Business as usual in the banking system

Thank God, the banking system is back to normal. Gone are the long lines of depositors that spent hours last Friday, waiting to withdraw their money from the International Exchange Bank. Apparently, public confidence in the banking system has been restored, through the creative, immediate and resolute intervention of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. And the impression of many is that the rumors about i-Bank and Philippine Bank of Communications were the handiwork of pranksters and destabilizers.

As to the Urban Bank problem, the root was reportedly the money market placements of an Urban subsidiary. But this was preceded by similar problems met by several investment houses that could not meet their obligations, as these fell due. Urban Bank reportedly infused much money to save Urbancorp, eventually affecting the bank's own liquidity.

I talked to Reynato Sarmiento, president of Real Bank and also president of the Association of Thrift Banks in the Philippines. He said that the thrift banks, numbering over 100, have not met any liquidity problems. In fact, the thrift banks, according to Sarmiento, have P40 billion in liquid funds, which is four times higher than the P10 billion minimum funds required by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Thrift banks, too, Rey Sarmiento added, do not have any money market placement desks. Since it was the money market placements that exacerbated Urban Bank's problem, that same problem has not, in any way, affected the thrift banks. As Rey and I talked, the word is that the banking situation has normalized.

"Panic" is the biggest enemy of the banking system. And panic can now easily be incited and spread out, within minutes, through text messages sent through cellular phones that are now available to so many. Note that the Philippines is one of the top four countries in the entire world where texting is in vogue. Which is disturbing, because it betrays the idle time being wasted by a big segment of our population, especially the young, most of whom have cellular phones in their hands.

There is a proposal that is worth considering. Why not charge text messages 20 times higher than the rates now being charged? Which means that the peso-a-call message will now be pegged at P20 call. This should discourage cell-users to be discriminate in sending text messages.

More than two years have passed since Senator Nikki Coseteng blew the whistle on alleged bribes and overpricing in the transactions that accompanied the Expo Pilipino project in Pampanga. Yet, up to now, no resolution is in sight, and no convictions have been made. Apparently, the only ones affected by the Coseteng exposé are the Filipino people who now have to shoulder the cost of the P3.4 billion project, which has become a White Elephant. At present, the Expo Filipino is a monument to corruption in government.

There are other unwitting victims, though, to this abandoned project. They are the small-time contractors and suppliers of Asiakonstrukt, the company which bagged the contract to build the Expo Pilipino. When the government stopped payments on the project, Asiakonstruct simply slammed its doors and left these small subcontractors out in the cold.

And what of mega-rich Asiakonstrukt? Well, the word is out that the company, headed by businessman Eduardo Angeles, continues to rake it in with other billion-peso projects. It has even attracted new investors, like businessman Jovencio Cinco.

It does not seem fair that the small firms are being punished, when they absolutely had nothing to do with the scandal, while the big ones like Asiakonstrukt continue to do booming business. Such a situation is, indeed, pathetic and terribly frustrating.

Bernardo "Bernie" Silverio and his family have set an example which the country's landed gentry should emulate. On the occasion of the Silverio couple's golden wedding anniversary, they donated 62,456 square meters of their land in Daraga, Albay, to some 700 urban poor families and squatters in the area. To implement the program, the Silverios concluded a Memorandum of Agreement with the Holy Spirit Village Association of Daraga.

Bernie Silverio has requested President Estrada to preside over the turnover rites of the Torrens Titles to the beneficiaries. Which is but appropriate because the Silverio clan's land donation is their way of demonstrating their solidarity with the President's "Erap Para sa Mahirap" program.

PULSEBEAT: My good friend Heinz Woelke, one of Baguio's finest civic leaders and a devoted worker for people with disabilities, passed away last April 26. Heinz's death is a big loss to the country's disabled sector. . . A Greenpeace founder, Patrick Moore, calls his former organization "a greater threat to the global environment than that posed by mainstream society." Moore says that Greenpeace has rejected cooperation and collaboration with government and industry, opting to adopt radical confrontation on environmental issues, including genetically modified organisms or GMOs. . . According to Regina C. Perez of 135 Maginhawa St., UP Village, Quezon City, the sidewalks and street leading to Philcoa have been taken over by sidewalk vendors, parked vehicles, tricycles, vulcanizing shops and other fly-by-night establishments. As a result, the place now looks like a squatters area where anarchy prevails. Paging the Metro Manila Development Authority and/or the Quezon City government!

Art A. Borjal's e-mail address: <[email protected]>