The luckiest of all years this century

Just to be on the safe side, ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp.-Channel 2 has changed its cable channel from Channel 6 to Channel 8. That's because chairman Eugenio Lopez III is a great believer in feng shui.

The number 8 is the number of prosperity for the Cantonese-Chinese. It is also prominent in the date ABS-CBN was returned to the Lopez family, August 8, 1988.

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Sto. Tomas Hospital board chaired by Fr. Tamerlane Lana has asked its auditing firm of long standing, SGV & Co., to look into the hospital "remerging" with the University of Sto. Tomas.

This way, the hospital can import all those expensive medical equipment tax-free without anybody bitching about it because, hey, they will be used for educational purposes.

For the last couple of years, the hospital has gotten away with not paying taxes because it has, uh, forgotten to tell the Department of Education, and when it was eventually pointed out that DepEd supervises only elementary and secondary schools, the Commission on Higher Education that it is a separate entity from the university.

Then again, solving that tax exemption issue could bring back another problem. You see, university employees are better paid than the workers at the hospital – the major reason why the hospital was spun off in the first place.

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Manila Mayor Jose Atienza is rehabilitating the Metropolitan Theater, that landmark art deco building located in a seedy and jeepney-choked stretch of Taft Ave. leading to the Quiapo bridge.

The Met was last rehabilitated for P29 million by then Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Imelda Romualdez- Marcos.

Government funding to maintain the building was cut in 1986 during the watch of President Aquino and has not been restored.

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The telephone of natural Filipino psychic Danny Atienza hasn't stopped ringing since he predicted the recent crash of American space shuttle, Columbia.

Fact is, the Japanese want to talk to him about another prediction – that Japan might be so badly hit by earthquake this year that an island or two might sink into the sea.

Here are some of the things that Mr. Atienza sees for the Philippine economy:

• a foreign exchange rate of between P60 andP70 in 2003;

• major financial difficulties for two commercial banks with foreign partners;

• insurance and memorial parks are the sunrise industries for this year;

• the start of a property boom in northern Luzon, particularly the Subic-Clark area, while a gradual decline will be seen in the Calabarzon in southern Luzon; and

• the development of a new kind of fuel, one of the world's largest reserves of which are in Mindanao (guess where?) will make the Philippines one of the richest countries in the world by 2013.

Before undreamed of prosperity happens, however, the country will have to go through hell for the next two years – it doesn't matter who sits in Malacañang – easing up for the better, starting in mid-2005.

From there, it will be good times, peaking in the luckiest of all years this century for the Philippines, 2013.