For 75 years, the Primary Group of Builders has been doing what its name suggests: building.
But on August 5, 2026, at Maayo Hotel, the Cebu-based group chose a different way to tell its story.
There were no long speeches or conventional anniversary ceremonies. Instead, seven and a half decades of business were compressed into 75 minutes of music, dance, archival images and stories in “A Symphony of 75 Years: 75 Years in 75 Minutes.”
The production traced the group’s journey from a small postwar construction company to a diversified business with interests in construction and manufacturing, real estate and property management, maritime and logistics, human capital and health and lifestyle.
Yet the story onstage was not simply about buildings, projects or businesses.
It was about being told “no” — and deciding to build anyway.
“This is a story of rejection, story of disbelief. I’m always the first to feel that because we were never good enough. We were too small. We didn’t have enough money. We didn’t have enough credit. We were all sorts of negatives,” Engineer William Christoper “Wally” Liu, Jr., Primary Group of Builders president and chief executive officer, said.
His answer to those headwinds was simple: “Good thing sometimes I can tune off. Just not listen to the headwinds.”
A promise after the war
The story began in 1951, when the country was rebuilding after World War II.
William C. Liu Sr. saw opportunity in the demand for construction and established William C. Liu Construction, laying the foundation for what would become the Primary Group of Builders.
The company was built on hard work, integrity and perseverance, with a belief that a good name is earned by keeping one’s word.
That reputation would prove valuable as the small Cebu company took on increasingly ambitious projects.
Proving the doubters wrong
By the 1980s, the second generation had moved the company into a new phase. Primary Structures Corp. was incorporated in 1986, allowing the group to pursue larger and more complex projects.
One early test came with a project for Taiyo Yuden.
The company was asked to complete about 15,000 square meters of work in four months, despite having virtually none of the heavy equipment and manpower normally associated with such a job.
“We didn’t have a single piece of heavy equipment. We didn’t have the people to run it. It’s just dumb luck,” Liu said.
The project took five months instead of four. But it became a calling card.
“And later, they said they were just placing bets on whether we could actually do it or not,” Liu said.
“Ever since then, that was our calling card, and we moved on.”
Building when the
money wasn’t there
The company soon encountered another obstacle: financing.
Liu recalled being told it could not build high-rises because it lacked the experience and financial standing.
So the company built one anyway. East Aurora Towers, at about 20 stories, became another proof point.
“No loans because we were not creditworthy. I didn’t even understand that word,” Liu said.
A waterfront development followed, completed in 14 months with about 8,000 workers. “I didn’t get much sleep,” Liu recalled.
For a contractor, however, completing a project did not always mean immediately getting paid. Cash could be tied up in payments and retention, even as workers and equipment still had to be paid.
The experience pushed the group to look beyond contracting.
From building structures
to building communities
In 1992, Commonwealth Estate Inc., now PrimaryHomes Inc., entered residential development.
It was a significant shift. The company was no longer simply building structures for others; it was beginning to create places and communities of its own.
From house-and-lot projects, the business eventually moved into high-rise residential development.
The pattern was becoming familiar: identify an opportunity, enter an unfamiliar space and learn along the way.
Betting on Cebu
One of the group’s more consequential bets came in business-process outsourcing (BPO).
At a time when Cebu was not yet widely regarded as a BPO destination, the group decided to develop a facility anyway.
“People would not believe that you could do BPOs in Cebu,” Liu said.
The company worked with universities and introduced two semesters of electives focused on accent neutralization.
Even at the groundbreaking, Liu remembered hearing doubts.
“Well, that Wally must be crazy doing this when there’s nobody who’s going to come,” he said.
The skeptics were eventually proved wrong. The building recovered its investment in four years and remains in operation more than two decades later.
Learning from problems
Diversification often grew out of problems the company encountered in its own projects. During the waterfront development, concrete suppliers repeatedly fell short on deliveries.
Instead of simply finding another supplier, the company learned to produce its own concrete. That, however, led to another challenge: sourcing aggregates in Cebu proved difficult.
So the company ventured into another province and, eventually, into mining.
The answer, time and again, was to learn.
That same willingness to learn eventually brought the group into maritime and logistics, expanding its role in moving goods across the country.
More than a collection
of businesses
Today, the group brings together five business platforms.
The idea, Liu explained, is not simply to diversify but to create an ecosystem in which the businesses complement one another.
Construction creates places. Manufacturing supplies them. Logistics moves goods. Human capital develops people. Healthcare and hospitality serve the communities that grow around them.
Building around needs
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it established a clinic in response to a shortage of healthcare facilities in the area. That clinic eventually evolved into a hospital.
Liu said Maayo Hospital was later recognized as the most outstanding hospital in the Philippines. Liu offered perhaps the clearest summary of the company’s history:
“We are a story of rejection. The more we get rejected, the more we get challenged to do greater things.”
Looking beyond 75
The final segment, “75 & Beyond,” shifted the story from where the company had been to where it might go.
Liu acknowledged that the next decades will bring a different set of challenges. Artificial intelligence is reshaping industries. Electric vehicles are emerging. Renewable technologies are becoming increasingly viable.
Organizations, he said, will have to adapt.
He invoked the words of the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who challenged America to reach the moon not because it was easy, but because it was hard.
“We could fail, but we try, and that keeps the team focused,” Liu said.
After 75 years, the company is still operating on the same impulse that pushed its founders forward: see a need, recognize an opportunity, learn what is necessary and build a way to make it happen.
Seventy-five years were condensed into 75 minutes.
But the more enduring story was not the number of years.
It was the number of times the company was told something could not be done — and chose to build anyway. S