Businessman Cezar Quiambao may be described as an ultimate human specimen of the truism that in life, possibilities for transformation is infinite.
Quiambao, president of the Agriculture, Infrastructure and Leasing Corp. (AILC) and a handful of other companies, has a multifaceted journey in life that may even qualify as a fairy tale-come-true.
For one, he is married to a former actress, model and television star 33 years his junior.
Born in 1948 to business couple Simplicio Quiambao and Veronica Terrado, Cezar learned the value of hard work at an early age.
He worked as a messenger and jeepney driver to support himself through college at the University of the East where he took up Business Administration.
With his Accountancy diploma, Quiambao joined the country’s overseas workforce. He landed a job at PT Green Timber Jaya of Indonesia where he consistently rose in the corporate ladder to become executive vice president before calling it quits.
In 1994, he decided it was time to go home and cast his lot in the domestic business terrain.
Without a doubt, he made the right moves and his ventures turned out to be highly viable.
He pocketed a contract with the Land Registration Authority for a land titling computerization program. He also introduced the digitalization of the Land Transportation Office’s licensing system through his Stradcom Corp.
He was also a force to reckon with in the construction of the Metro Manila Skyway Phase 1 and the STAR Tollway project.
Meanwhile, Quiambao has extensive exposures abroad, including projects such as the Guam Regional Medical City, the Vivekananda Bridge Tollway in India and some road projects in Vietnam.
As the blessings kept pouring in, Quiambao acknowledged it was payback time for his beloved hometown where he eventually put his uncanny gift of foresightedness to good use.
He spearheaded a movement in collaboration with fellow alumni at the Bayambang National High School dubbed “Baley Ko, Pawilen Ko, Aroen Ko, tan Tulungan Ko” (My hometown, I will return to you, I will love and help you).
The initiative involved building roads, cleaning up public facilities and putting together the College of Information Technology in Pangasinan State University-Bayambang in 2000.
Through the Kasama Kita sa Barangay Foundation which mustered financial support from multiple corporations, TESDA-accredited trainings and seminars became accessible for local job seekers.
Quiambao also put up the Royal Mall, and transferred his business address from Metro Manila to Bayambang to help enrich the town’s coffers. He supported local politicians who regrettably turned out long on rhetoric but short on delivery.
In 2014, Quiambao shelled out some P20 million of personal funds to sponsor an 8,000-meter-long barbecue grill that unseated Turkey from the Guinness Book of World Records.
Quiambao was also credited for the construction of the 50-meter-high statue of St. Vincent Ferrer, reputedly taller than New York’s Statue of Liberty and Brazil’s Statue of Christ, the Redeemer.
Quiambao served as mayor of Bayambang from 2016 to 2022, succeeded by his wife, Niña, nee Mary Clare Judith Phyllis Atienza Jose, who was reelected in the May 12, 2025 polls.
