Jose Yao Campos

Jose Yao Campos (September 16, 1921 – May 1, 2006), also known by his Chinese name Yao Cho Liat, was a Filipino businessman best known as the founder of Unilab. He became an early supporter of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, who tapped him as a "financial advisor." In 1986, the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) cited him for having served as a "front man" for various "ill-gotten" wealth, including $52.5 million of real estate representing the most prominent Marcos Mansions. He became the first of the Marcos cronies to make a deal with the PCGG in exchange for immunity from suit. By the time he died in 2006, his family had become one of the Philippines' most powerful business clans, with Unilab helmed by his firstborn, Joy Campos Hess and her son, Clinton Hess. His eldest son Joselito Campos founded the food company NutriAsia and acquired in Del Monte Philippines and Del Monte Pacific; and his youngest child Jeffrey Campos running Greenfields Development Corporation.

Early life and move to the Philippines Yao Campos was born Yao Cho Diat in Ha-ngo-po, a village in Jinjing Town, Jinjiang, part of modern-day Quanzhou, China.

Yao Campos started out as a worker at his brother's buntal hat business before the war and survived the Second World War by making his living as a buy-and-sell trader.

Foundation of Unilab

Soon after the end of World War II in 1945, Yao Campos partnered with Mariano K. Tan to build a drugstore on Sto. Cristo Street in Binondo, Manila. )

Describing the beginnings of the company, Yao Campos' brother-in-law and later Unilab president Howard Q. Dee

Early support of Ferdinand Marcos Yao Campos was an early supporter of Ferdinand Marcos, making campaign contributions as early as Marcos’ first congressional run in 1946. He would eventually become one of the closest among Marcos’ cronies, along with Danding Cojuangco and Roberto Benedicto. When he won a seat in the senate later, he became a member of the Senate Special Committee on Import and Price Controls and on Reparations. His campaign benefactor Yao Campos’ company Unilab was granted exclusive import licenses in the pharmaceuticals industry.

He also served as the Marcoses' "front man" for various assets and properties. The most widely publicized of these properties include the most prominent Marcos mansions—over P2.5 billion ($52.5 million) worth in real estate located in Metro Manila, Rizal, Laguna, Cavite, Bataan, and Baguio. when Corazon Aquino's revolutionary government took over the Philippines after the Marcoses were deposed by the EDSA revolution. He was the first among the Marcos cronies to make a deal with the Aquino government in exchange for immunity from suit, It also included a building along EDSA in Mandaluyong City, where Imee Marcos had an office before the EDSA revolution, which eventually became the headquarters of the PCGG.

In 2007, the Marcos family confirmed that the properties surrendered by Yao Campos to the PCGG in 1986 were indeed owned by Ferdinand Marcos, arguing that Yao Campos should not have surrendered them to the government because "under a constructive trust in favor of the estate of the former president."

Later life, death, and family empire After the People Power Revolution, Yao Campos earned a reputation as the most media-shy of all the Philippines’ taipans.