The real story

If he is so good at his work and Manny Pangilinan is not, then how come First Pacific former general counsel Ron Brown is out of his job and Manny isn’t?

This is the question which some members of media who have been buying Ron’s lies should ask themselves. If what Ron is saying is true about Manny not doing his job in creating value for First Pacific, then how come the Salim group and the other shareholders of the Hong Kong-based conglomerate have decided to even name Manny recently as the firm’s chief executive officer?

Brown wants everybody to believe that he and former First Pacific chief finance officer Michael Healy resigned because they wanted out and wanted nothing to do with the way the company was and is being run. Brown has been saying that they do not agree with Manny’s proposed new strategy for First Pacific (as against Brown and Healy’s strategy of selling PLDT?).

Manny’s proposed strategy, which has the support of the Salims, is for First Pacific to expand regionally, both in telecommunications and food, with subsidiaries PLDT and Indofood at the core of the strategy.

What people do not know is that Brown and Healy resigned after the top brass at First Pacific (including the Salims who are the controlling shareholders) made it known to them that they were no longer wanted in the company. In short, they were asked to resign.

It was actually a case of who would eventually win the Salims’ vote of confidence. Brown and Healy on one side and Manny on the other never really saw eye to eye on certain issues. Brown and Healy wanted First Pacific to sell its shares in PLDT to the Gokongweis and wanted to discredit Manny in the eyes of the Salims and in the eyes of the public. If Manny were taken out of First Pacific, Brown and Healy would be running the show. They have managed to make the Salims and other shareholders believe that Manny was responsible for the downfall of First Pacific, that he was never creating value for the shareholders, and that it was time to get rid of PLDT.

Anthoni Salim at first did not know who to believe. After all, he has known Manny far longer than he has known Brown and Healy. He has heard rumors that the two have even hired public relations people in Manila just to discredit Pangilinan, but there was no proof. Brown and Healy of course were denying then that they had anything to do with the black propaganda in Manila during the heat of the Gokongwei takeover bid.

Truth eventually prevailed. Someone in the group finally got solid proof, including phone records, linking Brown and Healy to this PR outfit in Manila. One thing led to another. If First Pacific wanted to move forward, then it cannot have a team wherein the members are carrying different tunes.

What’s wrong with that?

A recent news report quotes a local news service organization whose members include exporters of sugar-based food products as saying that sugar is the last remaining Philippine product that enjoys high tariff protection.

Assuming this is true (rice tariffs in the Philippines are higher), then what’s wrong with that?

There is no point comparing Philippine tariffs on sugar to that of other agricultural products. In the first place, they do not compete for the same market. Why compare apples to oranges? What we should be looking at are our sugar tariffs compared to that imposed by other countries. Then one will realize that our sugar tariffs are even lower compared to those by our neighboring countries. Philippine sugar tariffs have gone down at much faster rates compared to other countries.

It is foregone conclusion that the World Trade Organization has failed to level the world playing field. The powerful countries have managed to maintain their production subsidy levels at high rates. There is no way for Filipino farmers or those of other similarly placed nations to be able to compete. If we cannot penetrate their markets, then why should we allow them to enter ours unfairly?

This news group has also been saying that Philippine sugar prices sold to households are the highest in Asia. Again this is not true. Prices in Malaysia, Korea, and Japan are higher.

It is also being claimed that the sugar industry was the lone beneficiary from the agricultural competitiveness enhancement fund (ACEF) in the past two years and that the industry has received P700 million in cash from the funds in 2001 and 2002 while other industries haven’t.

But the funds received by the sugar industry are not part of ACEF. These are safeguard duties collected from sugar imports on top of the regular duties which were collected by government to keep prices of imported sugar at parity with domestic prices at that time.

If the ACEF is missing, then it is government, not the sugar industry, who should be blamed. After all, for many years now, the sugar sector has also been asking agricultural leaders to locate the funds, which apparently have been used to augment the government’s regular budget when the ACEF should be in a special fund.

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