The snake line at Araneta

As early as three in the morning last Tuesday, there was a line forming in front of Araneta Coliseum’s ticket office. That line eventually snaked to the ground level of the MRT.

You see, there were 3,000 people waiting to buy 1,000 tickets to Sunday’s must-see La Salle-Ateneo championship.

The bulk of the tickets – after all, Araneta Coliseum can seat at least 15,000 people – were, however, fielded to the alumni associations of De La Salle University and Ateneo de Manila University.

For those truly desperate, try getting tickets from Trade Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II, whose middle initial stands for Araneta. On second thought, that’s a good idea only if you want to sit on the Ateneo side.

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October has always been the favorite month of publisher and hotel owner Emilio Yap. You see, Manila Hotel is the venue of choice of the Binondo community to celebrate 500-seater events.

Two such events take place every Oct. 1, which the national day of the People’s Republic of China, and Oct. 10, which is the national day of Taiwan.

By the way, Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Johnny K.C. Ng. Hosted a lunch last Friday for China’s Defense Minister Chi Hao Tian.

Since the guest list was pretty small – Mr. Ng forgot to invite the two other business groups in the community (the Chinese Filipino Business Club of Dante Go and the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce of James Dy) – the venue was the Makati Shangri-La Hotel.

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Mega Group chairman and chief executive officer Rafael Garcia III has teamed up with Polistrat International chairman Jose Leviste Jr. to bid for the Commission on Election’s multi-billion computerization project.

The Mega Group, which is made up of 26 companies, has an aggregate capital of P50 million.

As everybody knows, Comelec’s computerization project, which was initially given to the Photokina consortium of George Chua, is again up for grabs.

Based on Mr. Garcia’s presentation before Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos, the Mega-Politstrat consortium can put the system in place in time for the 2004 national election and within Comelec’s budget.

Basically, Mega-Politstrat’s system operates like an ATM, with the voter’s face and thumbprints as the passwords. Each completed ballot is accompanied by a bar code, which lists down the candidates the person voted for.

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At least as far as the National Transmission Corp. is concerned, there is a big difference between franchise and concession.

Because it controls the strategic transmission lines through which electricity passes through nationwide, the franchise of government-owned Transco stays with Transco.

Because Transco, however, needs a lot of money to build new lines and to upgrade old ones, a 25-year concession will be bidded out to, most probably, a foreign company. (Only a foreign company has enough zeroes in its dollar account to afford this project).

The Transco concession needs congressional approval. Here’s one major bone of contention: should the concession be the standard 25 years, with a renewal option of another 25 years or should the concession be a straight 50 years.

The renewal option gives government a way out, should the concessionaire not live up to its side of the bargain. The 50-year-old lock-in favors the concessionaire, making Transco a more attractive "privatization" project.