Palsy-walsy

Former Bangko Sentral Governor Gabriel Singson has just gotten back from China. Gabby Singson was part of that 200-man entourage that accompanied Lucio Tan to a five-day trip to Xiamen and Sichuan last week.

It was in Chonquing, Sichuan province, that Allied Commercial Bank just opened its second branch. Allied Commercial, a subsidiary of Allied Banking Corp., has the distinction of being the first foreign bank to have incorporated under Chinese banking laws. (George S.K. Ty’s Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. operates a branch in Beijing, which reports to the Philippine-based head office.)

As everybody knows, Mr. Singson is pretty palsy-walsy with most of the taipans.

He is a trustee of the Tan Yan Kee foundation, together with former Supreme Court Chief Justice Andres Narvasa and former Ateneo de Manila University president Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J. (although Fr. Bernas has yet to convince Mr. Tan to donate big to Ateneo).

Mr. Singson is also president of JG Summit Capital Markets, which invests the extra money of John Gokongwei Jr. in foreign bonds such as those of Russia and Brazil.

No, Mr. Singson is not part of Mr. Tan’s group, which just left for Bremen, Germany, which is better known for that fairy tale on the four musicians rather than for its university.

The invitation, which reciprocated Mr. Tan’s hospitality to university officials when they were in the Philippines, included University of the East big shots Panfilo Domingo and Baltazar Endriga.

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Did you know 1: An empty ostrich egg shell, which can be had for P400 from any of the country’s five ostrich farms, can retail for as much as P15,000 in a Greenbelt interior design shop because the shell has been prettily decorated with colored stones from Burma.

Then again, anything made out of ostrich is premium-priced – from its meat (premium cut), which sells for P749 per kilo in a Makati-based supermarket to the P50,000 black ostrich bag carrying the Prada label at Rustan’s.

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Did you know 2: Ayala Land Inc. chairman Fernando Zobel – an avowed techie like his brother, Ayala Corp. president and chief executive officer Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II – is tracking market response to those electronic gift certificates, which look like ATM cards and can be used in many of the stores in all ALI developed malls in Metro Manila.

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Did you know 3: The hardest food to cook at Chowking Foods Corp. is the guisado or sautéed noodles. Because the heat has got to be just right and the ingredients must be dropped in at the proper time, guisado is the last to be taught in the company’s seven workstation program for all its chefs.

By the way, Chowking president Rufino dela Rosa has so far awarded the first batch of chefs who have taken the revalidation test with 10-carat gold pins.

The company has scheduled other examination dates, a daunting task since it has 1,115 chefs working in 235 outlets nationwide.