Stepping down

Overheard 1: The widow of Ramon Siy Lai recently called John Gokongwei Jr. for some advice on how to handle her feuding children, who, as everybody knows, have split up into two groups – one headed by eldest child, Bernadine Siy, and the other headed by eldest son, George Siy.

Being busy at that time, Mr. John asked for a little time to think things through. He’s still waiting for that return call.

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Overheard 2: The cultural arm of the British Embassy – this is the British Council – is seriously thinking of reviving the teaching of English as a second language.

This time around, its market will not only be teachers but the fast-growing call center business, which is predicted to run out of people to hire by end-2005 should it continue to expand at the brisk rate that it has been doing in the last three years.

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The quickest and easiest way to touch a Chinese-Filipino for money is to come up with an education-related project. (Just consider the number of two room school buildings – with bathrooms, mind you – put up so far by the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc.).

Many of these guys may be terribly stingy even in the way they live but are amazingly open-handed when it comes to helping out schools.

In large part, this is due to a centuries-old culture that looks up to teachers as the linchpin of civilization, in the same way that the samurai embodies Japanese culture and the migrant embodies American culture.

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It has taken Jaime Laya a month to personally inform all clients of Laya, Mananghaya & Co. that he is stepping down as managing partner in favor of Mario Mananghaya.

Last Thursday night, Jimmy Laya made the formal announcement to his staff – saying that since he made the retirement-at-65 rule, he should abide by it.

Mr. Laya will stay on as chairman emeritus – whatever that means – of the auditing firm that carries his name.

No, the firm’s name will not be changed. Yes, he can now accept invitations from corporations on the look out for independent directors, particularly for the crucial audit committee which requires a numbers man.

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Techie (and proud of it) Ayala Corp. president and chief executive officer Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II was one of the judges in an IT enterprise contest put together by HSBC (Phils.)

The first prize winners – Ateneans who took their high school in Chinese schools other than Xavier School and are fluent (not just functionally) in both English and Chinese – came up with mobile fast forward portal called "e-lustrado" which hopes to provide Filipino literary works with global access.

The winners will join fellow winners in Hong Kong and Malaysia on a study tour at the University of Washington, where they can spend their cash winnings of P150,000.

Oh yes, they also get a scholarship (after they graduate from Ateneo de Manila, of course) to the Venture in Entrepreneurship program of the Asian Institute of Management.