Speculations

There’s talk that Finance Secretary Juanita Amatong is working out something with the World Bank/International Finance Corp. to fund the (hopefully) generous retirement package for the proposed 10 percent of the government’s workforce.

This money is over and above the regular pension these retrenched employees will receive from the Government Service and Insurance System.

GSIS president and general manager Winston Garcia has already double checked his numbers and the pensions will be given as scheduled.

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It’s been a tough fight so far for Bankers Association of the Philippines executive director Leonito Coronel, who has been lobbying with Bangko Sentral Governor Rafael Buenaventura to reduce the required documentation needed in buying and selling dollars from the banking system.

You see, more and more corporations and individuals who don’t want to go through the paperwork (or are just in a hurry) eventually end up sourcing their foreign exchange from the blackmarket – and that’s everywhere, including homes of individuals with a couple thousand of dollars to spare.

It’s a tough balancing act for the Bangko Sentral. On the one hand, all those piles of required documentation make it harder for unscrupulous people to launder their ill-gotten wealth. On the other hand, the paperwork encourages foreign exchange speculation.

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Did you know 1: When Golden Arches Development Corp. chairman George Yang gets tired of the menu at McDonald’s, he now goes to Italianni’s at the Greenhills Commercial Center, which opened only two months ago.

Mr. Yang is one of the local partners of The Bistro Group, which also holds the Philippine master franchises for TGI Friday’s and Outback.

By the way, Italianni’s-Greenhills is said to generate average gross sales of P200,000 a day compared to the P300,000 generated daily by the Greenbelt outlet (at half Greenbelt’s floor area at that).

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Did you know 2: AMA head Amable Aguiluz V likes to boast that his school has the largest enrollment in the country – 75,000 students at any point in time.

Okay, okay, so most of these students take short courses in IT and caregiving.

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Did you know 3: With the seventh director tendering her resignation this week, it looks like Public Relations Society of the Philippines president Winston Marbella is down to a two-man holdover board.

Given such a situation, the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the joint petition of 10 former PRSP presidents to call for a general assembly to elect the new board.