LAZARO, ANGEL JR. R.
APEC Registration No.: PH00015
Date Conferred: 2008-04-25
NGEL R. LAZARO JR. a Fellow (1986) and the 6th LIKHA AWARDEE (2009), is both a civil engineer and architect, and topped both board exams (1938 and 1962, respectively). To date, no one has surpassed his exam scores. He is married to Nena Lapus, and they have two sons.
“As a civil engineer and architect, I reflect on my career and realize that accomplishments are but manifestations of God’s favor in my life. Many projects were completed with very little help from modern technology — plans drawn by hand and with none, or very little consultation, from foreign companies/consultants — these achievements were never mine, and I am merely clay in the hands of the Great Potter”, Lazaro reflects.
At the Bataan Export Processing Zone, he converted 1,600 hectares of forest, rivers and swamps into a small city with a 320-hectare industrial complex. Customs Commissioner Rolando Geotina, awarded him the project. Together with his partners and staff, he designed this gargantuan, two-billion-peso (totaling about 30) using slide rules. There were no calculators or computers at that time! Neither did he have foreign designers nor advisers! He leveled the industrial complex, buried three crooked rivers eight meters under two new straight rivers, built more than 40 kilometers of road, 12 wide bridges, 17 standard factories (each with a floor area of one hectare), more than 700 low-cost houses, and two 1,000-bed,3-storey dormitories all made from container handling buildings (except for reinforced concrete fittings and pre-cast U-floorings) using only bamboo reinforcements. He built the 5-storey administration building,a dozen small eateries, a hospital, a fire station, and a drainage and water system. He developed a 60-meter rock-fill dam with a treatment plant connected by a kilometer-long 24-inch diameter steel pipe to twenty 200-horsepower pumps that lift potable water to the biggest storage tank in the Philippines (with a four million gallon capacity) near the clubhouse he designed by a nine-hole golf course. He planned 17 mini-dorms and 37 pre-fab executive houses along the slopes of the commercial area. His team completed the electrical system, the underground distribution and service lines (the first in the country),an idea of Engr. Ben Daco. They put together the communication and sanitary systems.
At the Baguio City EPZ, he concealed roads, factories, and power substations under well-preserved pine trees. At the Mactan EPZ, water from mainland Cebu crossed the Mandaue-Opon-Mactan channel bridge. From 1938 to 1954, he would take his work home, make designs at night without overtime or overwork pay. He used pre-stressed pre-cast girders for the approaches to this bridge, the same ones he used for the 34-meter long girders for the five-span, six-lane high-rise Ortigas Bridge at Cainta over the Manggahan floodway — the widest, longest and cheapest bridge in Metro Manila — which cost only half of a four-lane, level-grade bridge built nearby later. It was cost-effective due to very detailed plans, construction step well-described and items duly estimated, and very clear, precise specifications.No extra work was done, with negligible change orders, and perhaps most importantly, no corruption.
Major Projects
- Bread of Life Center for Ministries, Quezon City
- Centennial Center for Digital Learning, Los Baños, Laguna
- Passenger Terminal Building, Port of Ozamiz
- SSS Cebu Branch Office Building, Ground Floor Plan, Cebu City
- Port Management Office of Ozamiz Building Complex, Port of Ozamiz
- Fisheries Building, Quezon City
- Bamboo Queen Kaye G. Jimenez’ Bahay Kubo, Antipolo City
- Port District Offices of Southern Mindanao Building Complex Port of Davao
- Potter and Clay Christian School, Malabon, Metro Manila Conquest for Christ Foundation, Inc.
- Navotas Fish Port Complex, Navotas, Metro Manila
- Northern Palawan Administration Building, Navotas, Metro Manila Philippine Fisheries Development Authority