and religious organizations in the province. She is also actively involved with the Catanduanes Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce which is at the forefront of relief operations during calamities that hit the island province.

CHANG
        Not many perhaps would know that the president of the prestigious Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAP), from 2003 to the present, is a fellow full-bloodied Bicolano. He is Dr. Antonio Almonte Chang who operates his own hospital, the St. Anthony Hospital, in Masbate City.

        Chang was also president of the Phil. College of Hospital Administrators, from 1991 to 2002. His professional and academic credentials are also equally impressive: a certified fellow at the Canadian Royal College of Surgeons; a senior member of the American Society of Anesthesiology and the Maryland (USA) Society of Anesthesiologists, and; a diplomate in hospital marketing and administration which he earned at the Ateneo de Manila University.

        He was also a member of the Board of Governors of the Philippine Medical Association, Bicol for six terms and continues to serve his region in various capacities as: chairman of the provincial federation of non-government organizations, member of the Bicol Regional Development Council, president of the Masbate Chamber of Commerce and Industry for 6 terms, and the member of the Bicol Regional Wage and Productivity Board during both the incumbency of President Fidel V. Ramos and Joseph Estrada, among many others.

        In 2005, he expressed alarm over the number of hospitals that closed in the last five years that greatly affected the health of the people especially those in the countryside. He therefore urged the government to set up a system where hospitals can recruit medical professionals to fill up the positions of those who have left for abroad. During the 26th national convention late last year, no less than a national daily has hailed Dr. Chang for spearheading the PHAP in getting out of their way to provide higher-level medical services to a growing population despite the hard times and the burden of sharing of materials and professional resource base to enhance tertiary health care.

LEE
        Right after graduation from the University of Sto. Tomas in 1991, with a degree in Business Administration, young Wilbert Lee went home and saw the need to improve the family-owned Goodluck Trading. In a bold move in 1992, he initiated the purchase of rights of adjacent commercial spaces and negotiated for longer lease terms with building owners. Since then Goodluck Trading transformed from a small retail store to the biggest department store in Sorsogon.

        He then established the LKY Development Corp. to spearhead the family’s property development ventures and explored a first in real estate development: he constructed to operate a 2-storey commercial building under a build-operate and long term agreement with the Catholic Church in Sorsogon over a portion of the lot covered by the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral.

        When many believed that his province was not yet ready for the fastfood lifestyle in 1997, he went on to introduce Jollibee and Chowking in Sorsogon. He soon put up more outlets in Naga and Tabaco which paved the way for Chowking Foods Corp. to entrust Lee’s company with more franchise outlets within the Bicol area and Metro Manila. It will soon open more outlets in Daet, Iriga, Daraga, Masbate, Virac, and one more in Naga.

        LKY Corp., with its various major projects, has also put up City Life Square which is located in the busy intersection of Quezon and Araneta Avenues in Quezon City. It is a strip mall that houses a good mix of food and beverage outlets, entertainment, and a variety of retail and service outlets.