SUBIC BAY FREEPORT – Newly appointed Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman and Administrator Jonathan D. Tan is set to meet with companies located inside this premier Freeport.
This town hall meeting will be conducted today, 10th of May at 2:00pm at the Subic Bay Exhibition and Convention Center (SBECC). Tan will spearhead the town hall meeting as he encourage everyone to take part in the event.
According to Tan, this would provide him insights on what the investors need to further develop their businesses in Subic Freeport. “I was tasked by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to improve the current business climate here, and I will do so with the help of the stakeholders of Subic,” he added.
Tan was accorded with arrival honors during his first flag raising ceremony with SBMA employees signaling his official assumption as the new Chairman and Administrator of the agency.
Tan cited that stakeholders namely locators, SBMA employees and other workers need to have a conducive working environment for Subic Freeport to flourish.
He added that frontrunners at the helm like Senator Richard Gordon have laid the foundation for a better Freeport. Meanwhile, he also urged everyone to strengthen volunteerism and collaboration with stakeholders. “We should all pitch in to help what we can and how we can for a better Freeport,” he said.
President Marcos appointed the former Antique Mayor as chairman and administrator of the SBMA last April 28 for a fixed term of six years. He took his oath before Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin on Wednesday, May 3.
Tan, who served as Pandan mayor from 2010 to 2019 and president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP)-Antique, was voted among the Philippines’ Most Outstanding Mayors in 2012.
He replaced former SBMA chairman and administrator Rolen Paulino who held the post from March 2022 to April this year.
Paulino stepped down from office on April 15 to give the President a “free hand to choose who deems best to steer” the SBMA and the Subic Bay Freeport Zone to “greater heights” in terms of management and new business opportunities.