Puregold’s Lucio Co is the unnamed Chinese partner-financier of the breakaway Rustan boutique shop of Tantoco sibling, Eman Pineda.

February 6, 2008

THE Philippine Stock Exchange has imposed a new set of fines on the Locsin-Poblador group for having repeatedly failed to submit financial reports of the Philcomsat Holdings Corp. to the bourse.

PSE disclosure chief Pete Malabanan said the PHC was being fined a total of P435,000 for the non-submission of the 2006 annual report, as well as for missing three quarterly reports for 2007.

The irony of the monetary penalties is that it is now the new Malacanang nominees headed by Ramon “RJ” Jacinto and retired Justice Santiago Ranada who are being made to shoulder the penalties of the dismissed Malacanang directors led by Locsin, while the group of Free Press publisher Enrique Locsin and PHC “chairman” Concepcion Poblador, aided by friendly Makati judges, continues to hang on to the about P500 million to P800 million in company funds.

Because of the repeated failures of PHC to comply with the reportorial requirements, the stock exchange has had been considering delisting the company, Malabanan said in his letter to Jacinto.

Even with the Malacanang announcement that a new set of government nominees had already been appointed to the PHC, the stock and transfer agent of the company, Emerald Registry and Transfers Corp., still refuses to provide a list of stockholders to the new PHC board.

In a letter dated January 28, 2008, Emerald’s stock operations head Benedicto Tan flatly denied the request of Jacinto for the shareholders list, due, he said, to a competing claim of the Locsin-Poblador group.

Ironically, the Locsin-Poblador certification, signed by “corporate secretary” Alma Kristina Alobba, still lists Manuel Nieto Jr. as their president, despite Nieto already having repudiated Alobba, denying he even knows her. (Alobba also claims, in her January 25, 2008 letter, that Manuel Andal is still company treasurer, despite Andal already having also been replaced by President Arroyo.)

You doubt this Nieto-Alobba tale? Go ahead and ask Nieto counsel Manuel “Lolong” Lazaro.

The former justice can write a book on how a group of “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves” were able to capitalize on an Alzheimer’s-stricken senior citizen to sign financial documents and finagle untold millions of corporate funds.

United Airlines will begin charging passengers $25 starting May 5 to check in a second piece of luggage for US domestic and Canada travel if they are not part of its most-frequent-flier programs.

The new charge applies to those who purchase nonrefundable domestic economy tickets, and will allow customers to check in up to four additional bags at $100 per bag.

The DMCI-Metro Pacific consortium that now controls Maynilad Water is planning to transferr the company headquarters to the former Intel factory in Bangkal, Makati, which the Consunji company had acquired.

Former First Lady Amelita Ramos has resigned from her baby, the Clean and Green Foundation, over festering internal issues. The reported resignation could not be independently verified; the foundation’s executive director, Myrna Julieta-Jimenez, was unable to return a phoned inquiry.

February 3, 2008

HE may be laboring under the shadow of his more famous, more controversial big brother, but it is beginning to look like Jose “Bonito” Singson Jr. is a sharper businessman than Luis “Chavit” Singson.

Bonito last week signed with Robinsons Land president Frederick Go a joint-venture agreement for the Gokongwei real estate company to develop Singson’s 65-hectare property right outside Vigan into a Spanish-inspired township, just like the capital town’s historic district.

With urban planning designed by architect Felino Palafox, the township, called El Pueblo, will also feature an eight-to-ten hectare commercial center, with a mall, a convention center, and a call center as main anchors.

The residential lots will be offered in 200 and 500-square-meter cuts, with the overseas Ilocanos as target market.

Singson, unknown to many, was awarded last year by Vice President Noli de Castro as the region’s best real estate developer in socialized housing for his previous, but smaller subdivision.

Before this township deal, Singson earlier negotiated with Robinsons to also develop a 19-hectare subdivision and mall in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, just outside Laoag, right in the heart of Marcos country.

February 3, 2004

Faced with a string of money-laundering charges, Malacanang’s Philcomsat Holdings holdover director Enrique Locsin has hired the public relations consultant of Bangko Sentral Gov. Amando Tetangco Jr., paying the crisis PR consultant at least P3.1 million for a three-month contract, according to recovered Philcomsat documents.

One of the first counter-attacks that the PR consultant, Resty Perez and Co., executed was to craft and place negative advertisements against Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera and the Malacanang search committee, hitting them for dropping Locsin from the list of new Arroyo nominees to the cash-flush company.

With a new set of Malacanang directors coming in, Locsin publicly admitted that he and PHC “chairman” Concepcion Poblador transferred untold hundreds of millions of company funds to unknown destinations for “safekeeping.”

It was not clear what PHC board Locsin and Poblador claim to represent, since Locsin’s fellow Arroyo nominees, including Mike Arroyo cousin/travel companion Benito Araneta and Locsin cousin Roberto Abad, had already resigned from the publicly-listed company.

Even Locsin counsel Rene Saguisag admitted that the president and CEO of their own PHC board, Manuel Nieto, had already been incapacitated for some time now, stricken with Alzheimer’s disease, leaving the company’s P800-million cash hoard under the disposal of Locsin and his money-market officer, Philip Brodett.

Brodett, incidentally, has also resigned from PHC on the eve of the new Malacanang appointments, but not after withdrawing over P200 million from Security Bank in various “pay-to-cash” checks.

Going back to crisis PR consultant, Resty Perez admitted in a brief conversation with Cocktales that he had been stricken with something akin to buyer’s remorse, but that, after forewarning Cocktales, he still had to execute the distasteful business “because it is a job, nothing personal.”

Perez also handles the crisis PR of Ayala Land, responsible for placing critical articles in the newspapers against the police’s findings on the Glorietta 2 blast.

A former managing editor in the Cojuangco-era Chronicle, Perez is incidentally rounding up a virtual who’s-who in the media industry for another weekend of golf with the Bangko Sentral governor in the Ayala-controlled Greenfield course, with great lunch and raffle prizes awaiting everyone.

How does Cocktales know?

Despite being a non-golfer, we had been lucky enough to have snagged invites in two previous tournaments with the governor and the Monetary Board members, winning major gift certificates every time.

Somehow, we now have a creeping feeling that we had been stricken off by someone from the next Tetangco tournament. But then again, to quote Perez, “trabaho lang ito, walang personalan.”

(Next installment: BPI, banks caught in between)

Acer founder Stan Shih will visit Manila on March 5.

A light brown Isuzu Trooper (plate number XPK 615) with a prominent Supreme Court windshield sticker was seen parked by the ACCRA law office building Saturday afternoon, along with a silver Mercedes-Benz E 280 (plate number ZFW 201).

To mark the return of former Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz Jr., former Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo and four former undersecretaries, Villaraza and Angangco has not only voted to resurrect the law firm’s old name, CVC Law, the country’s best-connected law office is also throwing a party next week to formally re-launch the revivified firm.

Almost anyone who is anyone has been invited, including all the presidentiables. The most prominent non-invites: ex-clients Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and telecom businessman Raymond Moreno.