The secret ingredient

Did you know 1: The secret ingredient in good hand-made paper is overly ripe okra. You see, the mucilage in okra binds the cellulose of fibers like abaca, which has been broken down to a pulp to form the paper.

Uh, forget the paste used by your kids in school. It’s a lousy substitute for okra.

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Did you know 2: Justice Secretary Simeon Datumanong has appointed a special prosecutor to exclusively handle pyramiding cases. The DoJ will of course, rely on the reports of both Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Lilia Bautista and Trade Secretary Manuel Roxas II.

As everybody knows, the SEC handles those pyramiding operations which offer investors a return on their investment of as much as 15 percent a month. The DTI deals with pyramiding schemes which offer commission on the recruitment of more members.

There’s a bill right now in Congress to increase the penalties for pyramiding.

Right now, the best that the SEC and the DTI can do is to revoke the company’s license to operate. Criminally, pyramiding is considered a form of estafa and that means a penalty of P5,000 to P10,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five months.

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There’s construction currently going on at the Philippine Airlines Learning Center (the old Caltex Foundation Bldg.) in Manila.

What’s being built is a special training center for the Tan Yan Kee Foundation.

To be completed in a month or two, the center will offer, among other things, an interesting "bridge" module for those who have finished college and who would want to be eased (rather than thrown) into the workplace. For example, how does one deal with a situation where the newcomer is shunned by his peers in the workplace? Or how to handle sexual harassment.

The "bridge" module includes a practicum in, for starters, one of the companies owned by Lucio Tan.

By the way, the Tan Yan Kee Foundation recently got a three-year tax-exemption status from the Philippine Council for NGO Accreditation, which is currently headed by the representative from the AY Foundation.

The tax exemption means that donors to the foundation can donate more than the maximum six percent of net income mandated by the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

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Bank notes 1: Philippine National Bank director Norberto Nazareno hasn’t been regularly attending those board meetings because he’s not feeling well. Remember that he has had a heart bypass, the reason why he resigned as president of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.

Boy Nazareno represents the PDIC in PNB because he was very much involved in the bank’s rehabilitation program.

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Bank notes 2: Now, former Westmont Bank president Edgardo Espiritu and his successor and son, John Anthony Espiritu are claiming they don‘t owe money to those investors of Westmont Investment Corp.

The logic of the Espiritu father and son is that the bank had nothing to do with the investment company, never mind that the son also once served as Wincorp chairman.