PNB revamp continues

The Philippine National Bank (PNB) is undergoing another revamp in its board of directors with the resignation of former board member Eric Filamor to accommodate the appointment of sugar banker Franklin Fuentebella.

Filamor’s resignation came as a surprise since Fuentebella is a government appointee. Observers had been expecting that the vacancy would have to come from the resignation of one of the government’s five appointees to the PNB board.

Filamor, who received an appointment as member of the board of advisers to the board of directors, is one of the four appointees of PNB majority shareholder Lucio Tan.

With Filamor’s resignation, Tan’s group is reduced to three seats in the 11- man PNB board. Tan himself sits as board member, along with his brother Macario Te and close associate Domingo Chua.

Government, on the other hand, now has six representatives to the board, namely Fuentebella, Norberto Nazareno, accounting expert Flor Tarriola, former Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. president Francisco Dizon, former vice president of Far East Bank Victor Panlilio and former J.P. Morgan executive Lorenzo Tan.

Also in the board are two independent directors, Washington Sycip, founder of SGV & Co. and Cielo Macapagal-Salgado, sister of President Arroyo.

Fuentebella was nominated to the board by the government in February, despite the fact that there was no vacancy in PNB’s policy-making body.

Fuentebella’s name still has to be submitted to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) which, based on existing rules, has to subject all nominees to its fit-and-proper rule.

Under an initial term sheet signed by government representatives and the group of majority shareholder Lucio Tan, the government will be allowed to nominate four members to the board, one independent director and the president.

Tan, on the other hand, can nominate four members to the board and one independent director as well as the general counsel, assistant corporate secretary and deputy chief finance officer.

Fuentebella served as director of the Republic Planters Bank, now MayBank Philippines, in the 1980s. He sits as chairman of a rural bank in Negros Occidental and is president of a financing company. He has an engineering degree from De La Salle University and a master’s degree in business administration.

Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho earlier said Fuentebella’s nomination was intended to "diversify" the composition of the PNB board. At the time, he said one of the government appointees would have to give way to Fuentebella if government and Tan still have not reached an agreement over how to settle PNB’s P25-billion emergency loan. — Des Ferriols