A betting man

Just because Trade Secretary Manuel Roxas II has been seen earnestly talking to singer (and former best friend/vote-getter for Bukidnon Rep. Miguel Zubiri) Vina Morales doesn’t mean they’re now an item.

Okay, so everybody knows Mr. Roxas will probably run for an elective office next year. After all, his grandfather and namesake was a President of the Republic; his dad, Gerardo Roxas, was a senator; and he himself was once a congressman.

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In a way, HSBC (Phils.) president and chief executive officer Walter Manning is a betting man – and he welcomes all takers.

Here’s how you can easily win a couple of pesos for a favorite charity (because, hard as he is trying, Mr. Manning is probably not going to make it).

You see, Mr. Manning intends to lose 20 pounds within a certain timeframe. If he doesn’t lose those pounds, he will cough up the money; if he does lose those pounds, you do.

All takers will be regularly updated on Mr. Manning’s current weight.

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Poor Philippine Airlines director Harry Tan. He’s been down with the flu, with complications, since returning middle of last month from his Christmas vacation.

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Enzo Group founder Enrique Zobel’s biography is tentatively entitled, "Enrique Zobel and other horse stories" and is expected to be out by end of the year.

Then again, Mr. Zobel has never met a horse (or cow) he didn’t like – and that includes the one that threw him and landed him in a wheelchair – in large part because they don’t talk back.

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Now it can be told. The "Project Astana" that Manulife Phils. senior management led by president and chief executive officer Renato Vergel de Dios was talking about last year was the acquisition of CMG. Actually, "Astana" is just a collection of letters and, by itself, does not mean anything.

What’s interesting is that Ato Vergel de Dios and his team prepared for every possible scenario that could take place – and nothing, absolutely nothing, untoward happen.

Mr. Vergel de Dios set the tone from the start. He refused to sugar-coat his talk with CMG personnel when he told them that most of them would have to go, with a generous retirement package, of course. He visited CMG’s agent in the major cities – a pleasant, if somewhat strange, thing (in their experience) for a CEO to explain what Manulife’s plans are and why they should stay on.

With the merger, Manulife now ranks as the fourth largest life insurance company in the country. The plan is to enter the Big 3 club, with The Philippine-American Life and General Insurance Co. in a class of its own and numbers two and three pretty much interchangeable.