12.24.07
Sob story, ‘easy’ money snare hi-society victims
December 24, 2007
TOP officials of the Philippine General Hospital were profuse with thanks to their foreign donor during the August 2006 inauguration of a renovated admitting and delivery room in the country’s flagship medical facility.
The generous giver? Michael Liew, the Singaporean principal of Performance Investment Products Inc., who apparently donated other people’s money so that the now fugitive financial finagler could be on a first-name basis among his next targets: the country’s top doctors.
“The marker was unveiled by Mr. Liew who dedicated the project in loving memory of his beloved family members who perished in the tsunami disaster at Phuket, Thailand last December, 2004,” said an official PGH account of the event.
The tsunami tearjerker, as it turned out, was a tall tale, peddled, along with the donation, to help Liew snare not only the PGH doctors but Manila’s high society victims to entrust an estimated $130 million of their squirreled dollars to a classic Ponzi scheme.
Liew, who has gone missing, actually has a very much mobile, then just-divorced Taiwanese wife, with whom he has two teenage kids, according to an investigation by the Hong Kong-based liquidator Ferrier Hodgson. Even both parents of Liew also turned out to be very much alive.
Ferrier Hodgson is calling for another meeting of the estimated 1,100 victims of Performance on January 15 at the RCBC Plaza to discuss and secure their mandate for its next legal move. Read the rest of this entry »
Former police chief Arturo Lomibao is the proud owner of a house and lot in La Vista’s Kalinga St., which he acquired from the family of a retired Westinghouse engineer who passed away last month.
Depending on who you talk to, the Quezon City property was sold anywhere between P11 million and P26 million.
An oversized golden metallic Swatch wrist watch, not available locally, is apparently the hot item for this season among the younger set that former Swatch model Mikee Cojuangco-Jaworski even had to secure one from the United States.
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Cebu Pacific will start flying three times a week to Palau from Manila early next year, after Asian Spirit withdrew service to the Micronesian destination last month. Cebu Pacific is targeting an average of $250 round-trip fare for the route.
IT is actually the wife of our Ambassador to Spain, Joseph Delano Bernardo, the former model Conchitina Sevilla, who has applied for Spanish citizenship.
Apparently, Madrid had passed a law allowing overseas grandchildren of Spanish citizens to apply for citizenship and, with it, the benefits of European Union membership. Mrs. Bernardo, who all along had thought her grandfather was born in Tondo, belatedly discovered after searching through the UST Archives that the old man had actually seen first light in Spain.
IT is actually the wife of our Ambassador to Spain, Joseph Delano Bernardo, the former model Conchitina Sevilla, who has applied for Spanish citizenship.
Apparently, Madrid had passed a law allowing overseas grandchildren of Spanish citizens to apply for citizenship and, with it, the benefits of European Union membership. Mrs. Bernardo, who all along had thought her grandfather was born in Tondo, belatedly discovered after searching through the UST Archives that the old man had actually seen first light in Spain.
12.21.07
Ringing up Digitel
December 21, 2007
SPECULATIVE interest in Digitel stock is bubbling again.From only 7.86 million traded on Friday (P1.41 close), over 29.34 million Digitel shares changed hands yesterday, closing at P1.60, a 13.47 percent gain amid a negative market in just four trading days.
According to the grapevine, the cash-flush Government of Singapore Investment Corporation has again re-opened negotiations with Digital Telecommunications towards taking a 40-percent equity stake in the Gokongwei landline network and its Sun cellular phone business.
The Digitel landline venture still has to make money since it was established in 1987; ditto with its nearly four-year-old cellular venture — a test to taipan John Gokongwei’s investment philosophy of getting out of any business if the venture fails to capture market leadership or the number 2 position within a given time. Read the rest of this entry »
Last-minute gifts
To those who have not yet shopped or chosen what gifts to give their choosy kids and inaanaks, the safest thing would probably be to follow the herd and pick up this year’s hotsellers.
According to SM Malls’ Millie Dizon, this season’s bestselling toys in their Toy Kingdom stores are: Bratz Pack doll “Cloe,” Barbie Island Princess, Graco Mirage Stroller, Transformers Deluxe Team, Hot Wheels Blast and Crash, Power Rangers Mystic Force Titan Megazord, the radio-controlled Speedtech Racing Falcon Knight Copter, Silverlit X-Twin Palm Z Air Series, Blazing Teens Yoyo, 16-inch Car Bike, Leapfrog Leapsters, and, of course, Sony’s PSP (play station portable), which costs a nifty P14,000 on the average.
RUBIK’S CUBE
A Robinsons’ official, on the other hand, said a 27-year-old “toy”, Rubik’s Cube, was surprisingly selling well, and not just among the kids, because of its affordability and, the bigger attraction, its universal mind-challenging appeal. Read the rest of this entry »
The treasurer of the Archdiocese of Manila, Monsignor Rolando de la Cruz, has replaced Rebecca Fernando as director of the Bank of the Philippine Islands to represent the archdiocese’s shareholdings in the country’s oldest bank.
Fernando abruptly left the BPI board reportedly to attend to pressing family matters.
The treasurer of the Archdiocese of Manila, Monsignor Rolando de la Cruz, has replaced Rebecca Fernando as director of the Bank of the Philippine Islands to represent the archdiocese’s shareholdings in the country’s oldest bank.
Fernando abruptly left the BPI board reportedly to attend to pressing family matters.
