ILOILO CITY — On January 6, 2026, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. signed Proclamation No. 1128, creating the Atria Gardens Information Technology Park along Donato Pison Avenue in Barangay San Rafael, Mandurriao District. The 4.8‑hectare property, developed largely by Ayala Land over more than a decade, became Iloilo City's newest Philippine Economic Zone Authority‑accredited special economic zone. For the property sector, the proclamation was not merely a regulatory designation. It was a signal that Mandurriao—already the city's most dynamic commercial corridor—would now carry the same fiscal incentives that have historically driven office absorption and residential demand in PEZA‑accredited zones across the country.
The proclamation, signed by Executive Secretary Ralph Recto by authority of the President, followed a PEZA Board of Directors resolution recommending the designation. Under Republic Act No. 7916, as amended, the Atria Gardens IT Park will offer qualified locators fiscal and non‑fiscal incentives including income tax holidays, duty‑free importation of equipment, and streamlined business registration processes. Mayor Raisa Treñas welcomed the proclamation, calling it a milestone for Ilonggos. "This means more investments, more jobs, and greater opportunities for our people. The expansion and creation of SEZ will open doors for businesses, attract investors, and strengthen Iloilo City's role as a regional economic hub," she said.
The IT park is projected to draw ₱550 million in investments and create 2,200 jobs, further strengthening Iloilo's position as a growing hub for information technology and business process services. Those 2,200 new employees—BPO agents, software developers, IT support staff—will constitute a new wave of renters and homebuyers with documented, formal‑sector incomes. In a city where Colliers Philippines reported that house‑and‑lot take‑up has already reached 96 percent and condominium absorption has outpaced Metro Cebu, the demand surge from 2,200 new PEZA‑backed jobs will tighten an already competitive residential market.
Ayala Land's Decade‑Long Bet Comes Full Circle
Atria Gardens did not emerge from vacant land. Ayala Land Inc. has been developing the Atria Park District for more than a decade, building a 32‑hectare master‑planned, mixed‑use community that now includes an outdoor mall, schools, a hospital, office buildings, and condominium towers. The PEZA proclamation effectively retrofits this existing development with the fiscal incentives that make it competitive with other IT parks across the country. For Ayala Land, the designation validates a long‑term investment thesis: that Iloilo City could support the kind of integrated, mixed‑use development the company pioneered in Makati and Bonifacio Global City.
Colliers Philippines, in its February 2026 market intelligence briefing, noted that the creation and expansion of more ecozones "will likely support the government's push for industrialization." The research firm had previously projected that Mandurriao would account for approximately 64 percent of new condominium deliveries in Iloilo City from 2022 to 2026. The PEZA proclamation adds a demand‑side catalyst to that supply‑side projection, ensuring that the units rising in Mandurriao's condominium towers will have a ready pool of employed, credit‑worthy buyers and tenants.
The broader Atria Park District already functions as a self‑contained urban node—a place where a BPO employee can walk from their condominium to their office, grab lunch at the outdoor mall, and access healthcare at the adjacent hospital without ever entering a vehicle. The PEZA designation adds the final layer: the fiscal incentives that make it economically rational for IT‑BPM locators to choose Atria Gardens over a non‑accredited building elsewhere in the city. For the surrounding residential developments, that means a guaranteed daytime population, foot traffic for ground‑floor retail, and a steady stream of potential renters and buyers.
A Regional Hub Strategy Anchored on Incentives
The Atria Gardens proclamation aligns with the Marcos administration's stated strategy of dispersing investments beyond Metro Manila. Executive Secretary Recto emphasized this explicitly: "The new ecozones reinforce the Marcos Jr. administration's push to disperse investments beyond Metro Manila, bringing economic opportunities closer to Filipinos." For Iloilo City, which already hosts PEZA‑accredited economic zones focused on IT and BPO services, the new SEZ diversifies the local economy by enabling ventures in tourism, industrial estates, and export‑processing activities as well.
Iloilo's property fundamentals are already the strongest outside the capital. Colliers reported in its first‑quarter 2026 briefing that Iloilo City outpaced Metro Cebu in total occupied office spaces for the first time. House‑and‑lot take‑up reached 96 percent, the highest in the Visayas‑Mindanao region. Condominium take‑up stood at 89 percent. Western Visayas was the country's fastest‑growing regional economy in 2025, expanding by 6.4 percent. Into this high‑demand environment, the Atria Gardens IT Park introduces a structural advantage: it is not simply another office building but a tax‑incentivized enclave where locators receive benefits they cannot obtain elsewhere in the city. Over time, that advantage will concentrate employment—and, by extension, residential demand—in Mandurriao's already appreciating property market.
