Body candy

Summit Publications Co. Inc. publisher Liza Gokongwei was truly flabbergasted – and that’s a rarity for her – when FHM finally outpaced Cosmopolitan and became the company’s top money maker this year.

Summit Publishing has made money from joint ventures with foreign magazine publications which want to broaden their market in the Philippines while keeping down the retail price per copy. The usual content formula is 60 percent Philippine content and 40 percent international content.

In the case of FHM, the local intent involves body candy for Filipino men like October cover girl, Patricia Javier.

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The Hernandez family will start constructing next month an economy hotel beside its Victory bus terminal in Baguio. That terminal services 65 busloads of passengers every day – and that number doesn’t include special trips from excursionists.

If successful, the family intends to put up similar hotels in its other large bus terminals such as Subic. (Now, that could be a potential problem since Subic has an excess of hotels and resorts of all sorts and prices in search of customers.)

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Based on traveling salesmen, the newer stations of Petron Corp. have the cleanest rest rooms (with toilet paper and air-conditioned, to boot) in the industry.

Based on families (especially those with young daughters) who go out of town during the weekends, the rest rooms of Chowking Food Corp. in the provinces are the best maintained among fastfood chains, including the outlets of multinational chains.

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Bank notes 1: Former Far East Bank and Trust Co. president Octavio Espiritu and some friends are putting up a business. Start of business is next month.

Although OV Espiritu sits on the board of some of the country’s top 50 corporations, it is this new business (where he’s going to take an active management role) which is expected to put adversely affect his gold game.

Right now, the man’s handicap is three, which is, of course, still not as good as Iggy Clavecilla’s zero handicap.

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Bank notes 2: The two-day performance (yesterday and tonight) of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra can be a problem for people like President Macapagal-Arroyo and Bangko Sentral Governor Rafael Buenaventura.

In the case of the President, she cancelled yesterday (after the official invitations with her name on it were already sent to Citigroup clients).

In the case of Paeng Buenaventura, well, he tries to attend all Citigroup invitations because of both his current position and of his being an ex-Citibanker. Since his wife, Ma. Victoria Rufino-Buenaventura, is a supporter of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Mr. Buenaventura might do escort service tonight for the CCP fund-raising gala.

Tickets for tonight’s gala – if there are any scalpers, these are less blatant but equally in demand as in the third and final UAAP championship game range from P1,000 to P6,000.