No number one and no number two

There’s talk in Binondo that this very wealthy man has dropped wife number five who hails from Cebu.

With just four official wives – four is such an unlucky number – the man is expected to quickly look for a replacement for the uh, good of the business.

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Well, this bank chairman has submitted his resignation but many of the senior officers only learned about it during a birthday party two days later.

The bank chairman – who looked as woeful as a bloodhound (and had as many wrinkles on his forehead) – took the hint when he wasn’t even paid his per diems since the start of July.

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One or two big call centers are on the lookout for people who speak Spanish, either the pidgin Spanish spoken in café society that no Madrileno can understand or Chabacano.

Here’s the logic. There’s a growing number of Hispanic consumers in the United States who would prefer to complain to someone who, uh, understands the mother tongue.

As everybody knows, the call center industry is the fastest growing business in the country today. Given the large amount of capital involved, however, these companies are mostly 100 percent owned by foreigners. As such, these call centers cannot get peso loans from the local banks.

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The Center for International Trade Exhibitions and Missions is scheduled to hold the second of two international trade fairs this year in October without a number one and number two.

It’s been – what? – two or three months since executive director Felicidad Tan-Co has resigned and the position has yet to be filled by Trade Secretary Manuel Roxas II.

Oh yes, Mar Roxas has also approved the secondment of deputy executive director Arturo Dimaano to the ASEAN office in Japan (although that position will remain vacant until Art Dimaano returns in three years’ time).

Meanwhile, another two have resigned from CITEM, which is, of course, government’s marketing arm to help exporters.

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The published list of cigarette brands reclassified (read: these have to pay higher excises taxes) by the Bureau of Internal Revenue is interesting.

Signed by Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho upon the recommendation of BIR Commissioner Guillermo Parayno Jr., the list covers 29 brand names, eight of which are local.

All eight brand names cater to the broad C-D market, where the psychological barrier is P10 per pack. Said another way, this is a market which buys on a per stick basis.

Of the eight, five (under the brand names, Astro and Memphis) are manufactured by La Suerte Cigar and Cigarettes Factory, the former Philippine licensee of Philip Morris.

Another La Suerte brand, Forbes, had to be phased out when the BIR reclassified it.