Banking notes

Certain very interesting developments are unfolding in the local banking sector in the past few weeks. It has just been announced that East West Banking Corp. is acquiring Ecology Savings Bank from Equitable PCIBank for an undisclosed amount. With the proposed acquisition, the branch network of East West Bank will grow from 47 to 77.

Meanwhile, according to Export and Industry Bank chairman Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr., an announcement will be made this week regarding the bank’s proposed acquisition. Rumors are rife in the banking community that the bank being acquired is PDCP. EIB, in the meantime, has secured reapproval for the reopening of the securities firm of the former Urban Bank. The new company will be known as EIB Securities. Mr. Ortiz-Luis justifies the move by saying that for so little investment, the opportunities are good.

The countdown

With three weeks remaining before the self-imposed deadline set by First Pacific and the Gokongwei group for the transaction involving the sale of the former's interests in the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Bonifacio Land Corp. (BLC) to be completed, the warring factions, namely PLDT management and that of parent First Pacific, are making sure that they are well equipped for the battle ahead.

You see, First Pacific has reportedly tapped the services of a veteran PR professional, one closely identified with former President Estrada, to handle the so-called ‘dirty tricks’ department. Not to be outdone, the camp of beleaguered PLDT president Manuel V. Pangilinan is reportedly talking to several prospective individuals and groups engaged in public relations. One of the prospective candidates used to be head for radio of one of the country's leading broadcasting networks.

There have been earlier reports that Pangilinan and PLDT chairman Antonio O. Cojuangco have given up the fight to prevent First Pacific from selling its stake to the Gokongweis, but persons close to MVP and AOC say that the fight has just began.

So let us see what is going to happen. In the meantime, there are rumors in the market that the Ayala group is joining Greenfields Development Corp. of Jose Yao Campos, who earlier partnered with AOC, in a bid to acquire First Pacific's 50.4 percent stake in BLC.

Greenpeace’s hidden interest

Dr. C.S. Prakash, plant molecular genetics professor and director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research at Tuskegee University, AL, U.S.A. writes:

"It is argued misleadingly that consumers globally are demanding the regulation of products, as if products improved through biotechnology are currently regulated in every country where they are grown, and they have been found to be at least as safe as their conventional counterparts. This type of scare mongering is what we’ve come to expect from groups like Greenpeace.

Greepeace expresses concern over genetic mainpulation, using such emotionally charged but scientifically indefensible terms as ‘genetic pollution’ and scare mongering about ‘irreversibility’ of crop releases. The truth is that humans have been genetically manipulating living things on this planet for as long as humans have existed, and to the enormous benefit of our species. With biotechnology, for the first time, we begin to understand just what it is we are doing, and hot to do it with a degree of safety and predictability we have never before enjoyed. Crops and foods improved through biotechnology are subjected to more scrutiny, in advance, in depth and detail, than any others in the history of the planet. Despite what Greenpeace wants us to believe, when farmers anywhere around the world have been given access to crops improved through biotechnology, they have snapped them up at historically unprecedented rates.

Greenpeace’s claims of scientific support for their objections to biotechnology are as baseless as their claims of moral superiority as the sole arbiter of what is good for the planet. Vast experience shows they are contradicted by the facts. In the US, for example, the commercial cultivation of biotechnology-enhanced crops has reduced the use of insecticides and herbicides by 21 million kilograms every year, and also saved topsoil and other valuable resources.

Greenpeace’s global budget was somewhere close to $117 million, which is less than their year 2000 income of $143.6 million. It must be noted, however, that the annual report on the Greenpeace website says that their 2000 total expenditures were $100.3 million plus $40.6 million in fundraising expenses, and their year 2000 expenditures on opposing genetic engineering were $7.1 million.

According to various public records, tax filings and news reports, Greenpeace International’s millions comes from a range of sources including government funding, foundation grants (the foundation money often coming from various corporate sources), ‘donor-directed’ grants from other non-profits (the donors for which include corporations), directly from corporations such as Working Assets and Ben & Jerry’s which give a percentage of sales to Greenpeace.

As the Canadian government officials have discovered, Greenpeace is no small dollar grassroots, non-profit movement, rather it is part of a multi-billion dollar protest industry. Canada has caught on to Greenpeace’s game and revoked its charitable status noting their lack of demonstrable public benefit, thereby preventing people and corporations from taking tax deductions for contributions to the group.

In addition, Greenpeace leaders have close financial relationships (both personal and professional) with the organic food industry’s marketing interests against biotech foods in Europe and the US as evidenced by Organic Farmer Lord Peter Melchet’s (also director of Greenpeace UK) immediate move to work for Iceland Foods as a highly paid lobbyist. Agence France Presse also reported that Greenpeace Brazil went so far as to license their own line of organic products in that country."