Locked door during the lunch hour

That’s a casting coup of sorts for Unilever’s low-end Surf detergent with occasional actress Gretchen Baretto appearing in the continuing story of Lumen and her family (particularly her highly supportive mother-in-law).

Then again, Ms. Baretto is said to be more readily available now to endorse products – so long as the price is right.

* * *

Remember the old Toyota Bel-Air property? Well, that’s the favorite hangout these days for golf-crazy expatriates who like to practice their driving skills at a more, uh, conducive place than Fort Bonifacio or Villamor Air Base.

Put together by a company with Korean links, the place also offers a spa for those tired muscles and a barbershop.

* * *

Think about these numbers.

A Smart Communications special wireless phone that connects to the rest of the country via satellite instead of the usual cables costs less than P5,000. For that reason, the governor of a remote place such as Tawi-Tawi bought P1.5-million worth and installed a cellphone in the barangay hall of each barangay in his province.

Government’s program to have a telephone for each barangay in the country costs $10,000 a telephone.

* * *

Whenever he’s brownbagging his lunch, Asian Institute of Management president Roberto de Ocampo locks his office door – to do those painful-looking limbering taekwondo exercises, silly.

Bobby de Ocampo is finalizing the link-up of AIM’s library to that of Asian Development Bank. Adding the publications of the World Bank and its own, AIM will have the most number of books and research papers available to the public in Southeast Asia.

Oh yes, AIM is having back-to-day lectures by two heavyweights in international finance: former International Monetary Fund managing director Michel Camdessus this Friday and Nobel Prize winner for economics and former World Bank senior vice-president Joseph Stiglitz next Monday.

The tickets, worth P2,000 per person, are going like hotcakes. There’s a P200 discount for AIM alumni.

* * *

Bank notes: While his regular golfmates miss them, they’re not sure whether the game of Bangko Sentral Governor Rafael Buenaventura will have improved when he returns from his vacation in the United States.

Hey, there’s friendly betting involved here and Paeng Buenaventura’s job has never been a reason why he shouldn’t pay when he loses.

Normally, Mr. Buenaventura and his teammate (either Dresdner Bank’s Cesar Virtusio or Philippine Stock Exchange director Peter Favila or former Far East Bank and Trust Co. president Octavio Espiritu) play against former Bangko Sentral Governor Gabriel Singson and Chinatrust (Phil.) Commercial Banking Corp. vice-chairman William Go.