'An indecent proposal: 3X'

When Robert Redford offered to give a million dollars to sleep with another man’s wife, a number of women who saw the movie were known to say that if the choice were theirs they would have gone with Redford and ran off with the money as well. That of course is what Demi Moore “did” and that is what some businessmen and politicians want to do. Screw us and then run off with the money.

In the last 24 hours I have heard or read of three major indecent proposals that challenged both our morals and our collective lunacy. The proposals were so disturbing that I remembered a movie that I never even saw. But unlike the movie, the purveyors of the indecent proposals are talking of more money than a mere one million US dollars.

The first indecent proposal I read was the report, the allegation, or the suggestion that the “Yuchengco group” were preparing their bid offer for Philamlife, which is an overseas subsidiary of AIG, otherwise known as the American International Group.

How can anyone even dare suggest for the Yuchengco group to covet a prestigious company that is not even for sale? How can Yuchengco group’s two insurance firms bid on Philam if the two Yuchengco companies are valued at a combined P17 billion versus the P170 billion value of Philam? Shall the mouse now eat the lion? As it stands, there’s still a lot of unsettled issues involving the Yuchengco group’s Pacific Plans as well as the reported exposure of RCBC with Lehman Brothers allegedly involving a “couple of billions”.

But it would seem that there is more to this indecent proposal than meets the eye. It seems that there is bad blood of sorts among the “leaders” of this industry and according to one source the Yuchengco group and the Philam/Cuisia group has no love lost for each other.

If Joey Cuisia and Philamlife find themselves the target of destabilization there is reason to suspect that it may be a PR firm’s payback to Cuisia for certain statements he may have made during the time Pacific Plans was in the process of “returning/repudiating” its commitments to policy holders.

A couple of PR firms were known to be busy putting out the “media fires” surrounding Pacific Plans and the Yuchengco group. However, Cuisia and a few “independents” were concerned about the impact on the industry and spoke their minds which to this day is “unforgiven”. Of course there is the possibility that certain company bosses of other insurance firms are hoping that the two groups would simply cancel each other out!

Whatever unsettled business lies between the two groups, it is high time for insurance and treasury officials to investigate certain individuals in industry for making statements and claims that have no basis or may actually be intended to sabotage the stability of insurance companies and related businesses. 

As for Philam, their official response is: “It is purely speculative and we do not comment on market speculation.”

Indecent proposal #2

Some people in government would like to copy the example of the United States by spending P3.5 billion to “bail out” the QUEDANCOR in order to save it from its own sins.

The QUEDANCOR is the typical government solution that went to hell in the hands of the immoral or the powerless. Ideally the QUEDANCOR was supposed to give loans to small and medium agricultural stakeholders such as farmers and cooperatives.

Unfortunately in their effort to achieve their illustrious goals, certain rules were relaxed, certain requirements were reduced until one morning there were no longer any rules, just the tidy sum of P12 billion in debts borrowed from Banco de Oro’s adopted company Equitable PCIB and the Landbank.

According to reports an estimated one third of the outstanding loans or P4 billion went to political accounts or politicians who presumably pocketed or used the funds for campaigns or patronage politics. Another billion or two went to the controversial “Swine Scam”. Miraculously, a handful of loans that went to some congressmen are still on record but from the looks of it, it will be a cold day in hell if and when the government actually collects!

Unless we get a joint task force of the COA, CBCP, INC, NBI and PACER to investigate who actually got the loans, you might as well just shut down QUEDANCOR because even the leftists in Congress won’t investigate the mess, and you wonder why?

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” and the Department of Agriculture is incompetent as a credit or banking institution. They should stay out of lending and leave it to the bankers. If they want to help farmers, then focus on agriculture related inputs. If the farmers need loans then make the private sector banks more involved and give them incentive to develop this area of need.

Private banks are wary of agricultural loans and “small farmers”. But the real cause of the bad Press, are politicians and government manipulation. We should not punish the farmers; we should punish the people responsible for the fall of QUEDANCOR. Find them, Fine them and Jail them!

Indecent proposal #3

Senator Dick Gordon’s suggestion that a part of the huge profits from SMS or text message charges be set aside as a trust fund for education and healthcare started out as just that; a suggestion.

As I recall the “suggestion” was an open ended statement that the good Senator prayed would be heard, listened to and acted upon by fellow Atenean and philanthropist Manny Pangilinan and of course the Ayalas, all of whom are established supporters of education and healthy lifestyle.

Instead of giving the suggestion some nudge, some people in Congress and government have opted to force the issue by way of another indecent proposal called a legislated tax measure. This is another example of gluttony on their part and if passed will be another example of government imposing social responsibility by taxation.

What makes this proposal extremely indecent is the fact that Congressmen spend most of their pork barrel on everything except education and health care. To further scandalize matters, the Arroyo administration has long declared that it has all the money it needs thanks to the mother of all taxes — the EVAT.

Senator Gordon should be VERY careful unless he wants to become the next political victim of tax legislation after the “former Senator” Ralph Recto: Don Quixote de Manchado!