High maintenance wife, high maintenance mistress

A member of the working rich, who thrives on exotic-looking women in the Ermita area, was recently caught with his pants down.

When his wife recently found out he has been maintaining a mistress in high style in New York for some time now, he quickly offered to buy his wife an equally resplendent place on the other side of the United States.

No fool, the wife, who signed a prenuptial agreement before the wedding, insisted on a Beverley Hills address.

* * *

The talk in Binondo is that president Robin Sy spends more time at the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. office than executive-director John Ngaw.

As executive director, Mr. Ngaw has the responsibility of running the day-to-day operations of the federation in much the same manner that executive director Guillermo Luz is the de facto chief operating officer of the Makati Business Club.

The thing is, federation business that need Mr. Ngaw’s attention are routinely sent to his two favorite hang-outs, either the Allied Banking Corp. head office in Makati or at the Century Park Hotel in Manila.

* * *

So, La Suerte Cigar and Cigarette Factory has shut its factory, supposedly as a result of the upgrading of the tax bracket for its brands, Memphis and Astro.

Its workers, however, don’t seem to be unusually bothered by the layoff, probably because of the way management has delivered the news.

You see, the workers were not fired or terminated. They were just told to, uh, take a vacation, after doing one-shift overtime work daily for a couple of weeks and being paid for the overtime, of course.

Former Finance Secretary and current chairman of President Macapagal-Arroyo’s governance advisory council Jesus Estanislao has been touring Spain, particularly the places closely associated with Opus Dei founder, Fr. Pio Escriva.

This week, however, Jess Estanislao is off to Paris to attend a meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is reviewing corporate governance practices worldwide. Mr. Estanislao is the only Asian invited to talk in the meeting.

Mr. Estanislao will be back in town to attend the 9th conference series on good governance and responsible citizenship on Nov. 19. The conference will be organized by the Institute of Corporate Directors with – for the first time – partners in government and the public sector.

After spreading awareness on corporate governance among the country’s top corporations, the next target are the 42 professions regulated by the Philippine Regulatory Commission.

Five professions – teachers, accountants, doctors, nurses and marine deck engineers – make up the pilot group, which are expected to come up with their individual code of governance.