Prelude to the big one

According to our spyring, people are speculating that the Oakwood mutiny and the NAIA Control Tower take-over are just front acts for an imminent bigger threat. According to our ear-spies, truckloads of high-power arms and ammunition were seen coming in at Fort San Felipe, Sangley Point in Cavite a few weeks before the NAIA 2 Tower takeover. Our ear-spies overheard from very reliable sources that the signal for the military adventurists to make their countrywide move will be a statement aired over MTB and Eat Bulaga noontime shows. The code: "Tuloy ang binyag, Totoy!" Task Force for Securing Critical Infrastructure Chief Abraham Purugganan is taking very serious precautions to forestall such foreseen eventualities. According to our ear-spies, the task force is now considering high-technology measures to prevent the entry of unauthorized people in vital government and non-government installations. The task force chief will surely have his hands full protecting the nation‚s vital infrastructures in the coming months. Word inside waterholes is: a bigger firecracker may go off even before the New Year.

‘Foxhole’ Creditors

The country’s political turmoil is really starting to hurt business. According to our very reliable ear-spy, just the other week, two bond offerings received an indifferent reception in the international market. One is the ABS-CBN $150 million bond issue and the other is Filinvest’s for $100 million. Word in the business arena is that both issues were victims of bad timing by coming out on the week our headlines were screaming of warnings of possible coups because of the Davide impeachment drama, FPJ running for president and the budget deficit. The country’s political risk profile soured and immediately dried up interest on Philippine debt issues. There is also talk that the problems associated with the Lopez group allegedly spooked the ABS-CBN offer. But pre-selling done by the financial advisers of ABS-CBN indicated that the Lopez Group situation was largely discounted. As reported by the Asian Wall Street Journal, ABS-CBN is "still generating good cash flows… earnings-wise, because of the recovery in ad spending, revenues have been good and are translating to its bottom line." In the same week, ABS-CBN went to the market. Indo Sat, an Indonesian firm with a lower credit rating than ABS-CBN was also out in the market and was oversubscribed. Allegedly, Indonesia also had a lower rating than the Philippines. According to our ear-spies, creditors became worried that any political upheaval in the Philippines would cause massive capital outflow, drying up the country‚s foreign exchange reserves. That would definitely undermine the ability of profitable and creditworthy firms like ABS-CBN and Filinvest to pay dollar-denominated debts. Creditors merely adopted a defensive stance on the country, until such time as we sort out our political troubles.

Oakwood Part 2?

Our Palace ear-spies reveal that the late Col. Panfilo Villaruel tried to seek an audience with the President in vain. The frustrated yet very idealistic Air Force officer reportedly wanted to discuss the widespread corruption in government and the need to invigorate the Philippine aerospace industry and the imperative to modernize the Armed Forces through fixed-wing and rotary-wing programs. Like the Oakwood incident, his efforts were allegedly ignored resulting in an incident that splashed the country all over BBC and CNN early Saturday morning. Perhaps, government should fast-track the Clark Aviation Depot project (for aviation repair, maintenance and overhaul, R&D and flight and air traffic control training) in order to bring in the much-needed technology transfer for the aerospace and allied industries. But more than this, many sectors are saying that government should start lending a ready ear to disgruntled sectors in order to avoid the takeover of hard and soft targets.

Raptors Circling Roppongi

Our ear-spies in the Department of Finance disclose that the DOF is allegedly rushing the bid for the "development of Philippine Government properties in Japan" by the end of November. We are certain that the DOF is not at all unaware of the pending ban on government contracts with the looming elections. Our ear-spies are asking: could this be related to a certain Zecs Corp., a developer, making the rounds to interested Tokyo bidders to pay $200,000 to increase their prospects of winning the bid to develop Philippine government properties? Could it also be related to the issue that Zecs Corp. allegedly has close ties with a shadowy group of Japanese "businessmen"? Perhaps the DoF is getting the wool pulled over their eyes. Or are they party to the effort to pull the wool over the eyes of legitimate, prospective bidders from Japan? Hmm… For the good of the national patrimony, the government should investigate this and call an immediate halt to the "bidding process." Otherwise, the Roppongi raptors will hand the government another scandal that is too close for comfort to elections.

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