Silencing minorities

Our readers and coffee shop friends conveyed to us their “serious disappointment” over recent developments concerning the controversial Philippine Racing Club which owns and operates the P10-billion Sta. Ana racetrack.

It will be recalled that Filipino minority shareholders have gone to court to complain about alleged refusal by majority directors to fully disclose the details of a half-a-billion-peso buy-out of a P25-million moribund firm called JTH Davies and a subsequent move to swap the Sta. Ana racetrack with shares in JTH Davies.

There has been much public interest on this controversy especially since PRCI is a publicly-listed firm. The hope was the majority directors led by Santiago Cua Sr., or Cua Sing Huan as he is called in the Chinese community, would respond to the plaint with full transparency. The view is that if Cua Sing Huan’s group has nothing to hide, then just bare it all and get the controversy over and done with.

Unfortunately, Cua’s group may have opted instead to react with an expensive public relations drive which appears aimed at vilifying the complaining Filipinos. Cua Sr.’s PR machinery has now branded the Filipinos as a “noisy minority”, representing a mere fraction of the firm’s total universe of shareholders.

That is puzzling. Is the Cua group telling us that minority shareholders have no right to full disclosure of corporate transactions?

Instead of explaining why they bought a P25-million moribund firm for almost half-a-billion pesos, Cua’s group is accusing the Filipinos of being obstructionists – as if it is wrong to ask questions and to demand information that affects the value of their shareholdings.

Per our readers and coffee shop friends, here are some of the questions that Cua Sr. might wish to answer candidly, instead of training his gun on his minority partners.

One, does he really know who Datuk Surin Upatkoon is? Is he aware of the controversial undertones to Surin’s name in both Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok?

Two, did Santiago Cua Sr. know about the surge of unregistered foreign holdings in PRCI in 2005, the year his group bought the then moribund JTH Davies? Is Cua Sing Huan aware that the firm does not have a single regular employee?

Three, does he honestly believe that buying a P25-million firm with no visible earning asset is a fair deal? On the same note, does he believe that swapping the P10-billion Sta. Ana racetrack with shares in that P25-million firm is a fair deal?

Four, are Filipinos still calling the shots at PRCI? Or is Datuk Surin Upatkoon’s Magnum Holdings group actually running the firm and defining the future of the plum Sta. Ana property?

The latest we heard is that the lawyers of Santiago Cua Sr. are moving heaven and earth to prevent the court from imposing an order for them to produce documents pertaining to the purchase of JTH Davies and the swap of the Sta. Ana racetrack with shares in the P25-million no-employee firm.

Again, this is puzzling. Santiago Sr.’s PR people have been  praising the JTH Davies deals as good “business decisions”. If so, why not convince the court that it is so? Why not show the documents and let the court decide for itself? Why use its law firm’s might to prevent the court from seeing those documents? Why hide the documents when there is, as they say, nothing to hide?

At the end of the day, it is transparency, plain and simple, that could save the day for Santiago Cua Sr. and his Malaysian cronies. By exercising full transparency, they would not have to spend the big PR money they are now apparently using to vilify the Filipino shareholders. Truth remains a powerful weapon in this country.

If Cua Sr. believes truth is on his side, he should allow everyone to see that truth.

Desperate acts

Why former National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) chief Abraham Abesamis is surprised by Malacanang’s decision to boot him out of his post is beyond many.

It did not come as a surprise to telecommunications industry players though.

He was removed for incompetence, plain and simply, they say. Running the NTC is not easy. You don’t need a brilliant telecommunications or information technology specialist to do the job. All you need is somebody who is a fast learner and is willing to learn. Abesamis may have been AFP deputy chief of staff for communications, but obviously his experience was not enough to run a quasi-judicial body.

During his first few days in office when reporters covering the telecommunications beat tried to interview him, he flatly refused to grant an interview and said: “Istorbo lang yan sa golf.” And mind you, he was not kidding. In his eight months in office, reporters never bothered to interview him since then. Their reason: “Wala namang alaman yan eh.”

People in the know say Abesamis, a former senior military aide of the President, was sacked because nothing consequential has really happened at the NTC ever since he took over. Motions remained unacted upon. Frequencies for broadband were granted arbitrarily without the need for applications. Decisions by the en banc never get published as required. He signs papers solely on the strength of assurances made by his executive assistant that there’s nothing wrong with them. Recently, Abesamis even reshuffled certain department heads reportedly in a bid to silence certain people and place those who are willing to go along with certain shenanigans at the NTC  in key positions. Reports that the frequency and broadband departments were the main target of the reshuffle and that the rigodon came at a time when frequencies for broadband were allegedly being given away by Abesamis to a privileged few allegedly reached Malacañang which immediately acted on these.

Out of desperation, some people close to him are now hinting that Abesamis was replaced because he wants to open up the telecommunications industry to smaller players, to the detriment of the bigger firms. Are they now saying that the big telcos asked for Abesamis’ head?

Others are saying that the change of leadership came at a time when government is trying to carry out a national broadband network project being opposed by a firm owned by House Speaker Jose de Venecia’s son. Abesamis’ replacement, former Political Affairs Undersecretary Ruel Canobas, is said to be very close to the Speaker and that the NTC will play a key role when the NBN project is put into effect. If De Venecia really wanted to sabotage the NBN project or control it, then he should have worked for Canobas to be placed at the Department of Transportation and Communications or at the Telecommunications Office (Telof) which will implement it as planned. Abesamis’ supporters may be stretching their imagination too far. 

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