Eating shit

There’s a story (a favorite of many students of Chinese history such as Lucio Tan) that might be helpful when the board of the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc. holds its next meeting.

During the time of the Warring States, before China was united by the man who built the Great wall, a great battle was fought that resulted in a king defeating another. Soon after, the victorious king fell ill. His doctors couldn’t make the correct diagnosis. They needed somebody to eat the feces of the king and tell them how it tasted.

Somebody volunteered the defeated and imprisoned king, not because it was thought the defeated king would agree (because nobody in his right mind would eat feces, his or anybody else’s) but to further humiliate him.

The defeated king was brought to the bed chamber of the victorious king. In front of the entire court, the defeated king voluntarily ate the, uh, daily production of the victorious king.

Because the defeated king declared that what he ate tasted bitter, the doctors were able to come up with the right medicine and the victorious king recovered.

The victorious king then ordered the release of the defeated king, not out of gratitude but becauase anybody who willingly agreed to do something so vile probably didn’t have much of backbone left.

To further shame him, the defeated king was given the job of tending some of the animals of the victorious king in some far-flung province.

Fifteen years later, the defeated king raised an army and again went to battle against his old enemy. This time, he won. His first act as the victor was to have the other king beheaded.

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By May this year, Bases Conversion Development Authority president Rufo Colayco and his staff will be moving to that yellow building of Hatch Asia at Fort Bonifacio Global City. BCDA will be occupying one floor (which is not small at 5,000 square meters).

The current BCDA headquarters, which sits on 25 hectares of land in Villamor, is up for sale. Mr. Colayco is open to a joint venture similar to Fort Bonifacio, where BCDA continues to hold a 40-percent stake even if Ayala Land’s Fernando Zobel de Ayala and Greenfield’s Joselito Campos have replaced Metro Pacific’s Napoleon Nazareno (after Ricardo Pascua resigned) as BCDA’s partners.

Also for sale is the five-hectare walled property (read: no squatters) behind SM North.

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After 15 years in government, one of the two longest serving undersecretaries Ernesto Ordoñez submitted yesterday his resignation. Not that Ernie Ordoñez is entirely getting out of agriculture, mind you.

Mr. Ordoñez intends to help three coalitions of small farmers and fisherfolk in – this is a mouthful – "building national unity."

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Four of the 11-man board of the still-being-incorporated Dangal ng Bulacan Foundation are bankers.

These are former Central Bank Governor Jaime Laya, former Equitable PCI Bank president Deogracias Vistan, former Development Bank of the Philippines president and chief executive officer Remedios Macalincag, and Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. president Antonio Abacan Jr.

The founding members of the foundation – which aims to increase economic opportunities in Bulacan – were, for once, all present during last weekend’s meeting.