P35 lunches plus Coke and dessert

For the planned Philippine Stock Exchange roadshow next month, only three triple A companies have signed up so far. These are Ayala Corp., Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., and San Miguel Corp.

As always, expect Ayala Corp. president and chief executive officer Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II to say something upbeat about the Philippines when he talks to foreign investors.

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So far, the new store look of Jollibee Foods Corp. is showcased in its outlets at the Shangri-La mall and Megamall.

That look, which basically centers on the "Slice of Life" murals created by the late cartoonist Larry Alcala (the ones where part of the fun is to look for Mr. Alcala’s face in the crowd), will be incorporated first in the food chain’s new/or renovated stores and then to the rest of the chain’s existing 400 or so stores nationwide.

No, there are no plans to include Mr. Alcala’s murals in the stores that Jollibee president Tony Tan Caktiong intends to put in China.

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The Philippine Economic Zone Authority cafeteria serves P35 lunches that include a bottle of Coke and banana for dessert. That’s the same subsidized deal that the better-paid employees of the Asian Development Bank get at their cafeteria.

As everybody knows, PEZA, which is headed by Director General Lilia de Lima, is under the Department of Trade and Industry.

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Bank notes 1: The 40th anniversary celebration this Friday of Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. will be the first official function of Metrobank-special purpose asset vehicle head Pete Jaminola.

The SPAV will absorb the non-performing assets – NPAs are made up of non-performing loans and repossessed properties and other assets – of Metrobank, with the end-goal of either selling these immediately or nursing them back to health and then selling them.

As everybody knows, the law governing such SPAVs hasn’t been passed yet. That means Metrobank will have to make the rules as they are needed.

Mr. Jaminola, who planes in from Los Angeles today, spent years with Citibank, both the Philippine and Hong Kong, offices. It was one of his former bosses at Citi, then Philippine National Bank president Arsenio Bartolome III, who enticed him to run PNB’s little bank in California called Century Bank.

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Bank notes 2: Now, the employees of the Bureau of Internal Revenue don’t have anything against higher salaries under the proposed reorganization of the BIR into the Internal Revenue Management Authority. The employees, however, don’t like the idea that, like any merit-based corporation that rewards performance, they may be asked to leave if they perform below par.

Actually, only senior BIR/IRMA officers will be asked to sign management contracts. These contracts will be reviewed annually, based on whether they met the set targets. If they don’t their contracts are not renewed.