Total car wreck

The despedida for Bangko Sentral Deputy Governor Alberto Reyes will have to wait until Governor Rafael Buenaventura reports back for work later this month after his annual executive check-up.

Following the alphabetical rotation when Paeng Buenaventura is out of town, Bert Reyes is the current officer-in-charge.

Mr. Reyes, who turns 65 this month and, therefore, faces mandatory retirement, heads the Bangko Sentral’s Supervision and Examination Section (SES). Yes, those wrinkles on Mr. Reyes’s forehead are largely due to staunchly and consistently defending his people against powerful (and, oftentimes, very angry ) bank owners who disagree with the SES audit results.

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Here’s a new concession to foreigners who would like to retire in the Philippines.

Instead of requiring each retiree to invest or deposit the equivalent of $50,000 in any Philippine-based company, the Philippine Retirement Authority headed by Nelson Collantes now offers a "promo" deal for groups of five.

Basically, such a group of five need only invest or deposit the equivalent of $10,000 each (for a total of $50,000) to get all government incentives offered under the PRA Law.

By the way, the Philippines significantly lags behind Thailand in luring retirees from developing countries, whose dollars help at least 50 different local businesses ranging from drug companies to real estate companies, from doctors specializing in old-age diseases to hairdressers.

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Did you know 1: The average take out for call centers these days is between three and four. This simply means that for every 100 applicants, only three or four meet the basic requirements.

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Did you know 2: A lot of Hanna Barbera animation work that used to be done in the Philippines has now moved to South Korea.

And get this. South Korea, which used to follow the Japanese model – you know, anime characters with saucer-like eyes and sharp noses – are now shifting to the kind of realistic animation favored by American companies.

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Perhaps Prestige Cars, Inc. majority owner Jose Alvarez is unaware that at least one of his sales people in the BMW local franchise brings home cars that have been brought to the casa for tune-up or for repair.

Unfortunately, one such car that was being, uh, test driven during the entire Holy Week, hit an immovable object and was a total wreck by the time the owner returned from a trip abroad Easter Monday.

Now, the Prestige branch has manfully admitted its mistake and has offered to replace the car. Here’s the problem though. It doesn’t have the same 3-series model on stock. It has an older model (read: a cheaper replacement) and then it has the 5-series (read: a more expensive replacement).

Meanwhile, Prestige isn’t saying what it’s going to do with its erring employee or whether, uhm, borrowing cars by employees is a common practice.