NEW CLARK CITY — As a strategy, developers set aside land for a school to make real estate projects attractive to potential residents or investors. This government project in Central Luzon has allotted parcels of land to not one but six educational institutions.
The scale of the project may explain the plan to put up multiple schools here in New Clark City (NCC), which is double the size of Manila and bigger than each of the 15 other highly urbanized cities in Metro Manila, except Quezon City.
The “new city” occupies 9,450 hectares of the former Camp O’Donnell of US forces and is located in the municipalities of Capas and Bamban in Tarlac. Connected to the Clark International Airport, NCC is part of the Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone.
NCC is being promoted as an alternative national government center. Its wide and empty concrete streets and boulevards and vast open spaces contrast with the overcrowded, traffic-congested and flood-prone Metro Manila, where many national agencies, businesses, schools and medical facilities are located.
At a briefing for members of the National Real Estate Association (NREA) on March 3 at the Filinvest Innovation Park building, the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), which administers NCC, identified the schools—all state-run—that have been assigned land here: the University of the Philippines (UP), UP Open University, Technological University of the Philippines (TUP), Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), Philippine Science High School and National Sports Academy.
In his presentation, Mike Ramos of the BCDA Master Planning Division did not name the Tarlac Community College as among the campuses that would be established in NCC. (The Tarlac provincial government and BCDA signed last year a memorandum of understanding for the development of a five-hectare Tarlac Community College here.)
Ramos said the UP main campus has been allotted 70 hectares; UP satellite campus, 3.4; TUP, 10; PUP, 7.5; Philippine Science High School, 4.6; and the National Academy of Sports, 5.9.
Riverpark, Villar City
In contrast, a few months ago, Federal Land Inc. announced it had set aside 15 hectares for just one school– Ateneo de Manila University–in a 600-hectare, mixed-use township called Riverpark in General Trias, Cavite. Federal Land is the property arm of the Ty family’s GT Capital Holdings Inc. The campus is expected to open in 2030.
In the 3,500-hectare Villar City, a development covering parts of the cities of Dasmariñas and Bacoor in Cavite and Las Piñas City, construction is underway for a six-story building for UP. The UP Technology Innovation Campus will rise on a five-hectare lot in Villar City‘s University Town.
The Villar Group and the Ty family’s Federal Land are among the private developers who have incorporated campuses into their real estate projects as a strategy to entice families and businesses into buying lots and help push up land values. Lots near topnotch schools command higher values than those farther away.
Donating a campus to an educational institution provides other benefits to developers. It is tax-deductible and still complies with a government requirement for subdivisions to have a certain amount of open spaces.
Long-term commitment
The donation also signals commitment to the project, according to NREA Metro North president Jinky Joyce C. Aguilar. “When a developer sets aside land for schools, that shows long-term commitment to the project, ensuring the growth of the population up to the next generations,’’ Aguilar said when asked by CoverStory about the significance of such benevolence.
In the past decades, other development projects hosting schools either through the sale, donation of land or building, or any other arrangement included BGC in Taguig (UP Bonifacio Global City), Ayala Alabang Village in Muntinlupa (De La Salle Zobel), Alabang Hills Village in Muntinlupa (San Beda Alabang), West Grove in Silang, Cavite (St. Scholastica’s College), and Nuvali, Canlubang, Laguna (Xavier School), Sta. Elena City in Santa Rosa, Laguna (University of Santo Tomas Manila Annex), Vermosa in Imus, Cavite (De La Salle Santiago Zobel), San Lorenzo Village in Makati (Assumption College), Dasmariñas Village in Makati (Colegio San Agustin) and UP Village in Diliman, Quezon City (Claret).
However, the lots in NCC assigned to schools were not sold or donated.
The BCDA’s Ramos said UP, UPOU and PUP were given usufruct rights to the land, while TUP entered into a lease arrangement. (Usufruct is the legal right to use someone else’s property.)
“As for TUP, they had been allotted 20 hectares but they said they could only handle 10 hectares. Last year, there was an amended memorandum of agreement with TUP,’’ he told CoverStory in an interview after his presentation.
Ramos said the UP Main and satellite campuses would be different from the UP Diliman Extension Program in Pampanga at the Clark Special Economic Zone. UP Pampanga offers three undergraduate programs with a focus on business and industry, and two graduate degree programs.
Phase 1 of UP campus
Per the BCDA presentation, construction of a building for the country’s premier state university in NCC has exceeded the halfway mark. “Construction on the UP satellite campus is at 60 percent,’’ Ramos said.
The 70-hectare main UP campus is still in the planning stage. “We need a series of approvals,’’ he said. “Before buildings are constructed, you need to submit a conceptual development plan. After BCDA’s approval, it takes another six months to a year to come up with the detailed development plan. Only after that can construction by locators begin.’’
