Thursday, October 02, 2008 Ledesma: The gall By Jun Ledesma Sunbursts
I THOUGHT I have seen and heard it all. I wanted to dismiss it as a bad joke but I have been receiving persistent calls from my readers who claimed to have been victims of Pacific Plans which they said is owned by Yuchengco Group, (estimated worth: P17-billion) the same entity which had the audacity to offer to buy Philamlife (estimated worth P170-billion). AIG, the mother company of Philamlife, may be into some kind of trouble but the latter is definitely solid as a rock as it has its own capital base independent of AIG. Philamlife is run by professionals and its investments are judiciously placed in secured government issues and blue chip local companies.
For Yuchengco to even hint interest in the insurance giant is malicious as it is an insidious attempt to project that Philamlife is up for sale, which it is not, and to create skepticism in Philam's myriad of policy holders.
Yuchengco should have kept quiet. Now he has resurrected the scandal that brought Pacific Educational Plans to bankruptcy. My readers recalled to mind how the company transferred to a newly created corporation Pacific's viable insurance products, leaving behind the maturing educational plans with PEP which they later declared bankrupt. The firm ran into trouble with its more than 12,000 policy holders. And now Yuchengco has the nerve to buy Philamlife? Incredible!
Talking of local banking firms which have exposures in the US investment houses, which have sunk or are still floundering, prominent among the seven banks is RCBC which is also owned by Yuchengco. I don't know how much is its exposure but it can also run into billions of pesos. I think it will do well for the Yuchengco group to clean up the mess in its own backyard before they will even entertain that nebulous idea of buying another company 10 times over its size.
Feedbacks:
Hi Jun,
When will the traffic people learn their job?
One simple case to illustrate: Crossing Roxas Ave. from the Marco Polo side to City Triangle side this afternoon, a driver coming from Recto wanting to turn left on Roxas blows his horn at me. I stopped in the middle of the road in front of him and pointed at the light that showed "green" for pedestrians. I accosted the traffic aide on the incident saying that this happens all over the city because they, traffic aides, tolerate and even encourage this behavior of drivers.
I am sure you have seen this happen and it may have happened to you.
Our traffic aides are nothing more than flower pots and flower gardens (green uniform) at our street corners.
Some 1.3 million pedestrians are at the mercy of these idiots! Efren Abratique wasted his skills in installing a system seldom observed. How much did these lights cost?
