It’s just not done

Oh, oh. Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. president John Ng yesterday called an emergency meeting of his key lieutenants after everybody in Binondo began talking about that Jan. 7 dinner where he and executive vice-president Robin Sy weren’t invited.

The highlight of the dinner, which was attended by all the other federation officers, was an informal poll on who the diners would elect as president when the federation holds its elections middle of March.

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Most of the $45 million the Delgado family got for selling Islacom to Globe Telecom is being pumped into a telecom business in Guam. Helping Ricky Delgado out in the project is former Bases Conversion Development Authority president Rogelio Singson.

Then again, the Delgados could have gotten more out of Islacom. You see, their foreign partner, Deutsche Telecom, was willing to bring in as much as $128 million.

The Delgados, however, put so many restrictions and delayed negotiations until the German company couldn’t come up with that kind of money anymore because, well, it began experiencing its own financial problems.

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Strange as it may seem, Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho is the man to talk to – and nobody else in government – on the stalled (for lack of money) build-operate and transfer eight-lane highway that would connect Manila to northern Luzon.

A joint project of the Philippine National Construction Co. and the Lopez controlled Manila North Tollways Corp., Lito Camacho has single-handedly been holding at bay those in government who want to declare a breach in contract.

This is not the first time Mr. Camacho has dealt with the Lopez group. As head of Deutsche Bank’s investment banking operations in the late 1990s, he was directly involved in the Lopez group’s bidding and winning of the west zone concession of Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (yes, the one that wants to give back its concession to government).

His investment banking counterpart, JP Morgan’s Simon Paterno, advised the Ayala group in bidding for and winning the east zone concession of MWSS.

Mr. Paterno is currently president of the Development Bank of the Philippines, which is directly under the supervision of the Department of Finance.

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There’s a fourth Undersecretary now at the Department of Agriculture. He’s Arsenio Balisacan, who returns to handle the same job (planning) during the time of former Agriculture Secretary and now Senator Edgardo Angara.

He joins Edmund Sana, who has been taken out of the freezer to head operations; Jocelyn Bolante, who remains in charge of finance; and Cesar Drilon, who continues to head administration.

The appointment of Mr. Balisacan is seen as another move of former Lapanday chief executive officer Luiz Lorenzo Jr. to reorganize the Department of Agriculture into an agribusiness-oriented organization.