Bunye: What's up at the Credit Surety Fund

SLOWLY but surely, the Credit Surety Fund or CSF is proving to be an effective alternative credit facility that helps the "unbanked" and "underbanked" gain access to traditional credit and other banking services.

Geronimo: Taming the fury of flood and the greed of man

THE grim report of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) Officer-in-charge Director Ronald Flores said it all: Typhoon Bebeng left 13 people dead, displaced 21,320 families or 111,473 persons from 150 flood and landslide-stricken villages in 17 municipalities, five cities and six provinces in Bicol Region, Eastern Visayas and Metro Manila. Bebeng was a wake-up call for Metro Manila, roughing up Manila Bay as violently as its floods shook the hearts of its many inhabitants who bore fury of the storm’s wrath.

Speak Out: A simplistic view of the RH bill

DURING the time of Adam and Eve, the devil said, "Come, partake of this fruit and it will make you wise. You will be like God."

Geronimo: The risk of flooding

WITH tropical storm "Bebeng", the second this year to enter the country and the first to hit land in town, the rains have obviously come. And, even as we hope and pray against it as we have done year after year, the floods are not too far behind. Admittedly, Bebeng is a rarity for it is not often that we get a typhoon this early part of May; but with 11 people dead in the wake of Bebeng, can anybody deny that time it is for us to get a understanding of the flood phenomenon in order for the better to prepare for it in the days ahead?

Bunye: Symptoms of financial trouble

HAVE you ever indiscriminately swiped your credit cards, applied for all kinds of loans, or simply failed to set aside a portion of your income for emergencies?

Geronimo: Through the eyes of a child

It was a big risk. Local media for several days had been hyping the wedding of William and Kate; would anyone forego the live TV coverage of the measured moves and counted curtsies of royalty in a far-off kingdom that had long ceased to rule the waves and come instead to the launch of printed pages of a childhood forced to quickly ripen to responsibility by the specter, and then the reality, of a world war that school kids nowadays know by its being only the second, not even the first? But come they did, those who knew the difference between suds and substance.

Bunye: A storehouse of Philippine culture

THE decline of culture signals the decline of a civilization.

Geronimo: An Ode to Courage

By itself, per se, it was difficult to be Adrian Hernandez. To be named after a grandfather who organized the rebel movement in against the Spaniards leading the “Cry of Lincud” on October 28, 1898 and, again, against the Americans after the Treaty of Paris, a grandfather who just as ably also served in times of peace, as councilor of Silay, Negros Occidental in 1907, as member of the Philippine Assembly, and as elected provincial governor of Iloilo in 1912. To be sired by Eduardo F.

Bunye: Post Mortem (Fifth of a Series)

IN LAST week’s column, we discussed huge negative net interest margin as one of the reasons for Banco Filipino’s chronic financial hemorrhage.

Geronimo: A gathering of insurance experts

THE "must-attend" event for practitioners in the non-life insurance industry of the country fittingly comes this year as soon as business returns to work after the Easter holidays. The 8th Philippine Non-Life Insurance Summit will be held next week, on 27 April 2011, at the InterContinental Hotel in Makati City, starting with registration at 7:30 in the morning and closing ceremonies expected to end at 6:15 in the evening. The theme of the gathering is "Unexpected New Risk Exposures Plus An Enhanced Global Regulatory Environment - A Challenge to the Insurance Industry."

Bunye: Post Mortem (Fourth of a Series)

IN LAST week's column, we discussed abnormally high non-performing loans as one of the reasons for Banco Filipino's gargantuan financial losses.

An open letter to President Benigno Aquino III: Concrete action needed to stop the killings

AS THE nation takes its annual Holy Week retreat, the advocates for justice for slain journalists and press freedom protection recall their hopes in your assumption to power and your promise for renewal and change.

Letter to the Editor: Observance of Earth Day

DEAR Editor:

We write pertaining to the global observance of Earth Day on April 22.

Geronimo: Earthquakes’ fiery aftermath

PROBABLY because we observe Fire Prevention Month in March of every year, not much has been said about the danger of fire occurring as or soon after Metro Manila suffers the Big One. The fact is, however, that earthquake fire has been as catastrophic as, if not more than, the shaking of the ground itself. Accounts of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 leave no doubt about that.

Bunye: Post Mortem (Third of a Series)

IN LAST week’s column, we discussed insolvency as a ground for a bank’s closure and we established that, in fact, Banco Filipino had insufficient realizable assets to pay its liabilities.

Geronimo: More on Metro Manila’s Earthquake (Un)Preparedness

MY PIECE published the week of March 23 precipitated a comment from one of our readers. I was taken to task for my statement that UNDRO study I spoke of was “not given the attention it deserved” and “was simply ignored.”

