Proof of purchase

Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief executive officer and executive vice-chairman Rizalino Navarro sent in a short-and-sweet letter dated July 19. Any sweeter and Roy Navarro and I would have to exchange mobile phone numbers.

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Did you know 1: Dante Go, who sold Sugarlandia to San Miguel Corp., is currently on a world tour with his beloved mom.

The talk is Mr. Go is no longer interested in coming up with Sugarlandia-like products that will directly compete with San Miguel after the prescriptive period is over.

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Did you know 2: There are currently only two Filipino-owned companies in the country. Mind you, both are profitable.

These are Eduardo Cojuangco Jr.’s Northern Cement Corp. and Jose Cortes Jr.’s Pacific Cement Corp.

All the other companies are owned by foreign companies.

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Rustan’s Commercial Corp. under Bienvenido Tantoco has come up with a most welcome innovation.

Attached inside each box gift-wrapped by the department store chain is a proof of purchase that the recipient of the gift can show to the chain, just in case he/she wants to exchange the gift for something else.

No, the paper does not include the price of the gift. It does, however, note the time and date that the gift was purchased since the chain has a return policy of only 10 days.

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The North Rail project, that will connect Manila to Clark, is currently taking out the old tracks of the Philippine National Railways along the old Manila-Poro Point route. The old steel tracks, which PNR intends to sell on a per-kilo basis, have not had a train pass by for the past 17 or so.

In their stead, new tracks will be put up – one going north to Clark and one going south to Manila. The idea here is to minimize accidents.

Government, through a subsidiary of the Bases Conversion Development Authority, is the project proponent, with 95 percent funding from the government of the People’s Republic of China. The running and maintenance of the train will, however, be bid out to the private sector but without the guaranteed revenue provision given to the consortium that runs MRT-3.

Based on its feasibility study, the trains will service three markets – commuters, cargo, and airline passengers to and from the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.

Initially, the trains will run on diesel – simply because it is cheaper – rather than electricity, although the trains will have an electric power convertibility mechanism.

As everybody knows, China operates the fastest (although not necessarily the prettiest) trains in the world – yes, faster than Japan’s bullet trains.