At the laying of the time capsule in 2022 for Phase 1 of the UP-NCC complex, then UP president Danilo Concepcion and then UP vice president for development Elvira Zamora said UP-NCC was designed to be the main headquarters of the UPOU and satellite sites of the UP Manila Philippine General Hospital (PGH), the National Institutes of Health and the College of Medicine, and the UP Diliman College of Engineering.
“Based on its masterplan, the satellite campus will consist of a university plaza, administration building, university park, service corridor, two academic buildings, a seating area, campus boulevard, gateway plaza, community garden, and a river parkway,” the BCDA said in a news report on the groundbreaking ceremony four years ago.
UP tapped the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for the construction of Phase 1 of the satellite campus that was targeted for completion in 2023. Phase 1 involves the construction of a 4,500-square-meter building.
Budget issue
As for an UP Open University in NCC, Ramos said in an interview: “That is the plan of the UP System — to put up the open university on the satellite campus. When we asked them about courses that would be offered, they said, ‘Open University will mainly operate on the UP satellite campus.”’
Established in 1995, UPOU has its headquarters in Barangay Maahas, Los Baños, Laguna, beside the International Rice Research Institute, which is adjacent to UP Los Baños. It offers undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees.
The targeted start of UPOU operations in NCC was 2027 or 2028, but the UP System itself encountered problems in budgeting and construction because of the flood-control issues that involved the DPWH, which is UP’s implementing agency, according to Ramos.
He was referring to government flood control and other infrastructure projects in which DPWH officials and lawmakers received huge kickbacks. The scandal that exploded in 2025 has resulted in some works officials, lawmakers and contractors being charged with graft, and the DPWH budget reduced.
Other unfinished buildings
The unfinished UP building in NCC mirrors the situation of several buildings in UP Diliman in Quezon City.
Nine contractors linked to flood control projects are handling delayed or terminated projects in UP Diliman. Worth a total of ₱2.5 billion, the delayed projects include the P190-million Kagitingan Dormitory and the ₱103-million Architecture Studio Laboratories building.
These are in addition to delays in the construction of the Faculty Center, College of Arts and Letters building, and the Main Library, according to a report in UP’s official student paper, the Philippine Collegian, dated Nov. 18, 2025.
The delays are not limited to UP Diliman and NCC.
The PUP main campus in Sta. Mesa, Manila, has six unfinished structures, including a nine-story building for some 300 classrooms. Four unfinished infrastructure projects are found in other PUP branches. The university has a student population of 100,000.
Science High, Sports Academy
Asked about the status of the Philippine Science High School campus, Ramos said: “It’s similar to UP’s case. There was ongoing construction. Then in 2025, it was not given a budget. But the shell of the building is already there.”
Agencies at the national level faced budgetary problems, he added.
So far, the only existing school in NCC is the National Academy of Sports (NAS), which uses the facilities, including the dormitories, built for the 2019 Southeast Asian Games. The academy offers secondary education and has 237 student-athletes as of this month. They are trained to compete internationally, Ramos said.
The initial program covers eight sports—aquatics, athletics, badminton, gymnastics, judo, table tennis, taekwondo and weightlifting.
NAS Phase 2 and dormitories are being constructed, according to Ramos. Last year, it was reported that BCDA was set to start building a ₱360-million dormitory for student-athletes at the NAS in Capas, Tarlac. The planned dormitory was described as five stories high, with a floor area of 1,500 square meters that could house up to 400 student-athletes, It was set for completion this year.
Institutional locators
As an “alternative” government center, NCC is designed to host a slew of government agencies.
The BCDA has thus also set aside land for what it calls institutional locators — the Office of Civil Defense (10 hectares), National Government Administrative Center Phase 1A (40), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Complex (31.3), Virology Institute (5), Philippine Space Agency (1) and UP PGH Polyclinic (2).
NCC has three industrial locators so far: Filinvest Mixed Use and Industrial Development (288 hectares), PGT-Narra Technology Park (4) and SPPI Industrial Park (106). It has also set aside land for renewable energy generation—Sindicatum Solar Farm (38 hectares), Sunray Solar Farm (260) and Waste to Energy Project (4).
As well, the BCDA has allocated land for recreation and parks — Skyblue Golf Resort (250 hectares), Haan Luxury Mountain Resort (450), Philippine Tennis Association (10) and Philippine Sports Commission (10); a commercial locator—Double II MegaGas Station (1 hectare); and residential locators—Philippine Air Force Housing (65 hectares); and NCC SKK 4PH Housing (6.1).
NCC, touted as a “smart, green and resilient” city, is designed to keep 60% of its land for forests, public spaces and parks. It is projected to host a population of 1.2 million and employment of 600,000.
But amid the cutback in infrastructure projects, funding the construction of schools and buildings of government agencies in NCC poses a challenge to the BCDA.
Nature may yet push the national government into speeding up the construction of facilities here.
A recurrence of “Ondoy” flooding that paralyzed Metro Manila for days or the occurrence of the “Big One” (a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that is feared to devastate the metropolis) could hasten the development of NCC as the alternative national government center. CS