Bunye: Post mortem

Second of a series

DURING his rounds of radio and TV stations, Banco Filipino Director Perfecto Yasay Jr. disputed the recent closure of Banco Filipino, claiming that the bank was solvent.

Geronimo: Metro Manila’s Vulnerability to Earthquake

THE apparently unceasing high-intensity earthquakes that have been visiting Japan since the middle of this month inevitably raise the question of the Philippine’s own vulnerability to and preparedness for (or lack thereof) the Big One. I do not know if there is any study covering the entire archipelago but I do know that one exists (or, more precisely, had existed) for Metro Manila.

Bunye: Post mortem on a failed bank (First of a series)

WATCHING TV clips in the aftermath of the closure of Banco Filipino, I can only feel sorry for the bank’s small depositors. If it is any consolation, they will get paid by PDIC if their deposit is P500,000 or less, although it may take a little while.

Geronimo: Metro Manila’s other earthquake risks

EXCEPT for the Guadalupe formation, which in my column last week I had described as bedrock, the ground of Metro Manila consists mainly of layers and layers, in different proportions in differing places, of silty clay, clay, sandy alluvium and fill. When a strong earthquake occurs, the response of the ground in whole area will accordingly range from weakest for ground that is on bedrock to strongest for areas atop fill of 30 meters or more.

Bunye: Serving the 'unbanked'

LAST year was another banner year for Philippine microfinance. The Philippines was recognized by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) as the best among 54 countries in the world in terms of regulatory environment for microfinance.

Geronimo: Lungsod Iskwater - A peek at society's underbelly

FOR use this year as jump-off material for Lenten meditations that is not in the genre of the usual spiritual reading, I strongly recommend Lungsod Iskwater, a very moving presentation of the evolution of informality as a dominant pattern in Philippine cities.

Geronimo: Praetors of the Philippine Trust Industry

AT THE 2011 Annual Industry Convention of the Trust Officers Association of the Philippines (TOAP) held over last weekend at the beautiful Crimson Beach Resort and Spa in Mactan Island, I deliberately glossed over, in my discussion of the legal aspects of the stand-alone trust corporation ("a stand-alone"), Section 9 of Circular No. 710. I did not want to spoil their fun and thus did not point out what the newly ushered-in era in the conduct of trust business required of the organizers, directors and senior management of a stand-alone.

Bunye: BSP aids OFW evacuees from Libya

GOOD news to our returning Overseas Foreign Workers from Libya.

Geronimo: A major major incentive for stand-alone trust corporations

SECTION 2 of Bangko Sentral Circular No. 710, series of 2011, on the stand-alone trust corporation provides that a "trust corporation may be a subsidiary or an affiliate of a bank and/or a non-bank financial institution." However, "the investing bank or non-bank financial institution cannot engage in trust, other fiduciary business and investment management activities both directly through its separate and distinct department or similar unit in the bank or non-bank financial institution and indirectly through a subsidiary or affiliate trust corporation.

Geronimo: The Stand-Alone Trust Corporation - A new kid comes to town

The Monetary Board’s passage on 06 January 2011 of its Resolution No. 26 and the resolution’s implementation by Bangko Sentral Governor Amando M. Tetangco’s issuance on 19 January 2011 of Circular No. 710 series of 2011 constitute game-changer in the field of trust business in the Philippines. The circular authorizes any stock corporation, possessing all the qualifications and none of the disqualifications, to form and operate, with prior special permission from the BSP, a “stand-alone trust corporation”.

Geronimo: APECO - Another Person Expresses Concern and Opposition

IT SEEMS the issue of APECO, which for me started simply as an unusual Senate hearing on the sidelines on a budget deliberation, is, in reality, for many, literally, a matter of life and death. Alfonso van Zijl of the Bataris Formation Center which is doing its good works in Aurora wrote in to say:

Geronimo: Palafox’s sturdy heart

ARCHITECT Felino Palafox Jr. is an urban planner. And his heart must be from the stock of that sturdy desert flower, palafoxia. Wikipedia describes that sunflower as drought-tolerant and grows on sandy plains, dunes, deserts and rangeland. Like a sunflower, Architect Palafox did not wilt under the glare of Angara’s stare. On the contrary, he bloomed amidst its overbearing heat.

Bunye: Fighting Money Laundering (1st of 2 parts)

ALONG with alleviating poverty, increasing monetary transparency, and improving the public’s financial literacy, one of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s advocacies is its contribution to the global fight against money laundering.

Geronimo: A Voice for the Wilderness

THE matter of the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone Authority (APEZA) goes beyond the narrow interests of Quezon’s politicians. It involves the wider questions of whether, as a people, we Filipinos have not only the external decency to comport ourselves with civility when dealing with others but also, and more importantly, the internal morality to truly respect the innate dignity of our fellow human beings when dealing with one another.