Top bee Tony Tan Caktiong is reportedly flying to New York after hearing that PNoy plans to have a meal at the Jollibee food branch located at Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. Tony does not plan to personally serve the President but he certainly wants to make sure everything goes well in a once-in-a-lifetime photo op/maximum exposure for the Filipino giant fast food chain. The Filipino population in Queens is the largest in all the five boroughs in New York City, and they sure love eating at the Jollibee branch. Many of the wealthy businessmen accompanying PNoy on his New York trip like Ricky Razon, Tony Boy Cojuangco and Jaime Zobel de Ayala may have to content themselves having hamburgers or chicken for a meal instead of eating in the many fancy restaurants New York is well known for.
Reaction to Spy Bits article
Marian Paris Warns, the widow of the late Vicente “Bu” Madrigal Warns, wrote Spy Bits regarding our Sept. 14 column item titled “Short-lived wealth” and had this to say:
“Why is everything about money? Bu was truly a remarkable person not because he had millions but because he was one in a million with a golden heart that could never be measured in metric terms. He used his money to help so many people including some of his relatives. He would lend money to the poor knowing fully well they could never pay him back. He built pyramids under the sea to protect the environment. He had a pure soul that money could never buy. It’s just very sad that he died way too early.”
Many people who knew Bu Warns can indeed attest to his warm and generous ways. He was passionate about helping the environment especially the sea, in particular the area around Calatagan, Batangas where he had his vacation home. Everyone who knew Bu continue to miss him. He was a good guy.
New RP-China business partnership
Now that the Incident Investigation and Review Committee headed by DOJ chief Lilia de Lima has wrapped up its report on the August 23 hostage-taking incident, a lot of Filipinos are optimistic that relations with China will move on and perhaps become even stronger. Business partnerships between Chinese and Filipino entrepreneurs are starting to trickle in. A Filipino group headed by food exporter AgriNurture Inc. (ANI) inked a joint partnership with China’s Heilongjiang Beidahuang Seed Group (BSG) that could help local farmers boost their rice yields. ANI headed by its chairman and CEO Antonio Tiu is a supplier of homegrown fruits like banana, pineapple and papaya to Hong Kong, mainland China, the Middle East and Europe while BSG is one of the top 100 corporations in China with over 50 billion yuan in total assets.
The new group – which goes by the name Beidahuang (Philippines) Agro Industrial Development Corp – plans to aggressively address the shortage in rice supply and has the potential to finally make the Philippines rice-sufficient. Aside from production and distribution of high-yielding rice hybrids to farmers, the joint venture will also engage in agriculture research, development, and will eventually expand into fabrication of agricultural machinery, product processing and others. ANI will no doubt reap good harvests for the local economy considering that about two thirds of the Filipino population depend on farming for their livelihood.
Spy tidbit
Our friend Mike Toledo, former Gilbert Teodoro campaign spokesperson and Weber Shandwick president & CEO, informed us that there will be a two-day 17th National Public Relations Congress starting this Thursday at the Grand Ballroom of Hotel Intercon in Makati. Among the keynote speakers will be Weber Shandwick Asia-Pacific chairman Tim Sutton along with notable media and PR practitioners in the country. The two-day congress will tackle the role of media in changing the communication landscape not only among PR companies but within the business community as well, with Sutton expected to give insights on the use of new media in the industry. A few pointers on the recent hostage crisis could be touched on during the conference.
Speaking of the hostage crisis, a lot of people agree with Senator Joker Arroyo that the report should simultaneously be released to both the Chinese government and the Filipino public. Everyone is eager to know what went wrong and who are culpable. As Joker says, we have already bent over backwards enough and we just cannot keep on apologizing.
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Email: spybits08@yahoo.com