3 BW directors quit

Barely days after its president took a leave of absence, there was another shakeup at the board of directors of beleaguered gaming firm BW Resources Corp. with the resignation of three other directors.

BW corporate secretary Jose Salvador Rivera Jr. informed the Philippine Stock Exchange that three directors -- Agnes Maranan, Owen Carsi Cruz and Ma. Paz Angeles -- have resigned from the 11-man board of directors.

The BW board accepted their resignations last Feb. 23. Two days earlier, the board also granted the leave of absence filed by its president, Eduardo Lim Jr., who said he was bent on "clearing his name and obtaining vindication" on charges that he made a profit in BW stocks based on inside information, or insider trading.

Lim's position was assumed by company treasurer and former Caltex president Francis Ablan. In turn, Ablan's post was passed on by the board to Maranan.

Rivera gave no reasons for the recent resignations, but according to Maranan, she will be concentrating in her personal capacity as legal counsel for Dante Tan in the multi-million peso damage suit the embattled BW stockholder filed at the Pasig Regional Trial Court against the PSE.

The 39-year-old Maranan is a partner in the Rivera Santos Maranan Law Offices along with Rivera, who is its founder and managing partner.

The two other directors are also young lawyers like Maranan.

Angeles is an associate of the Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & De Los Angeles law firm and a law professor at the Lyceum of the Philppines. Carsi Cruz also serves at the same law office (Romulo Mabanta) as senior attorney and is also teaching law, this time at the Ateneo de Manila University.

With the exit of the three directors, the BW board filled up the vacancies with the appointment of Gerardo Jose Jr., Hanson So and Jimmy Gomez to serve the unexpired term of their predecessors. The company just had its stockholders meeting and election of directors last Dec. 23, 1999.

Jose is presently BW's accounting manager while So is president of Rightland Corp., the owner of a 50-hectare property near the Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga negotiating for an asset-to-equity swap with BW.