Ledge dancing for bankers? Believe it!

Despite a reputation as a tough guy, Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Bayani Fernando is not ashamed to publicly put his arm on the shoulder of wife, Marikina Mayor Ma. Lourdes Carlos-Fernando.

And the PDA or public display of affection is done simply and with thought (as if he does it all the time) and without a TV camera in sight.

Marikina’s mayor is called MCF by everybody, including the employees at city hall. Her predecessor – Mr. Fernando, who served for three terms – was called Bayan.

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Philippine Stock Exchange chairman Vivian Yuchengco is often mistaken as the daughter of Philippine Ambassador to the United Nations Alfonso Yuchengco. Actually, she’s the niece, the daughter of Al Yuchengco’s sister, Vivencia Yuchengco Onglatco.

Al Yuchengco, who parlayed his father’s insurance business into one of the country’s biggest financial conglomerate anchored on Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., has five daughters. The eldest, Helen Yuchengco-Dee, chairs the Yuchengco holding company, the House of Investments.

By the way, there’s talk that resigned RCBC vice-chairman and president Alfonso Yuchengco III has put up a branch of Makati-based Wasabi restaurant in Sydney.

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It now takes about P10 million to sponsor a PBA basketball conference.

That’s the estimated amount RFM Corp. president and chief executive officer Jose Concepcion III has shelled out to attach the name of RFM Group’s glamour brand, Selecta, to the third and last PBA conference for the year, the All-Filipino.

Joey Concepcion has always been a proponent of value-added spending. Just consider the numbers. To maintain a PBA team, a company must lay out between P70 million and P100 million of its annual advertising budget.

That’s for the old teams. A new team would have to pay a one-time, upfront franchise fee of about P60 million more.

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Bank notes: There’ve been some noticeable changes in the way things are done at normally staid Chinatrust (Phils) Commercial Bank Corp. since Joey Bermudez joined the bank last year as president. Take the launch of the bank’s latest product, "Ultimate", which is a savings account, checking account and investment account rolled in one.

During the internal launch (read employees only), the guys and gals loosened up enough to do some ledge dancing (No, Mr. Bermudez was not one of them).

During last Tuesday’s media launch, Mr. Bermudez was one of the crowd and gave center stage to his officers: senior vice-president for retail banking Alfredo Chua; first vice-president for sales and distribution Rafael Sison Jr.; and FVP for marketing Gerardo Munda.

Fred Chua has been with the bank since it was established seven years ago by a Filipino consortium led by vice-chairman William Go and the Taiwan-based Chinatrust Group led by Jeffrey L.S. Koo.

Cho Sison used to play pro-basketball (as a guard) until he was sidelined by a busted knee and had to find a more steady job.

Gerry Munda is basically doing what he used to do at Deutsche Bank, but on a wider scale, given that Chinatrust currently has 18 branches and there are more Taiwanese than German investors in the country. (The added bonus for Mr. Munda in his new job is that he still works in the same building, but on a different floor, of course).

A rough estimate places Philippine-based companies with significantly Taiwan money at 10,000.