History
TABACALERA YEARS
During the Spanish regime in the Philippines, a group of Spaniards operating under the corporate name of Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas (more popularly called Tabacalera) was awarded under the royal grant of the Spanish throne vast tracts of lands in the country.
When the tobacco monopoly was abolished in 1881, Tabacalera was concerned about continuing operations of their cigar factories in Manila. The company's governing body, the Consejo de Administracion, decided to send Señor Lope Gisbert to scout for fertile areas of development. Learning that the railroad would be extended from Manila to Dagupan, Señor Gisbert recommended the acquisition of some 12,000 hectares surrounding the railroad. Tabacalera was able to acquire the said property in 1907 after a long and tedious process, and was registered under the name of Hacienda Luisita after Doña Luisa the wife of the first Marques de Comillas, also the founder and first president of Tabacalera.
The sugar mill, Central Azucarera de Tarlac was erected within the estate in 1927, and started its milling operations in Crop Year 1928-29, and every year thereafter except during the War years of 1943-46.
UNDER JOSE COJUANGCO & SONS ORGANIZATIONS
In 1957, Don Jose (Pepe) Cojuangco, Sr. (1896-1976) led a group of Filipino investors in negotiating the purchase of Hacienda Luisita and Central Azucarera de Tarlac from their Spanish owners. CAT and Hacienda Luisita formally changed ownership on April 9, 1958. Tarlac Development Corporation (TDC) initially charged in managing both the mill and sugarcane plantation, signaled the beginning of Jose Cojuangco & Sons Organizations (JCSO).
Under a continuing program of agro-industrial expansion and modernization, Don Pepe's most significant addition was the Refinery in 1964. Some corporate changes were also effected in the same year to cope with the company's diversified operations from manufacturing sugar by-products like molasses, liquid carbon dioxide and yeast, to venturing into actual selling of sugar to the domestic and international markets.
With Don Jose Cojuangco, Sr. at the helm, CAT and other entities under JCSO implemented innovative paths to progress.
JOSE COJUANGCO, SR., AN OUTSTANDING FILIPINO
Jose Cojuangco, Sr. was born on the eve of the country's first revolution, on July 3, 1986. His life spanned historic changes, from the birth of the Republic at the turn of the century, through the peacetime changes of the American occupation to the turbulent wartime years, and lastly, the authoritarian decades of the Marcos regime. Throughout his lifetime, Jose Cojuangco, Sr. was actively involved in the country's affairs, as a private businessman and public official, ably assisted and supported by his wife, Demetria Sumulong Cojuangco.
They had six children:
Pedro Cojuangco, president of the Jose Cojuangco & Sons Organizations; who married Rosario Cacho;
Josephine C. Reyes, chairperson of the Dr. Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation Center, and former president of Far Eastern University, president of Luisita Realty Corporation; who married Dr. Nicanor M. Reyes, Jr.(†);
Teresita C. Lopa (†), former vice-president of Tarlac Development Corporation, and married to Ricardo Lopa, Sr. (†);
Corazon C. Aquino (†), former President of the Republic of the Philippines, widow of the slain senator Benigno S. Aquino, Jr.;
Congressman Jose Cojuangco, Jr., president of Philippine Olympic Committee, and married to Philippine Public Safety Colleges President, Dr. Margarita de los Reyes;
Paz C. Teopaco, vice-president, Jose Cojuangco & Sons, married to Ernesto Teopaco, Vice-President for Personnel Relations, Central Azucarera de Tarlac.
The life of Jose Cojuangco, Sr. was devoted to upholding the light of Filipino talent in the industrial and business sphere, to the development of businesses for the Filipinos and by the Filipinos. With his brothers, and the Jacinto and Rufino families, he established the first Filipino-owned bank, the Philippine Bank of Commerce, which the late Central Bank governor Jose B. Fernandez called “the seed” from which Filipino banking had grown. In the banking environment of the thirties, completely dominated by Spaniards, Americans and other foreigners, the establishment of the Philippine Bank of Commerce paved the way for Filipino professionals as bankers. Our country's first Filipino Central Bank governors, Miguel Cuaderno and Alfonso Calalang, both came from the Philippine Bank of Commerce.
On his own, Jose Cojuangco, Sr., branched into an extended form of his family's rice and sugar business by buying and developing Hacienda Luisita and Central Azucarera de Tarlac from La Compañia General de Tabacos de Filipinas (TABACALERA), a Spanish company, becoming the first Filipino to own and manage a world-class industrial agricultural concern in Central Luzon. “One of the last Spanish colonies remaining in the Philippines” became a Filipino-owned and managed company under the guidance of Jose Cojuangco, Sr. As a businessman-farmer, he embodied traditional principles of justice and fair play. His benevolent management style, characterized by his kindness and humility, is legendary in Tarlac. He spearheaded mechanized farming and was a pioneer in industrial and environmental technology for sugar plantations. He extended all-out support for churches, schools, hospitals, and other institutions in his home province.
In the first years of Commonwealth government, he served as a Congressman for the first district of Tarlac, following in the footsteps of his father, Assemblyman Melecio Cojuangco, an elected member of the first Philippine Assembly. He was elected for four consecutive terms, from 1934 until 1941, the outbreak of the war. In 1947, he received a Medal of Freedom from United States President Harry Truman through PHILRYCOM Commending General, Major General George F. Moore, for his efforts to help the guerrillas in World War II. On August 15, 1976, he was conferred a Magistral Knight of Grace, of the “Sovereign Military Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta Philippine Association.” He continued to be a leading political and business figure in Tarlac, despite the hardships visited upon him by the Marcos regime.
A mild and kindly man, Jose Cojuangco, Sr. took the honors heaped upon him rather lightly. It was customary of him to tour the Central Azucarera de Tarlac mill site and other projects in progress. On August 21, 1976 shortly before noon, he passed away quietly. Significantly, that was also the day of the scheduled Special Stockholders Meeting of CAT. His conspicuous absence the day the stockholders received the initial report of the Company's outstanding performance and thereby approved the increased capitalization was truly consistent with the self-effacing nature of his character.
Exactly seven years later, his son-in-law Ninoy Aquino was assassinated, catapulting his daughter Corazon into the center of another momentous change in our country's history.