Only in Metro Manila

Whenever he’s in town – and that’s not often these days – Lucio Tan makes it a point to attend the monthly meeting of the Foundation for Upgrading the Standard of Education.

More interesting, Mr. Tan stays throughout the hour or so meeting, which is attended by presidents and deans of well-known universities as well as individuals interested in education such as former Central Bank Governor Jaime Laya.

One FUSE member who hasn’t been around lately is International Exchange Bank president and chief executive officer Ramon Sy. Then again, Mr. Sy has not been known to miss his regular and rejuvenating visits to Switzerland.

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Considering that it is not shy about everything that it does, Smart Communications Inc. is pretty quiet about its partnerships with universities. The idea here is to promote entrepreneurship among recent university graduates who are either unhappy with their current jobs or remain unemployed.

Here’s how this works. The university provides the venue and the invitations to alumni. Smart provides the guest speakers and the food for the one-day seminar on how to start a business like, well (why not?), a Smart card dealership that could, depending on the location, generate monthly gross sales of P200,000.

So far, Smart division head for corporate sales Julie Carceller has been partnering with Metro Manila based universities.

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Did you know 1: In the last six months, Jollibee Foods Corp. president and chief executive officer Tony Tan Caktiong is estimated to have spent a third of his work hours abroad.

While Mr. Tan is busy looking for business opportunities – new locations abroad for Jollibee and Chowking outlets and possible foreign acquisitions and partnerships – JFC’s day-to-day operation is handled by brother executive vice-president and chief operating officer Ernest Tan Mantiong.

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Did you now 2. Henry Lim Bon Liong isn’t just involved in pushing notebooks under the Sterling brand and hybrid rice seeds under the SL (for his dad) brand, he is also into call center operation. Clients of his SL Global are US-based corporations.

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Did you know 3: Even though the May 10 elections have come and gone, Cartoon Network has decided to change the name of its three-year search for 10- to 16-year old students in Metro Manila who excel in leadership, arts, and sports from the Mayor’s Award (inspired by the hugely popular "The Powerpuff Girls" animated series) to just, well, Cartoon Network Awards of Excellence.

No, Manila Mayor Joselito Atienza, who appeared in cable ads last year as the head of the League of Metro Manila Mayors, didn’t get to interact with this year’s animated inspiration, "Codename: Kids Next Door."