An order of 9,000 passports a month

Bank notes 1: Philippine National Bank president Lorenzo Tan will have much to crow about in Tuesday’s annual stockholders meeting. To a large extent, the bank’s improved numbers can be traced to common sense.

For example, the bank used to lease out for P100,000 a month that huge property at the corner of Buendia Ext. and Paseo de Roxas Ave. in Makati. (Yes, the one the bank sold to Ramon Jacinto for P4 billion and then had to foreclose.)

Well, when Yayi Tan found out that the lessee easily grossed P500,000 a month by using the property as a no frills parking lot, the lease was not renewed and PNB is now in the business of parking lots.

Right now, PNB owns 10 floors of the BA-Lepanto Bldg., also along Paseo de Roxas. The plan to move the bank’s line departments to Makati (with probable signage rights to the building) in the short term would increase property income by ten-fold in part because the humongous space used by the line departments at head office (three times the regular office space per person) could be rented out.

Possible lessees are United Nations-related agencies which consider the PNB Financial Center in the Reclamation Area one of the most secured buildings in Metro Manila.

By the way, the joint government-Lucio Tan slate of directors has been finalized. It’s the same board as last year except for the director representing the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. Former PDIC president Norberto Nazareno will be replaced by current president Ricardo Tan.

As everybody knows, part of PNB’s rehabilitation program involves P10 billion emergency loan extended by PDIC to PNB.

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Bank notes 2: To a large extent, United Coconut Planters Bank chairman and chief executive officer Edward Go started all this speculation about his replacement.

You see, Eddie Go has been wanting to move on (his Ateneo contemporaries such as former Development Bank of the Philippines chairman and chief executive officer Alfredo Antonio have lots of golf playing time now) but Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho’s headhunters haven’t settled on somebody yet.

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Bank notes 3: Aside from printing the country’s money, the Bangko Sentral Security Printing Complex headed by assistant governor Marcos Siongco Jr. also makes the tokens used in the slot machines of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., the Philippine passports issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs, and 50 percent of the checks issued by the banking system.

The Bangko Sentral will stop the printing of checks by next year because there are already five private companies doing this.

In the case of those passports, the DFA deal is initially good for a year although the Bangko Sentral has purchased special machines for this purpose alone. The DFA order is 9,000 passports a month.