Lady in red

Lucio Tan had barely unpacked in China when he got word that his beloved mother, 92-year-old Chua King Ha, had passed away. Naturally, Mr. Tan – who is proudly a mama’s boy – cancelled all his business appointments and took the next plane home.

The electric wheelchair-bound Ms. Tan was lucid until the day she died. Fact was, she took a short rest from playing mahjong but never woke up. There will be a six-day wake for Ms. Tan, after which she will be cremated.

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Robert Kuan is expected to give Chowking Food Corp. some direct competition starting next year. That’s when the proscription period he signed with Jollibee Foods Corp. president Tony Tan Caktiong (for the purchase of Chowking which he developed as his thesis at the Asian Institute of Management) ends.

Bob Kuan’s vehicle? His family’s Ling Nam noodle house chain. By the way, Mr. Kuan’s high-end Oriental restaurant venture, Kingfisher, at Rockwell’s Power Plant has closed down.

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Of course, you’ve seen the ongoing TV commercial on Consumer Welfare Month produced by the Department of Trade and Industry.

To save on, uh, talent fees, the star is Trade Secretary Manuel Roxas II. The commercial shows Mar Roxas talking to and being hugged by market vendors and, gasp, holding up a fish for everybody to see.

Mr. Roxas is, of course, better known as a resident of the Bahay Puti compound owned by the Araneta family and as an investment banker who, among other things, put up a venture capital company with Francisco Dizon before both of them joined government.

Paquito Dizon is chairman of the Philippine National Bank. Mr. Roxas served the unfinished congressional term of his brother, the late Gerardo Roxas III, before accepting the DTI post.

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Have you noticed the new McDonald’s outdoor ad that envelopes buses and taxis? As of last count, there are some 150 taxis and 15 buses carrying those moving ads. Golden Arches Development Corp., the Philippine master franchise of McDonald’s, pays for the makeover while operators of participating taxis and buses have reported a halo effect in terms of overall cleanliness and more courteous services – trademarks of McDonald’s stores anywhere in the world.

By the way, Golden Arches’ senior vice-president for marketing is Leila Hernandez, whose favorite colors are red and pink and who, being a woman, has pushed for and has succeeded in getting president George Yang’s approval to renovate the washrooms in all of the chain’s 242 outlets nationwide.

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Perhaps because having a postgraduate degree in economics is such serious stuff, newly elected Philippine Stock Exchange president Cayetano Paderanga Jr. has a wicked sense of humor that is mostly tongue-in-cheek and bordering on the green – something non-English education and onion-skinned stockbroers such as Robert Coyiuto Jr. may not appreciate.

Dondon Paderanga grew up in lanzones-famous Camiguin, whose only other native son known outside the island is former professional basketball player Abet Guidaben.

Until middle of this year, Mr. Paderanga served as an executive director of the Asian Development Bank, with the usual commissary (read: access to US steaks at cheap prices) privileges and dollar-based salary.

His replacement is a fellow director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority Dante Canlas.